Moving entire catalog from windows Lightroom 4 to Mac OS lightroom cloud

[Jim346359656ez2]

Hello, I have a very old version of windows Lightroom version 4.4  I have a pretty decent sized catalog of photos.  I would like to move the entire catalog to a new M2 Mac using Lightroom Cloud.  I don't even know where to start.  Making matters somewhat more difficult I have this catalog spread over 2 different hard drives, one internal and one external. I have roughly 500GB on the internal drive and 600GB on the external drive.   Any help pointing me in the right direction would be great.

Thanks.

[Jim Wilde]

Are you sure that you want to migrate from LR4 to the Lightroom Cloud? With more than 1TB of data, you'll be looking at a Lightroom + 2TB plan which will cost $20 per month. You'll also need to install a trial version of Lightroom Classic (which is the current version of the old LR4 that you are using, and which is currently at version 13), so that you can use it to upgrade your current LR4 catalog to the latest version, which is needed to allow the catalog migration function to then be used in the cloud version of Lightroom Desktop (it won't work with earlier version catalogs).

Unless you specifically want to use the cloud centric version of Lightroom, you might be better advised to use Lightroom Classic instead, and that will be far more familiar to you. The Adobe Photography plan would only cost $10 per month and includes Photoshop as well. This article outlines the differences between the two current versions of Lightroom: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-cc-vs-classic-features/

[Jim346359656ez2]

Thank you for the detailed reply.  I have the LR plan with 1TB.  What you are suggesting makes sense.  I don't want to store my photos on their server except in small amounts when I am traveling. 

My plan was to back up my entire catalog, move the files to 1 external HD and migrate the catalog onto my Macbook.  I will check out the article you suggested.  This seems like a monumental task, especially since I haven't updated my version of LR for ages.  Thanks for the help.