Skip to main content
A
andrew.o.jones
Participating Frequently
October 7, 2018
Answered

Lightroom CC Smart Preview Storage Location

  • October 7, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 3967 views

Hi,

I've been hunting around for info on how to change the local hard disc location that Lightroom CC uses to store items such as previews and Smart Previews. I can find the setting under preferences to set where originals are stored, but not previews. I'm sure I'm not the only user with a small SSD C: drive who wants to store previews on a separate drive, but this doesn't look possible?

Any help or suggestions very much appreciated.

Thanks

Andy

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer Jim Wilde

      That's not possible, I'm afraid. The best you can do currently is use the controls on the Local Storage tab to minimise the impact on your drive. The downside of that is that you might experience some slower loading of images if the smart preview and original has to be downloaded from the cloud.

      2 replies

      C
      cibi86
      Participant
      November 20, 2020

      What you possibly could do is to create an mkLink to your other drive as described here:

      https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/mklink

       

      Havent tried it by myself, but should be worth a try.

      Jim Wilde
      Community Expert
      Jim WildeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      October 7, 2018

      That's not possible, I'm afraid. The best you can do currently is use the controls on the Local Storage tab to minimise the impact on your drive. The downside of that is that you might experience some slower loading of images if the smart preview and original has to be downloaded from the cloud.

      A
      andrew.o.jonesAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      October 7, 2018

      Thanks Jim. That is a bit disappointing. I actually want to have the local Smart Previews so that I can work with my images when I'm not connected to the internet. To be honest it seems like a bit of an omission not to give the user a choice of where to cache files like this as there is a choice for Originals. Even though Smart Previews are much more space efficient than originals its quite easy to build up several gigabytes of them for a large catalog. Its also kinda irritating to have a USB drive with plenty of space on that could easily host my Smart Previews, but simply not be able to

      Would be nice if a future update included the ability to select where these kinds of things are stored.

      Thanks again anyway.

      Andy

      Jim Wilde
      Community Expert
      Jim WildeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 8, 2018

      Unless you've got zero available space on the hard drive, you could download the originals to the USB drive (you can do this on a per album basis now, you don't have to download them all), and keep the local drive space setting really low. I would have thought that should still allow you to work offline, provided you didn't try accessing images that you haven't pre-downloaded. I haven't tried that, but I'll try to setup a test to check when I can get access to a laptop that I can use for testing.

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices