Migrating to new PC .. AppData\Adobe etc...

[Richard Flack]

Lightroom Version

LR Classic CC

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Just migrating to a new PC.
I have installed LR Classic. Have not (yet) moved any data files etc, but they are in the on deck circle.

I just want to check that its Ok to do a full copy of the AppData\Local\Adobe\Lightroom and AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom folders to totally over-write what was crated in the install (yes Ill make a backup of the install versions!).
Likewise the .lrcat file and /.lrdat folders.
And then everything will just "be there". No import etc.
(The photo library folders on external drive are on the same drive letter etc, the drive was just physically re-connected).

 

[clee01l]

How do I move Lightroom to a new computer?

 

[Richard Flack]

I'll give it another read, but I didnt see this specific question explicitly covered.
(Perhaps I should have emphasised FULL copy of AppData\...\Adobe\...)

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I haven't got a Windows machine to hand to double check, but I suspect there's a bunch of caches in there that you probably don't want to copy over, so I wouldn't do a full copy personally.

 

[johnbeardy]

I just went through my Application Support folder and highlight those I wouldn't copy across .

One extra point is Develop Presets. Now, using 8.2, I might not copy across the Develop Presets folder since it includes presets in the pre-7.3 format. If I ever wanted to run earlier versions of LR, I would restore these from backup.

Please ignore that it's a Mac screenshot - this folder is my PC's C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom . I don't see anything useful in the
AppData\Local\Adobe\Lightroom folder.

 

[Richard Flack]

Oh dear. Needing to press on, I have already done full copies. Everything seems to work just fine, so I'm wondering what damage have I done?

1. The Local folder has 2 sub-folders. Local\...\Preferences seems important, yes?

2. What in general would be the downside of copying caches? At first glance, one would presumably save time rebuilding them. Going from say PC to Mac (do people go the other way?) I could see that it would be a very good idea to rebuild. I'm going from one intel i7 / NVidia GPU machine to another. Should I undo this?

3. If it is important to undo the cache copies do I have to restart the whole migration or could I just delete (or empty??) the cache folders.

4. I have to say I'm a little surprised this is such a 'manual' process. And I havent found Adobe documentation on which AppData folders too copy /not copy.
Migrating machines is a fairly common situation I'd think. It would be nice if they had Export/Import "Settings" with maybe a couple of check boxes to include exclude certain things (like 'caches') or maybe a same / different pc architecture toggle).

5. My bigger concern is non-Lightroom folders in the Adobe folders. By doing copy all, I have copied those too. So now Im wondering what happens when I get to Photoshop, Adobe DC etc. Some of these other folders are presumably 'Common' and will the subsequent installs upset things. I haven't found anything on web about 'migrating multiple adobe applications'

Thank you all for the help so far.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

No worries, it'll probably be fine. Worst case scenario, delete the contents of the caches folder, after all, they're only caches.

See if problems crop up, if they do, then we'll deal with it.