If you wish to change Lightroom Catalog location, you need to make sure you’re not lacking out on any important steps.
Let’s begin from the start. Lightroom has three foremost elements:
- Lightroom set up (program recordsdata)
- Lightroom catalog
- Lightroom picture library
If you wish to transfer Lightroom to a brand new laptop, it is advisable transfer all three elements.
Nonetheless, for those who’re going to maneuver solely images to a much bigger arduous drive, you need to transfer one element – the picture library.
I’ve devoted tutorials for each situations (see beneath)
On this article, we’re going to concentrate on easy methods 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 incorporates a preview of every photograph, metadata resembling key phrases, scores, develop settings, and galleries group construction.
The catalog helps Lightroom to maintain monitor of all of your images and their respective settings. You may have a number of catalogs for various initiatives, or you should utilize only one catalog for every thing.
A Lightroom Catalog additionally shops:
- picture previews: they vary from low-resolution JPGs to full-size photographs
- growing data
- metadata (captions, key phrases, and many others.)
- galleries construction
Essentially the most vital 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 probably be saved as extra metadata XMP format, and the unique picture will keep untouched.
Causes for Altering Lightroom Catalog Location
You Run out of House on Your Laborious Drive
In case your import course of will get caught, the commonest cause is that the pc has run out of house.
Even for those who retailer all of your photographs on a big exterior arduous drive, Lightroom wants loads of house subsequent to the catalog to retailer JPEG previews for every picture you import.
In case your arduous 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 house.
An alternative choice is to cut back the scale of preview recordsdata Lightroom generates on import. However it is just 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 gradual, particularly when coping with a big picture library. However there are methods of constructing 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.
On the identical time, SSDs are typically much less cost-effective than spinning HD, and storing giant picture libraries on them is price prohibitive. However working Lightroom catalog off SSD is a really efficient resolution.
You Wish to Again up Lightroom Catalog
When you’ve just one copy of your catalog, dropping that catalog means dropping your photographs! So it’s all the time a good suggestion to again up your photos.
Lightroom commonly 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 arduous drive dies fully.
Alternatively, you possibly can robotically tie your Lightroom catalog to a cloud storage location (like Dropbox). Nonetheless, this might entail paying an extra month-to-month subscription payment.
The way to Change Lightroom Catalog Location
There are a few steps it is advisable observe to alter the Lightroom Catalog location:
1. Find Lightroom Catalog from Catalog Settings
At the beginning, you need to discover the placement of your catalog.
The way to find Lightroom Catalog:
- From the highest foremost menu, find the “EDIT” tab (“Lightroom Traditional” 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 possibly can acknowledge it by the .lrcat file extension
2. Copy Lightroom Catalog and All Supporting Recordsdata
Issues to contemplate:
You would possibly need to make sure you’re additionally copying all of the supporting recordsdata when copying a whole catalog.
Supporting recordsdata embrace Previews File, Good Previews file, or the Helper. lrdata catalog. They include all of the related data out of your Lightroom Catalog – like settings, previews, and presets.
You need to change the placement of your catalog by copying, not by shifting.
When copying a catalog, you’ve the unique one and create a replica within the new location. I feel it’s higher to be secure than sorry: eradicating recordsdata from the unique location solely when the method of shifting is profitable ensures you received’t lose any of your work.
the placement 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 recordsdata contained in the Lightroom catalog folder (search for the lrcat file extension: catalog.lrcat, catalog.lrcat-data, Previews.lrdata, Helper.lrdata, and many others.)
- Proper-click on them and choose “Copy.”
3. Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting Recordsdata to New Location
The way to Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting recordsdata to New Location:
- After clicking on “Copy,” go to the placement you need to transfer your catalog and recordsdata in
- Proper-click and choose “Paste.”
- Wait till the switch is over. It’d take a while in case you have giant photograph library.
4. Open Lightroom Catalog from New Location
It’s time to examine 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 (Elective)
For those who see a query mark subsequent to recordsdata within the Folder panel, Lightroom can’t discover sure folders or images. On this case, you’ll need to 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 robotically map folders to the brand new location
6. Double-Test the New Catalog Location (Elective)
It will possibly’t damage to examine once more, so observe the steps you probably did at first when discovering your catalog:
MAC: Lightroom Traditional > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Test the catalog location
PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Test the catalog location
Ought to I Transfer Lightroom Catalog to Exterior Laborious 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 arduous drive to allow them to run Lightroom from desktop computer systems at residence and from laptops when touring.
Sadly, 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 inside SSD.
Shifting the Lightroom catalog to an exterior arduous drive, which is all the time a lot slower than inside, will jeopardize the efficiency of Lightroom. It is going to run painfully gradual. 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 residence.
For a devoted tutorial, seek advice from this text on easy methods 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 utilized to your images.
No matter your causes for shifting your Lightroom catalog, now you’ve a step-by-step tutorial that will help you alongside! As luck would have it, a mislaid Lightroom catalog is a simple sufficient factor to alter.