Skip to main content
Participant
July 14, 2025
Question

help with freeing up storage space and moving to external drive

  • July 14, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 207 views

Hey guys please can someone help me 

I am trying to move my catalogue over from laptop disk space to external harddrive with out losing or damaging all images in lightroom now as i haven't finished editting but just have run out of space on harddrive 

please can anyone help im so confused im not using classic 

1 reply

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 14, 2025

If you're not using Lightroom Classic, then you must be using the Lightroom Desktop app. The local catalog for Lightroom Desktop is by default stored within the user's Pictures library on the main system drive, and that cannot be changed. However, any locally stored originals CAN be moved to an external drive, simply by changing the "Storage location for original files" at the bottom of the Preferences>Cache tab....use the "Browse" button to select a storage location on the external drive and Lightroom will automatically move any stored originals to the new location.

Vegang_zAuthor
Participant
July 14, 2025

hey thanks for your advise this only moved over 3 photos i have 13,608 photos on lightroom

 

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 14, 2025

Please past a screenshot of the Lightroom Preferences>Cache tab. It's entirely possible that your local cache didn't contain many copies of the originals that are stored in the cloud, but that screenshot should help us figure out what's happening,