How to move the Photoshop Elements 2020 catalog file only to new Windows computer

[Hans Finland]

Hi

I have all my photo and video files on external hard disks and the Photoshop Elements 2020 catalog file is of course saved on the "normal" location on the current windows 10 computer (Program Data/Adobe/Elements Organizer/Catalogs).

Now I need to purchase a new computer and I want to keep all my photo files on the same external hard disks, but I want to move the current catalog file to the new computer because in that catalog are all the information like key words, tags, named persons, events, locations, etc. etc. Can I simply copy/paste the catalog folder of the old computer to the new computer to the correct location? Or will there be any problems? Or is there another way how to do it in correct way?

The Adobe help pages all speak about the full backup including the photo files, but all my photo files will stay in the same locations in those external hard disks, so no need to recopy all those files.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

Hanspeter

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

You can move or copy the whole catalog folder where you want from the Explorer. That can be on the new computer, in the default location or anywhere else. A good idea may be to move or copy the catalog folder to the same external drive as your photo files folder tree.

Finding the catalog folder: menu Help > system info of the organizer.

Where to move or copy ? Where you want but a NAS is a bad idea;  Preferably just under the root folder of the external drive. If you have a very small SSD as your system drive, better store it on the external drive. If you have a big enough SSD (500 GB or more) store it there as well as your scratch disk for best performance. Also, do not move it inside the photo files folder tree.

[Greg_S.]

One other point you may want to consider if you have a large catalog.  If you have a large number of .xmp files and/or face recognition .json files in the catalog, these are very small files that take an exponetially longer time to copy and save to a new drive than a larger size file of the same total size.  For this reason, it is a good idea to zip the catalog folder before copying it.  Although this involves an additional step to zip and unzip the folder, I believe it can create a huge time saving overall.

As it happens, I am in the middle of such an operation.  The catalog I am transferring has over 200k files and takes up about 22 GB in storage space.  It took about 6 minutes to zip the folder and probably about 20 minutes to copy and paste the zip file to a new drive.  I am in the middle of unzipping the file and am guessing that this will take a couple of hours.  If I did a simple copy and paste, I estimate that the operation would take several more hours to complete.

[MichelBParis]

One other point you may want to consider if you have a large catalog.  If you have a large number of .xmp files and/or face recognition .json files in the catalog, these are very small files that take an exponetially longer time to copy and save to a new drive than a larger size file of the same total size. 

By @Greg_S.

Hi Greg,

As you know, I don't use face recognition, so, thanks for reminding me about that catalog feature. I have only half the number of your media files and a total size of 4 GB for the catalog.

Another related question: when you use the 'catalog structure backup', I assume the xmp FR files are also saved, which must require a very long time?

If I compare the management of FR via xml/xmp with the way all the thumbnails are saved in a single sqlite database, I wonder it that could be applied to the small xml/xmp FR files.

[Greg_S.]

@MichelBParis said:

Another related question: when you use the 'catalog structure backup', I assume the xmp FR files are also saved, which must require a very long time?

Frankly, I don't use the Elements backup tools.  They take too long.  I assume that all catalog folder files are backed up except perhaps the thumnail cache file which can be rebuilt.

[TACrites]

I'm attempting to move  an Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 (Windows 10) to a brand new computer.

I backed up my catalog from my original computer.  Moved the photos from the catalog to the new computer (same directory (D:\Pictures). I then restored the catalog on the new computer to that same location is was stored on the original computer (D:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\Pictures\).  Now when I go to People there are no names listed!

I'm running Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023, Windows 10.

[MichelBParis]

I'm attempting to move  an Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 (Windows 10) to a brand new computer.

I backed up my catalog from my original computer.  Moved the photos from the catalog to the new computer (same directory (D:\Pictures). I then restored the catalog on the new computer to that same location is was stored on the original computer (D:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\Pictures\).  Now when I go to People there are no names listed!

I'm running Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023, Windows 10.

By @TACrites

This discussion is about moving the "catalog file only".

That probably means that you did not use the recommended process to "move the catalog" (meaning both the media files and the catalog FOLDER), but you moved only the catalog folder.

The recommended workflow takes care of :

- copying the media file trees where you want

- copying the catalog folder

- and UPDATING the links in the catalog copy to point to the new computer drive.

The links in the catalog do point not only to a location in the folder tree structure, but also to the internal identification of the drive. Copying the media files while keeping the same structure is not enough, the update must also update the drive identification.