How Move LR Photos to Another Hard Drive?

[TomBrooklyn]

What's the best or a good way to move photos that are imported into Lightroom to another hard drive?

I tried it by moving a folder with many subfolders outside of LR and then reimporting to LR from the new location. It turns out I didn't move it, I copied it.

Anyway, LR seemed to import all the folders, but only a small fraction of the photos. They might even be photos that weren't imported before, though I'm not sure.

Then I tried moving the photos from the old folders in LR to the new ones. That wouldn't work as LR said the photos were already in LR. Then I was able to move the whole folder to be a subfolder of the new folder. But that leaves me with a folder and subfolder for every instance where I only want a folder.

Anyway, it's all screwed up.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Tom, what a mess!!!:lol::lol:
Welcome, you are not the first with this problem.
What have you done since creating the problem??
Tips:
Always make back ups/copies of catalogs etc before you start
Always use LR to move files on disks
Never reimport the same files

Await your response

 

[breyman]

Once you get it cleaned up, you should be able to simply:
1: Cut/paste the folder structure to the new hard drive.
2: Open Lightroom, right-click on the folder structure(s) in the Lightroom Library module and choose Update Folder Location. You can then point Lightroom to the new photos.

 

[theMusicMan]

Hi Tom

Not sure how far you've managed to pursue this, but I do it all the time. I use the default 'date' structure for my lightroom folders, only moving images out of this as and when I require, and usually using Collections to create sets of images for clients/family etc.

Here's my process... see if this helps.

I have a Macbook and have all my images imported to this in the date (year>month>date) structure on the Macbook whenever I attach a CF card. I then create collections etc to categorise images etc. I always have 3 months worth of images on the Macbook, and what I do every month is to move the folder 4 months old onto one of my external hard drives, and I do this using Lightroom by simply selecting the folder to move, then dragging this to the external drive and placing it where I want it located. Lightoom then manages everything for me and in the process I clear up some room on my Macbook for the forthcoming months images.

Hope that helps...