If you wish to change Lightroom Catalog location, it’s essential to make sure you’re not lacking out on any important steps.
Let’s begin from the start. Lightroom has three important elements:
- Lightroom set up (program information)
- Lightroom catalog
- Lightroom picture library
If you wish to transfer Lightroom to a brand new pc, it’s essential to transfer all three elements.
Nevertheless, when you’re going to maneuver solely images to a much bigger exhausting drive, it’s a must to transfer one element – the picture library.
I’ve devoted tutorials for each eventualities (see beneath)
On this article, we’re going to deal with find out how to transfer Lightroom Catalog to a brand new location!
What’s Lightroom Catalog?
A Lightroom catalog is a database that shops all of the details about photographs you import and their respective settings on your Lightroom workflow. The catalog comprises a preview of every photograph, metadata resembling key phrases, scores, develop settings, and galleries group construction.
The catalog helps Lightroom to maintain observe of all of your images and their respective settings. You may have a number of catalogs for various tasks, or you should use only one catalog for the whole lot.
A Lightroom Catalog additionally shops:
- picture previews: they vary from low-resolution JPGs to full-size photographs
- creating info
- metadata (captions, key phrases, and so forth.)
- galleries construction
Probably the most vital benefit of a Lightroom Catalog is that each one the edits you do in your images are nondestructive. Any change you make to your picture can be saved as further metadata XMP format, and the unique picture will keep untouched.
Causes for Altering Lightroom Catalog Location
You Run out of House on Your Exhausting Drive
In case your import course of will get caught, the most typical motive is that the pc has run out of house.
Even when you retailer all of your photographs on a big exterior exhausting drive, Lightroom wants loads of house subsequent to the catalog to retailer JPEG previews for every picture you import.
In case your exhausting drive the place you retain the Lightroom catalog is getting full, it’s a good motive to maneuver the catalog to a brand new location with a ton of house.
Another choice is to cut back the dimensions of preview information Lightroom generates on import. However it’s only a brief resolution.
- Go to Edit within the higher toolbar
- Choose “Catalog Settings”
- Choose “File Dealing with”
- Scale back preview measurement
You Wish to Velocity Up Lightroom
Lightroom can get extremely sluggish, particularly when coping with a big picture library. However there are methods of creating the app extra responsive: you may transfer your catalog to an SSD drive to hurry up Lightroom.
Lightroom catalog runs a lot quicker on SSDs than on HDDs.
On the similar time, SSDs are usually much less cost-effective than spinning HD, and storing giant picture libraries on them is value prohibitive. However operating Lightroom catalog off SSD is a really efficient resolution.
You Wish to Again up Lightroom Catalog
When you’ve got just one copy of your catalog, shedding that catalog means shedding your photographs! So it’s at all times a good suggestion to again up your photos.
Lightroom usually backs-up catalogs, nevertheless it does that utilizing the identical location. Shifting your catalog to an exterior drive ensures that your images are secure in case your exhausting drive dies fully.
Alternatively, you may mechanically tie your Lightroom catalog to a cloud storage location (like Dropbox). Nevertheless, this may entail paying an extra month-to-month subscription charge.
The way to Change Lightroom Catalog Location
There are a few steps it’s essential to comply with to vary the Lightroom Catalog location:
1. Find Lightroom Catalog from Catalog Settings
At the beginning, it’s a must to discover the situation of your catalog.
The way to find Lightroom Catalog:
- From the highest important menu, find the “EDIT” tab (“Lightroom Basic” on Mac) and click on on it
- Choose “Catalog Settings”
- Within the “Basic” panel, click on “SHOW.”
- Explorer/Finder will open the catalog file location – you may acknowledge it by the .lrcat file extension
2. Copy Lightroom Catalog and All Supporting Information
Issues to think about:
You would possibly wish to make sure you’re additionally copying all of the supporting information when copying a whole catalog.
Supporting information embrace Previews File, Good Previews file, or the Helper. lrdata catalog. They comprise all of the related info out of your Lightroom Catalog – like settings, previews, and presets.
It’s best to change the situation of your catalog by copying, not by shifting.
When copying a catalog, you’ve got the unique one and create a reproduction within the new location. I believe it’s higher to be secure than sorry: eradicating information from the unique location solely when the method of shifting is profitable ensures you gained’t lose any of your work.
You already know the situation of your Lightroom Catalog (.LRCAT), so that you solely have to repeat it from there to the brand new location.
The way to copy and paste Lightroom Catalog:
- Spotlight 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 forth.)
- Proper-click on them and choose “Copy.”
3. Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting Information to New Location
The way 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
- Proper-click and choose “Paste.”
- Wait till the switch is over. It’d take a while you probably 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.
The way to open Lightroom Catalog from a brand new location:
- Double-click on the .lrcat file within the new location
5. Discover Lightroom Lacking Folders (Non-obligatory)
In the event you see a query mark subsequent to information within the Folder panel, Lightroom can’t discover sure folders or images. On this case, you’ll must search for them manually.
The way to discover lacking folders:
- Within the Folders panel, right-click on the lacking folder (search for the query mark)
- From the dropdown menu, go to “Discover Lacking Folder.”
- Re-link the lacking folder by going to the brand new location – Lightroom will mechanically map folders to the brand new location
6. Double-Verify the New Catalog Location (Non-obligatory)
It may well’t harm to verify once more, so comply with the steps you probably did firstly when discovering your catalog:
MAC: Lightroom Basic > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Verify the catalog location
PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Verify the catalog location
Ought to I Transfer Lightroom Catalog to Exterior Exhausting Drive?
The reply to this query is: it relies upon!
However I’d not do it.
Let me clarify.
It’s common for touring photographers to maneuver the Lightroom catalog to an exterior exhausting drive to allow them to run Lightroom from desktop computer systems at dwelling and from laptops when touring.
Sadly, this course of slows down Lightroom considerably.
Lightroom will not be well-known for being a quick software. And the simplest method to enhance its efficiency is to run the Lightroom catalog from the quickest drive, ideally from an inside SSD.
Shifting the Lightroom catalog to an exterior exhausting drive, which is at all times a lot slower than inside, will jeopardize the efficiency of Lightroom. It’ll run painfully sluggish. I do know; I attempted it.
However I’ve another resolution, which I take advantage of throughout my journeys.
I create a Non permanent Catalog on my laptop computer for each journey and merge it with the grasp catalog after I return dwelling.
For a devoted tutorial, confer with this text on find out how to merge Lightroom Catalogs.
Change Lightroom Catalog Location | Remaining Ideas
A Lightroom Catalog is a database file that shops your images, metadata, and all of the processing you’ve got utilized to your images.
No matter your causes for shifting your Lightroom catalog, now you’ve got a step-by-step tutorial that will help you alongside! As luck would have it, a mislaid Lightroom catalog is a straightforward sufficient factor to vary.
