Moving LrC Catalog Back to Internal Drive

[CameraCarl]

Lightroom Version Number

11.2

Operating System

1. macOS 11 Big Sur

I currently have my LrC catalog on an external SSD . I want to move the catalog back to my internal SSD. (For reasons detailed in the paragraph below)
What is the best way to move the catalog? I have eight files in the Lightroom folder. Which files inside the Lightroom folder should I copy and paste into my new internal storage location and which files can I ignore? I know I need to move the Master Lightroom Catalog - V11.lrcat file but are there any others that ought to be moved?

I have an iMac with a 512GB SSD and my LrC catalog with 290,000 images was taking up too much internal storage so I tried moving the catalog to a new external SanDisk 2TB SSD. Once I moved my catalog to the external SSD, LrC stared hanging up; it would stop responding when I tried to import images. The only solution would be to force quit the entire LrC application. I sought help in these forums and with the Adobe help desk and thought the problem had been solved. Adobe was able to get LrC working on the 2TB external SSD. But now that I am back from another photo trip and tried to download 135GB of images, I am getting hang ups again. So I want to move my catalog back to the internal SSD from the external SSD.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
40 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 575 4 GB

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Simply move the entire folder to the internal disk. Then let Lightroom Classic know the new location by double clicking on the catalog file inside the just moved folder. You only have to do this once.

 

[CameraCarl]

Simply move the entire folder to the internal disk. Then let Lightroom Classic know the new location by double clicking on the catalog file inside the just moved folder. You only have to do this once.

Thank you! That seems simple enough. I do; however, already have an old Lightroom catalog on the internal disk. (This was the one I used to use before trying the exernal SSD. So it is out dated since I have been working on the external catalog.) I presume I can simply delete this old folder and replace it with the currenl Lightroom catalog folder. (I think I will move it to another drive instead of deleting it in case there are some issues.)

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Thank you! That seems simple enough. I do; however, already have an old Lightroom catalog on the internal disk. (This was the one I used to use before trying the exernal SSD. So it is out dated since I have been working on the external catalog.) I presume I can simply delete this old folder and replace it with the currenl Lightroom catalog folder. (I think I will move it to another drive instead of deleting it in case there are some issues.)

Yes, simply delete the old stuff. You still need to tell Lightroom that the catalog is once again on the internal disk, however.