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Consolidating photos

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lorenzo1

New Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2021
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3
Lightroom Version Number
6.14
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
I have been using LR (v6.14 on an iMac with High Sierra v10.13.6) for several years to edit selected photos from my photo library (~85,000 photos), which in the past, has resided in several different locations (in Mac Photos, in my PC Pictures folder, and on an external 1TB hard drive). The 1TB drive is nearly full so I would like to consolidate all of my files onto a 4TB external drive. However, as a result of my past poor file management practices, I expect there will be numerous duplicates and some potential transfer issues.
Based on what I have read, I understand this consolidation would be best done through the Import and Export functions of LR so my plan was to import all of the photos on the 1TB drive into LR and then export them to the 4TB drive. I would then export all of the files in LR to the 4TB drive. This would seem relatively straight forward except for the following potential issues.
1) Some photos on the 1 TB drive have previously been edited in LR on my laptop PC and have associated lrcat.zip files. Some of these photos have subsequently been Imported into LR and edited again and therefore (I assume) will have a more recent lrcat file on the iMac. How do I import previously edited LR photos without losing the more recent edits?
2) Some of the photos in the iMac Photos folder have not been imported into LR. Can I import all of the files in the Photos folder into LR without causing any problems?
3) I have Find Duplicates 2, so should I use this program to find duplicates and delte them before I consolidate the photos or after?

Are there any other pitfalls associated with this process i should be aware of?

Thanks so much in advance for any help you can provide.

lorenzo1
 
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