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Bulk movement of Smart Collections between catalogs

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rustyLr

Active Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2019
Messages
111
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
9.4
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
I know you can export/import individual Smart Collections but can you bulk move say 10-20 of them at once between catalogues?
 
If you "export as catalog", the smart collections containing any images selected for the export will also be included in the exported catalog. Then if you import from that catalog the smart collections will come along.

The first trick is to assure that in the "Export as catalog" you have selected images from all the smart collections you want to come along. One way is to multi select all the smart collections and then select all the images. Then, when you do the export as catalog, I'd uncheck "Export Negative Files" and uncheck "build Smart Previews.

The second step would be to import that new catalog into the one where you want the smart collections. this of course would also import the images which you may or may not want. If you don't want the images, in the exported catalog add a keyword to all the images and after the import remove the images having that KW. However, be careful if the target catalog already contains some of the same images as are in the smart collections you moved as they would then have that keyword but should not be deleted. If that's your situation, let us know and we can come up with a way to deal with that.

Should work.
 
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