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CC App Change LrC Location Before or After Move

Paul_DS256

Paul_DS256

Senior Member
Premium Classic Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
1,301
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
14.0.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I'm moving from a PC to a MAC. Currently I have a single HDD drive on the PC. On the new MAC I'll have a SSD and external HDD.

On my PC, the Lightroom Classic directory is a sub-directory in standard Windows Pictures directory along with my photos. On the MAC, the LrC directory info will be on the SSD and the photos on the HDD.

I am thinking I should separate the LrC catalog directories before I move to make it cleaner but wanted opinions.

Thanks
 
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I would do it later rather than sooner since the changes are going to need to be redone in the master catalog after you migrate from Windows.

I recommend using the Migration Assistant app provided by Apple (there is a Windows version so that you can run it on Windows first. ). Format an EHD as exFAT so that the EHD will be readable and writable by both operating systems.

Migration Assistant will migrate all of your user data and user settings to the EHD. On the Mac as a first step, run Migration Assistant to install all of your user data and settings. Then Install the Mac equivalent apps for your data, including Adobe Creative Cloud app and LrC.

If you are not planning to use the EHD in Windows again, erase the Migration package and reformat the EHD as APFS. You can now use it to store your folders containing the cataloged image photos. Make any other adjustments as to location of the catalog etc. Remember the Windows Catalog is going to have a drive letter in the absolutePath field and MacOS will be using a volume name. So don't be surprised if when you first open your LrC master catalog fil the images are marked as missing. This is easily corrected before you go to moving things around.
 
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The external HDD will need to be formatted as exFat if you want to use it on both Mac and Windows.

I would create a Dir structure on the new external hard drive to meet your long term needs and create a folder close to the hard disk root, called something like MyPicsFolders. Copy your image folders and files to this directory, maintaining their current t structure.

Creat a temp folder on the external HDD at the same time… call it TempCatalogFiles. Move your catalog and related folders to this temp folder and then copy from their to their f8nal destination on the SSD.

I would take the opportunity to rebuild all the preview files… but that is a personal call.

The likelihood is that when Lightroom is installed it will create a default catalog. Best to close Lightroom and double click on the Lrcat file of the catalog moved from the PC to the internal Mac SSD. Check that the parameter is adjusted to open the last used catalog, so it opens this catalog going forward.

There are multiple other ways to do this. The good news is that you already are at 14.01 so do not need to worry about upgrading the catalog.
 
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I posted in parallel to Cletus. I have no experience of the migration assistant… so I would defer to Cletus experience on this.
 
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clee01l said:
I recommend using the Migration Assistant app provided by Apple (there is a Windows version so that you can run it on Windows first. ). Format an EHD as exFAT so that the EHD will be readable and writable by both operating systems.

Migration Assistant will migrate all of your user data and user settings to the EHD. On the Mac as a first step, run Migration Assistant to install all of your user data and settings. Then Install the Mac equivalent apps for your data, including Adobe Creative Cloud app and LrC.
Click to expand...
I've been looking at the MA. It does some things I don't like such as pull all my information from Chrome and FF and put it into Safari. There's a reason I have 2 browers. I hadn't looked at the ability to use a EHD as a transfer mechanism. Thanks for that tip. Need to look at the MA closer.

The other consideration I should have mentioned is that the SSD is 1TB but my current PC HDD is 2TB and has less than 1TB of free space. Mind you I haven't started any cleanup yet. The fact I may not be able to move everything onto the SSD and need to move to SSD and HDD separately was one reason for the question
 
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