How to move my catalog

[guido.coza]

Lightroom Version Number

cc 10.11

Operating System

Hi all
At the moment I have my Lightroom folders ( LR cat. lrcat, preview.lrdata, LR setting + backups) on an external drive, as I till recently used several machines to excess LR. As I sold my I mac and got myself a 4K monitor I now work only on the laptop.
I often have the problem that, evn that I do not move the external drive I get a error message, LR encountered a problem and has to quit. It seems there is a problem with conectivity to the exHD. However this ONLY happens with LR. At no time do I have this with other applications stored on the exHD
To make a long story short, I want to move LR completly back onto the laptop HD. Can I just copy and past (drag) all the folders on the HD or is there a protocol to follow.
I know I could do that with the lrcat folder, but how would LR " find the preview data?
Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi

Assuming you're leaving the images where they are, then it's quite straightforward. Details are on this Blog that Victoria wrote:

How do I find and move or rename my catalog? | The Lightroom Queen

In case it ends up being helpful, here's one regarding moving the photos (probably not something you want to do to your Laptop which will have less disk space that your external):

How do I move only my photos to another hard drive, leaving the catalog where it is? | The Lightroom Queen

HTH!

 

[guido.coza]

Hi Paul hope you well. I do want to MOVE my catalog.. Can I just copy past/ drag it to the new location and which parts do i need to move or is there a specific way to do it?

Sorry Paul all good, only read till rename ((-:

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi

As the first Blog states:

To move the catalog:

1. Quit Lightroom.
2. Use Windows Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) to move the catalog file, just as you would move any other file.
3. Move the other files at the same time, keeping them next to the catalog file, but don’t move the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file if it exists.
4. When you next come to reopen Lightroom, hold down Ctrl (Windows) / Opt (Mac) to navigate to the catalog, or just double-click on the catalog file (*.lrcat). You may need to change the default catalog (in Preferences > General tab) so it opens the correct catalog automatically in future.
5. The next time the backup runs, double check that you’re still happy with the backup location, or update it if needed.

So yes, basically!

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Sorry Paul all good, only read till rename ((-:

No worries! Handy part of the start of the post is it helps with the various files etc

Just ask if you get stuck!