How do you move a Lightroom catalog from one HD to another?

Question

I recently got a new Hard Drive, much larger than my previous one. I'm wanting to move my entire library to the new HD, but I'm not seeing an easy way to do it. Can anyone out there offer me some help in achieving this? Thanks!

Answer 1

Great answer from Mark T. Sometimes when conducting this procedure, Lightroom loses track of the connection between your catalog file and your actual photos, in which case your photos folders in the left sidebar will display a question mark, or if that disconnect exists and you try to enter the develop module with a "missing" image, LR will alert you to the issue and won't let you edit until the original files can be located.

Fortunately this is an easy process too. Simply hover over folders with that question mark, right click and select "update folder location" or "find missing folder". You can then navigate to the new location and select the folder, at which point all is well again.

Answer 2

So glad to hear you're getting room to grow. The migration process isn't all that hard, but I've seen a lot go wrong when users have attempted the process alone. I highly recommend getting a guide to help you through it. It's just not something a user - even a very skilled one - has much reason to encounter often.

That said, here's a rough outline of the general steps:

1. I like to start with some catalog hygiene:
2. Reattach any missing images. Lightroom offers some breadcrumb trails that may be more useful prior the migration than after.
3. Clean up the folder structure. A highly regarded best practice is to store all photos in a single parent folder, with as many subfolders as needed to support your organization structure. This simplifies the process of moving, backing up, and updating file locations.
4. Run "find all missing photos" to get a final assessment.
5. Note total number of photographs.
6. Backup the catalog and photos.
7. Copy the photos folder to the new drive.
8. Open the catalog and update the location of the photos folder.
9. Rerun "find all missing photos" to ensure the count is unchanged. Ensure total number of photographs is unchanged.
10. Backup the catalog.
11. Use catalog extensively to ensure it is in good shape.
12. Test photo backups to ensure thoroughness, including cloud, offsite, and onsite backups.
13. Delete photos from original drive.

Answer 3

Are you on a Mac or PC? Is the HD external or internal?

Answer 4

Oh it's soooooo easy!! It's just dragging files over.

You just need to find the catalog on your HD. It will have .lrcat on the end of it. Look also for the one or two .lrdata files and the backups folder. Make sure LR is closed. Move all of those files/folder into the new HD.

Make sure LR is not running : )

If you don't know where your catalog is then use the catalog preferences window and choose Catalog location.