If you wish to change Lightroom Catalog location, you will need to make sure you’re not lacking out on any important steps.
Let’s begin from the start. Lightroom has three foremost parts:
- Lightroom set up (program information)
- Lightroom catalog
- Lightroom picture library
If you wish to transfer Lightroom to a brand new pc, you could transfer all three parts.
However, in case you’re going to maneuver solely images to a much bigger onerous drive, it’s a must to transfer one element – the picture library.
I’ve devoted tutorials for each situations (see under)
In this text, we’re going to concentrate on the way to transfer Lightroom Catalog to a brand new location!
What is Lightroom Catalog?
A Lightroom catalog is a database that shops all of the details about photos you import and their respective settings in your Lightroom workflow. The catalog comprises a preview of every photograph, metadata equivalent to key phrases, rankings, develop settings, and galleries group construction.
The catalog helps Lightroom to maintain monitor of all of your images and their respective settings. You can have a number of catalogs for various tasks, or you should use only one catalog for every little thing.
A Lightroom Catalog additionally shops:
- picture previews: they vary from low-resolution JPGs to full-size photos
- creating info
- metadata (captions, key phrases, and so on.)
- galleries construction
The most important benefit of a Lightroom Catalog is that every one the edits you do in your images are nondestructive. Any change you make to your picture will likely be saved as extra metadata XMP format, and the unique picture will keep untouched.
Reasons for Changing Lightroom Catalog Location
You Run out of Space on Your Hard Drive
If your import course of will get caught, the most typical cause is that the pc has run out of area.
Even in case you retailer all of your photos on a big exterior onerous drive, Lightroom wants loads of area subsequent to the catalog to retailer JPEG previews for every picture you import.
If your onerous drive the place you retain the Lightroom catalog is getting full, it’s a good cause to maneuver the catalog to a brand new location with a ton of area.
Another choice is to cut back the dimensions of preview information Lightroom generates on import. But it is just a brief resolution.
- Go to Edit within the higher toolbar
- Select “Catalog Settings”
- Select “File Handling”
- Reduce preview measurement
You Want to Speed Up Lightroom
Lightroom can get extremely sluggish, particularly when coping with a big picture library. But there are methods of creating the app extra responsive: you possibly can transfer your catalog to an SSD drive to hurry up Lightroom.
Lightroom catalog runs a lot quicker on SSDs than on HDDs.
At the identical time, SSDs are usually much less cost-effective than spinning HD, and storing giant picture libraries on them is value prohibitive. But working Lightroom catalog off SSD is a really efficient resolution.
You Want to Back up Lightroom Catalog
When you’ve gotten just one copy of your catalog, dropping that catalog means dropping your photos! So it’s at all times a good suggestion to again up your footage.
Lightroom frequently backs-up catalogs, nevertheless it does that utilizing the identical location. Moving your catalog to an exterior drive ensures that your images are protected in case your onerous drive dies fully.
Alternatively, you possibly can robotically tie your Lightroom catalog to a cloud storage location (like Dropbox). However, this is able to entail paying an extra month-to-month subscription payment.
How to Change Lightroom Catalog Location
There are a few steps you could comply with to vary the Lightroom Catalog location:
1. Locate Lightroom Catalog from Catalog Settings
First and foremost, it’s a must to discover the situation of your catalog.
How to find Lightroom Catalog:
- From the highest foremost menu, find the “EDIT” tab (“Lightroom Classic” on Mac) and click on on it
- Select “Catalog Settings”
- In the “General” panel, click on “SHOW.”
- Explorer/Finder will open the catalog file location – you possibly can acknowledge it by the .lrcat file extension
2. Copy Lightroom Catalog and All Supporting Files
Things to contemplate:
You may wish to make sure you’re additionally copying all of the supporting information when copying a whole catalog.
Supporting information embrace Previews File, Smart Previews file, or the Helper. lrdata catalog. They comprise all of the related info out of your Lightroom Catalog – like settings, previews, and presets.
You ought to change the situation of your catalog by copying, not by transferring.
When copying a catalog, you’ve gotten the unique one and create a reproduction within the new location. I believe it’s higher to be protected than sorry: eradicating information from the unique location solely when the method of transferring is profitable ensures you received’t lose any of your work.
You know the situation of your Lightroom Catalog (.LRCAT), so that you solely have to repeat it from there to the brand new location.
How to repeat and paste Lightroom Catalog:
- Highlight all of the information contained in the Lightroom catalog folder (search for the lrcat file extension: catalog.lrcat, catalog.lrcat-data, Previews.lrdata, Helper.lrdata, and so on.)
- Right-click on them and choose “Copy.”
3. Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting Files to New Location
How to Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting information to New Location:
- After clicking on “Copy,” go to the situation you wish to transfer your catalog and information in
- Right-click and choose “Paste.”
- Wait till the switch is over. It may take a while in case you have giant photograph library.
4. Open Lightroom Catalog from New Location
It’s time to verify in case your catalog was copied efficiently by opening it from the brand new location.
How to open Lightroom Catalog from a brand new location:
- Double-click on the .lrcat file within the new location
5. Find Lightroom Missing Folders (Optional)
If you see a query mark subsequent to information within the Folder panel, Lightroom can’t discover sure folders or images. In this case, you’ll must search for them manually.
How to search out lacking folders:
- In the Folders panel, right-click on the lacking folder (search for the query mark)
- From the dropdown menu, go to “Find Missing Folder.”
- Re-link the lacking folder by going to the brand new location – Lightroom will robotically map folders to the brand new location
6. Double-Check the New Catalog Location (Optional)
It can’t damage to verify once more, so comply with the steps you probably did in the beginning when discovering your catalog:
MAC: Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Check the catalog location
PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Check the catalog location
Should I Move Lightroom Catalog to External Hard Drive?
The reply to this query is: it relies upon!
But I might not do it.
Let me clarify.
It is frequent for touring photographers to maneuver the Lightroom catalog to an exterior onerous drive to allow them to run Lightroom from desktop computer systems at house and from laptops when touring.
Unfortunately, this course of slows down Lightroom considerably.
Lightroom isn’t well-known for being a quick utility. And the simplest method to enhance its efficiency is to run the Lightroom catalog from the quickest drive, ideally from an inner SSD.
Moving the Lightroom catalog to an exterior onerous drive, which is at all times a lot slower than inner, will jeopardize the efficiency of Lightroom. It will run painfully sluggish. I do know; I attempted it.
But I’ve another resolution, which I exploit throughout my journeys.
I create a Temporary Catalog on my laptop computer for each journey and merge it with the grasp catalog after I return house.
For a devoted tutorial, check with this text on the way to merge Lightroom Catalogs.
Change Lightroom Catalog Location | Final Thoughts
A Lightroom Catalog is a database file that shops your images, metadata, and all of the processing you’ve gotten utilized to your images.
Regardless of your causes for transferring your Lightroom catalog, now you’ve gotten a step-by-step tutorial that can assist you alongside! As luck would have it, a mislaid Lightroom catalog is a straightforward sufficient factor to vary.