AZRetired

I’ve filled up my laptop and want to move LR to a SSD. Will the catalog move with it and how do I do the move?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Before doing anything, review your back-up strategy and assure you have current and accessible copies of your images and LRCAT folder on a separate back-up.

You can easily drag and drop (that is a copy, not move) from the current location to the new location. Copying the entire pictures\lightroom folder (where the LRCAT) resides. And then, as a second stop, copying all the related image files. Do these copies using the operating system.

Depending on the size of data being copied, this could take minutes to hours. When both copy steps are done, go into the newly copied \Lightroom folder and double-click the LRCAT file. This will launch Lightroom making that copied LRCAT the active catalog.

Now, you need to update the location(s) of the image files. They'll all be found because you copied, and now the images are in the old location as well as the new location. You'll go into the Folders view of the LR catalog. You want to navigate to the highest folder and right-click to obtain a menu. Say C:\pictures needs to become H:\ pictures. If you want to update "C:\pictures", you'll right-click this folder in the LR folder list and select Update Folder Location. Navigate onto the new SSD drive (H:\pictures in my example) and tell LR the new location. The update should cascade through all your images inside the catalog.

Because you copied, not moved. You have a few actions to confirm 'success' and to clean-up:

a) Exit LR and go to the old location of the images, continuing my example as C:\pictures. Rename the highest level folder to assure LR still works, say C:\pictures to C:\X-pictures. Restart Lightroom and assure no images are missing, because they're now on my example H:\pictures.

b) Inside LR, run the Library / Find All Missing Photos. Resolve any issues, if needed.

c) You should now be satisfied you've successfully copied everything LR-related to the new drive. Mass-delete the folders from the local drive, example "C:\X-pictures". Again confirm LR 'works' with no impact. If your LRCAT and / or image files are different folder structures, not all inside "C:\X-pictures", make sure you delete all the various highest-level folders related to your old configuration.

If unsure where and what filename is your 'current' LRCAT file (prior to getting started in this process), use Edit / Catalog Settings inside LR. The General tab shows the catalog location and filename, with a <Show> button to open the folder.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

When you say 'filled-up', do a quick review and clean-up of the \Lightroom\Backups folder. You only need the most recent data-stamp. If you have lots of dates in this folder, delete everything but the most recent date and see how much diskspace is recovered from just this action. This clean-up will also shorten the copy-time duration of the actions described in the earlier post.

AZRetired

Thank you for the quick reply and info!

traderjohn Loc: New York City

I just did this the other day. Scott Kilby has a simple easy-to-follow video on YouTube. Punch in your question on their site.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Do you want to move that to an external SSD, or are you installing a new SSD in your laptop? I would prefer to keep the OS and all programs on the computer and put everything else on an external drive.

neillaubenthal

There's another solution that I personally find easier and more intuitive than doing the Find Missing Images route…but if you do this then make sure that you have adequate backups because there are anecdotal reports on the net that originals got 'lost' doing this.

Either way will work fine…but I figured that not confusing the master LR catalog with lost originals was a better idea.

I actually keep the catalog and current year originals on an external SSD along with Smart Previews of all images that I unplug and take on travel so I can work on the laptop while I'm gone…Smart Previews allow you to work on images that you don't actually have the originals for. It's a 2 TB SSD and I've got way more than 2TB of originals…so photos other than current year are stored on an external TB RAID attached to my desktop computer. Alternatively…you can keep a separate catalog on the laptop for travel and then do an export/import to move the trip images over to the master catalog on the desktop…YouTube has videos on this or you can check out Steve's video at backcountrygallery.com where he also shows you how to do this.

You can move the entire folder with the .lrcat file, previews, settings, and such to the SSD using normal file copies. Then create a master folder for image originals on the SSD.
Launch LR by double clicking on the moved .lrcat file rather than by double clicking LR itself. This will open the moved copy of the catalog and since it was the one most recently opened it will be opened by future double clicks of the LR app itself.
In the Library module…drag the various folders of originals from the old location on the too small drive to the new location on the SSD and then wait while this happens. I did this by moving year folders rather than the entire folder containing all of the year folders as those anecdotal reports of loss generally referred to moving 10s of thousands of images at a time…I moved folders in batches of a couple thousand images at a time. Doing this from within LR ensures that the original location gets updated in the LR catalog.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

Copying the files from one location to another will not work unless you correct the registry on a Windows machine. When you install the program it installs in the registry the information needed to access the working copy of the program. If you just move or copy the files in the program file folder it will not use the copy you moved unless you correct the registry

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Your concern and suggested actions regarding the registry and the executables have nothing to do with the issue. The data supporting the images, the LRCAT and the image files, are being moved. Nothing about the application software was discussed nor would be impacted by moving the image data.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

Cool I thought he wanted to move the actual program to a new drive. Sorry for my confusion. Lol. It seems to be happening more as the years go by. Lmao 🤣

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

many thanks CHG_CANON. i have been able to clean up my backups from this . now how do i clean up my Lightroom folder?

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It depends. From your screen-print, there's some obvious out-of-date LRCAT files in this list. The catalogs other than the 'current' LRCAT file are unneeded. You'd have to list the modify dates to see which is the file being used and updated. I'm guessing the "v11" file?

There are two valid options:

a, just ignore.

b, Identify the current LRCAT file by the exact name. Then, exit LR and rename that LRCAT file with a 'tag' so you have an eye-catcher. Say the v11 is the correct / current file. Use your OS to rename the file, say to Lightroom Catalog-Aug2022.LRCAT. Then, double-click the file and launch LR to make this the current file. Behind the scenes, LR will dynamically a few other files. When you exit LR again, any file that doesn't pick up an Aug 10, 2022 modify data is a candidate to be removed.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

Great thanks CHG_CANON. I recovered just over 150 GB of drive space. Yes GigaBytes!!
The only file I did not delete was “Mobile Downloads.located”. As I was not sure what that is?

Again many thanks for the help.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

Sorry, that was “Mobile Downloads.lrcat”. Autocorrect got me.