Migrating Multiple Catalogs from Classic

[del.hand]

Lightroom Version Number

5.4

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hi,
I’m in the process of moving from classic to Lightroom cloudy.
I’m short on storage space and wondered if there’s anything wrong with exporting each of my collections in LRC as catalogs and importing them one at a time.
Ie let one catalog import and sync to the cloud - then the next etc until all my collections are in cloudy Lightroom.
(I assume that migrating a collection still moves full size originals across?)
Does anyone see any problems with this?

Also, an extra question, I’ve migrated a 8GB catalog over as a trial. If I select to store local copy of originals, it says I need to download 45GB which seems odd…. Again, any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

When you say an 8GB catalog, what files are you counting?

Collection at a time should be fine in the context you describe, but there might be better ways if you fill us in more fully. For example, if your collections and keywords are quite simple, just syncing from Lightroom then importing the originals into Cloudy might be enough.

 

[del.hand]

Thanks Victoria.
Re the catalog size question:
Right now I’m on the 20GB plan.
If I look at my account, it says Used - 8.25GB out of 20GB. If I click Download all originals, it says I need 40GBish…

Catalog import:
So I have folders in classic arranged generally as Year > Month / Event.
So, plan is, I drag all those folders into collections so now I have collection sets as Years then collections as Month / Event.
If I export the collections as a catalog then the collection sets become folders and the collections become albums (correct?).

I’m thinking the problem is that Lightroom runs out of space for the migration as it needs to find space for all the originals so it can upload. Orrrrrrr I’m completely overthinking it

 

[del.hand]

Thanks Victoria.
Re the catalog size question:
Right now I’m on the 20GB plan.
If I look at my account, it says Used - 8.25GB out of 20GB. If I click Download all originals, it says I need 40GBish…

Catalog import:
So I have folders in classic arranged generally as Year > Month / Event.
So, plan is, I drag all those folders into collections so now I have collection sets as Years then collections as Month / Event.
If I export the collections as a catalog then the collection sets become folders and the collections become albums (correct?).

I’m thinking the problem is that Lightroom runs out of space for the migration as it needs to find space for all the originals so it can upload. Orrrrrrr I’m completely overthinking it

Page 47, item 10 in the Edit Like a Pro book says I can repeat for different catalogs - sorry missed that somehow doh!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

So is your intention to move to the LR 1TB plan? And is it hard drive space or cloud space that you're running low on? If it's just cloud space, you can go ahead and switch plans, as Classic will still let you open it and manage the files if needed.

 

[del.hand]

So is your intention to move to the LR 1TB plan? And is it hard drive space or cloud space that you're running low on? If it's just cloud space, you can go ahead and switch plans, as Classic will still let you open it and manage the files if needed.

Yes, exactly, move to the 1TB plan.
My total classic catalog is around 100GB and I have about 5GB available locally. My images are stored in OneDrive and lots are offloaded to the cloud but obviously I’ll have to bring them down to do the migrate. Once they’re all downloaded from OneDrive - that’s when I’ll have about 5GB left on my laptop.
If it comes to it, I can buy an external drive to handle local copies etc.
I still have the odd thing where the 8GB of files in Lr translates to 40GB if I store originals….

Thanks again for the help

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Oh I see! Yeah, tricky. That 40GB may be wrong, I've seen some oddities with space reporting. But 5GB free space? Even the OS needs more headroom than that, so I'd look at buying a drive to offload a bunch of files.

 

[del.hand]

Yeah, it’ll stop me exporting my entire catalog in one hit. Once it’s done, then I’m in the clear
That said, I am tight on space obviously (without having cloud only). I can get around this by only keeping local copies of stuff like family pics etc.

Sounds like the fix is just to shut up and buy an external drive
The other option goes full circle where I download a year, and export it as a catalog. Then import to Lr cloudy and let it upload.
Then free up the space again and repeat for next year - and so on. (Possibly more hassle than it’s worth buying external drive but I'm a bit minimalist.)

