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can iMac + Macbook Pro LR Classic CC sync?

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warrenphotodesigns

New Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
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Lightroom Version Number
Classic CC
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
Hello All!

I am new here, and fairly new to the photography business, so I am still figuring out all the ins and outs of lightroom and its capabilities. I have seen talk of a "travel catalog" and all of that, and I dont understand it really.. I was curious, is there a way to sync what is on my lightroom class on my imac at home, to lightroom class on my macbook pro so that I can edit during downtime at work or remotely? I tried doing what I thought was it, and it synced all my previous photos from when I used lightroom CC, not classic. but I dont want those photos on my classic on the laptop... does that make any sense?

Thank you for all help!
 
I am not a big fan of the "Travel Catalog" concept in general as it includes splitting and/or merging catalogs and that can get confusing unless you really understand what is going on.

I have the same problem as you where I want to use Lightroom Classic on two different computers (in my case a desktop for home and a laptop for travel). The simple solution is to get a USB portable external hard drive (an external drive that doesn't have a separate power cord). Get one with enough capacity to hold your LR Catalog folder and all your original images with enough spare space to grow into. Put all your images and your LR catalog on this drive.

Install LR Classic on both computers (you are allowed to run LR Classic on up to 2 computers). Now just plug this drive into whichever computer you want to use at any point in time and use the catalog from that drive. You will see a slight performance reduction due to the catalog being on an external drive but I don't find it all that bad.
 
A 'travel catalog' is not a synced catalog (syncing catalogs between two installations of Lightroom Classic is not possible), but is imported. The idea is that you create a new catalog on the laptop, and when you get home you use 'Import From Another Catalog' on the desktop and import that catalog. If you want to edit some existing pictures while you are on the road, then you do not create a new catalog on the laptop, but you use 'Export as Catalog' on the iMac to create your travel catalog.
 
The Lightroom Catalog is a file that contains information about image in your inventory. It can only reside on one locally mounted disk drive.
There are some options if you want to access your master catalog using a different computer

The first option is to put everything on an external disk drive. "Everything" includes the catalog file, the master images, the Previews folder and Lightroom settings folder. Then simply move this external disk drive package of the catalog file, the master images, the Previews folder and Lightroom settings folder to the computer that you want to use and open the Lightroom Catalog from the computer that has Lightroom Classic installed.

The second option has been described by others. Create a traveling copy of your catalog using the Export/Import for another catalog functions to sync the contents of the laptop to the iMac. This "travel" catalog can be at the simplest and empty copy of your master catalog and the Lightroom Settings. Or it can include some or all of the image files and replicate part or all of the master catalog.
With the advent of Adobe's Cloud offerings there is a third choice. You can sync all or a part of your Lightroom Classic Catalog to the Adobe Cloud. There it is accessible by all mobile versions of Lightroom including Lightroom 2.3.1 Images catalog through your laptop will be sync'd back to your master catalog on the iMac.
There are other options using Dropbox or a similar file sharing app but these are not endorsed by Adobe and generally not recommended for casual computer users.
 
A 'travel catalog' is not a synced catalog (syncing catalogs between two installations of Lightroom Classic is not possible), but is imported. The idea is that you create a new catalog on the laptop, and when you get home you use 'Import From Another Catalog' on the desktop and import that catalog. If you want to edit some existing pictures while you are on the road, then you do not create a new catalog on the laptop, but you use 'Export as Catalog' on the iMac to create your travel catalog.

I do that on a regular basis and it works great. I've never had an issue.
 
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