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Confusion on Transfering Catalogs Between Computers

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kitjv

kitjv

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May 3, 2012
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Location
Oregon, U.S.A.
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Intermediate
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Lightroom Classic CC v7.5
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
This is likely a remedial question. This is the first time that I have transferred a LR catalog from one computer to another. Specifically, I returned from a trip to Sicily where I backed up all of my images into LR on my MacBook. This enabled me to keyword my images & to add meaningful captions. When I returned home, I transferred the catalog on the MacBook onto my desktop iMac. All seemed to have gone well.

Then it occurred to me that in transferring the catalog I only transferred the metadata associated with the images; and not the images themselves. Actually, I really wanted to transfer the images themselves onto the internal drive of my iMac so that all of my LR images are in one location. How can I do this?

Thank you kindly.
 
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The easiest way is to copy the images to the iMac manually. Then open Lightroom, right-click on the folder of the images in Lightroom (that folder should show as 'missing' because it's a folder on the MacBook). Choose 'Find Missing Folder' and in the dialog that comes up, navigate to the folder you just copied to the iMac and select it. Done.
 
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When I travel I take a laptop and an external drive. I create a new catalogue and I name it based on the trip. The catalogue resides on the HD and the files on the ED. When I get home I copy the catalogue to the ED and plug it into the iMac. I then use the Import From Another Catalogue, LR adds the travel catalogue to the master catalogue and moves the files. All edits are retained. Not sure if that is what you are looking for but just another option. I love it.
 
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Johan: Please excuse my ignorance since I have never done this before. First, bit of clarification. I first exported the catalog on the MacBook to a thumb drive. Then I connected the thumb drive to the iMac & imported the catalog. When I go to Folders on the iMac, the transferred catalog appears as a separate volume with a "?" -- which I assume means that the files themselves are missing (i.e. are still on the MacBook). Am I correct?

How do I manually transfer the images files themselves from the MacBook to the iMac? Sorry for being so thick-headed.
 
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Thanks, Johan. To copy the images in the folder, can I simply go to Folders & select the relevant folder; then Ctrl-Click & select Export this Folder as a Catalog?
 
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Thank you. Image files & catalog seem to be in their proper location on the iMac.

However, the next time that I transfer the image files & the catalog from one computer to another, what would be the preferred way to transfer both simultaneously? Thank you!
 
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kitjv said:
Thank you. Image files & catalog seem to be in their proper location on the iMac.
However, the next time that I transfer the image files & the catalog from one computer to another, what would be the preferred way to transfer both simultaneously? Thank you!
Click to expand...
Just copy both the catalog folder and the images folder to the thumbdrive.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
Just copy both the catalog folder and the images folder to the thumbdrive.
Click to expand...
If you have a router then you can use WiFi to copy both folders from the old system's drive directly to the new system's drive. If you had a Windows PC, then I would also say that you need to "share" the drives on each system to make them visible to the other system in the "network view." I don't know the equivalent approach for MacOS, but the concept should be similar.

Do a COPY, not a MOVE, of the folders in question. Delete the folders on the old system only after you can start Lightroom on the new system and you are sure that you can work with the catalog and images.

Phil Burton
 
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