I’ll assume that the figures for local storage are just complete mis-estimates and not worry about that.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

The other option goes full circle where I download a year, and export it as a catalog. Then import to Lr cloudy and let it upload.
Then free up the space again and repeat for next year - and so on.

Yep. Bear in mind that Cloudy will take up an increasing amount of space on the drive as it keeps its database and previews locally, so assuming you've shot increasing volumes of files over the years (e.g. file sizes increased or more photos shot), then you might want to work backwards from most recent year.

 

[del.hand]

Hi, thanks for the help so far. I’ve reduced my LRC lib to last few years and then imported the classic catalog into LR cloudy. (Classic library stuff backed up and deleted.). The older stuff didn’t have many edits so I’m happy to just add the older photos when I get round to it.

One thing - it says in the Edit like a pro book that “This extra space is only needed temporarily, as the local cache can be cleared once the files have safely uploaded.”
Does this mean I go in and manually delete these photos?
Going forward, will LR keep adding photos to this cache each time - and me deleting?

I’m also going to reset its location back to my internal drive as I’ve freed up plenty of space. Does that affect the above re cache?

Thanks again.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Don’t manually delete the photos from Lightroom’s storage, as Lightroom’s cache is managed automatically. You shouldn’t need to do a thing, they’ll get cleared as they get uploaded, if the cache size is running higher than limit you set.

 

[del.hand]

I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing?
I set cloudy local storage to external drive. I then migrated my classic catalog - that was on my internal drive (where it always was).

So, cloudy does it’s thing and everything now synced and uploaded. Job done
However, all the temp originals are still sat on my external drive.

 

[tspear]

Enabling the external storage of originals and/or smart previews means that LrD is maintaining a local copy of the images outside of the cache.
If you turn off this feature, you can go ahead and delete those folders.

The cache is stored in a hidden folder and is not movable (unless you have some good IT skills and understand symbolic links). The cache is what @Victoria Bampton is mentioning that is managed by the application. You can set the max size of the cache, and the app will adjust automatically. Obviously, the larger the cache size you give it, the faster the performance should be. If the cache does not have the desired image, it must be downloaded....

Last point, before deleting anything (especially on a mass scale). Verify the images are in the cloud.

Tim

 

[tspear]

One other random idea. You mentioned OneDrive for the images.
If you have a little technical skill, this might be cheaper/easier than buying managing an external drive.
Verify the Classic catalog and images are all on OneDrive and it is current.
Get a VM from MS Azure, Amazon AWS.... whomever with 2.5 times the space your images and catalog take up on OneDrive.
Install Adobe LrD, and OneDrive on the VM. Make sure to tell OneDrive to download all files, and not "save space".
Once download, run the migration on that machine.

The verify the conversion worked. And if happy, delete the VM.

Tim

 

[del.hand]

Hi Tim, thanks for the info.
I've verified that the photos are in the cloud - then I just left external drive disconnected, started up LR and reset LRs local folder back to C drive - and told it to forget the external drive. Seems to have worked.

Re the VM - interesting idea but I think I'm past that - thanks though.
(What's LrD?)

Once I've got a chunk of photos off my C drive then the whole thing frees up. I have enough space for my originals - just didn't have enough for the originals plus the copies LR makes during the migration. Plus I wouldn't store all my originals locally - just family pics etc probably.

 

[tspear]

Some acronyms.
Cloud ecosystem ones:
LrW = Lightroom Web. Web interface, runs in your browser. Address is lightroom.adobe.com
LrM = Lightroom Mobile. iOS and Android applications.
LrD = Lightroom desktop. Windows and Mac based application versions of Lightroom which are connected to the cloud.

Then you have classic: LrC.

Tim

 

[del.hand]

Some acronyms.
Cloud ecosystem ones:
LrW = Lightroom Web. Web interface, runs in your browser. Address is lightroom.adobe.com
LrM = Lightroom Mobile. iOS and Android applications.
LrD = Lightroom desktop. Windows and Mac based application versions of Lightroom which are connected to the cloud.

Then you have classic: LrC.

Tim

Ah sorry - yep of course! Thanks.