capt2575 Loc: New York City

Hello fellow Hogs. Can anyone direct me to how to set up an external hard drive for lightroom six on a Mac. I want to thank everyone who responds in advance for their help.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Accomplishing this will require some knowledge of your computer. I don't use Apple Computers, so I can't be specific for you, but at a high level:

- Get the hard drive connected and functional on your computer. Assuming it's a USB drive, it should be no more complicated than plugging it in to a USB port on your machine. Then, in the OS, ensure you can 'see' the drive.

- Install Lightroom. Doing so will create a 'default' catalog file somewhere on your computer. I know that location on a PC, but not an Apple. Not to fret, however. When you get Lightroom functional (running), create a new catalog on the external drive you connected above. I'd create a folder on that external drive to store the catalog in.

Now, you're ready to import your images. During import, you select where you want the images to be stored. Again, choose that external drive, but I'd make another folder to store the images in, different from where the catalog is stored. At this point, it's up to you how to create a folder structure to store your images.

Hope this helps in some way.

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

One line of external hard drives you may want to consider are drives that include a Thunderbolt connection. Thunderbolt has a much faster transfer rate than most USB connections. If you purchase certain Thunderbolt connected external drives you can daisy chain them from one to another in the event you wish to purchase additional Thunderbolt hard drives

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Good instructions from brucewells. Mac, like the PC, if setting up an LR catalog automatically will place the catalog in the pictures folder on your computer hard drive. If you choose New and set up the catalog then you can direct it to your external drive. Create one folder on the external drive and put the catalog there and then create a folder within that main folder to store all your photos in. You can also store them in completely separate folders on the external drive, the choice is yours. If the external drive does not show up when you create the catalog then click on create a new folder and direct the program to put the folder in that external drive and then it will show up on the left side panel in LR.