I've been saving Lightroom photos on External hard drive and now its full. What do I do now?

[kckloos]

My photos saved in lightroom and my catalog backups are all on an external hard drive attached to my MacBookPro.  I bought another external hard drive but don't know if I need to start a new catalog for the new drive or if there is a way to continue with the same catalog and still be able to access the older drive's photos and the new ones being stored on new drive , without confusion.

Thanks in advance.

[Jim Wilde]

Could you clarify which version of Lightroom you are writing about? You've posted in the "Lightroom ecosystem" forum, which implies you are referring to the cloud-centric Lightroom desktop app, but your description seems more related to the local storage version called Lightroom Classic.

If you are using Lightroom Classic, the answer to your question is yes, you can in fact have your image library stored across multiple hard drives. You could even have some of the drives offline and would still be able to do some functions to the images that are on those offline drives.

But if you are referring to Lightroom Desktop, we will need further details. By default images are stored in the cloud, so local hard drive space would only be an issue if you are using the option to keep a copy of the cloud images on a local drive. 

[hennera64838981]

Dear Jim, I have the same challenge. In the lightroom ecosystem photo files are stored in the cloud and I have an offline copy for the originals on an external hard drive - years 2021 - 2023. That drive is full. As of 2024 I´ll use a new hard-drive, but want to leave years 2021 - 23 on the old drive. Lightroom (online) seems to allow only one! offline drive for the entire catalogue...How can I start a second catalogue....?

[Jim Wilde]

You can't start a second catalog, so there can only be one local location. If you want to change that location to a different drive, Lightroom will need to move the images stored in the existing location to the new one.

[hennera64838981]

oooouhhhhh. got a full format camera. one tera is quickly reached....don´t want to run around with a more than 2 tera hard drive....

[Jim Wilde]

Have you considered turning off the option to store a copy of all originals locally, and instead use the option to store all Smart Previews locally? That's how I have Lightroom setup....if I'm subsequently offline the Smart Preview is good enough for viewing and editing in most cases, and if it's not I wait until I'm back on line (or I setup a personal hotspot using my phone) at which point I can download the required original(s). The only thing I can't do if I'm offline is export a full resolution file for sharing (but if I'm offline I can't share anyway, so again it can wait until I'm online again).

[Conrad_C]

(edited my post because it was an incorrect answer that talked about Lightroom Classic, not the cloud version)