Optimizing my Lightroom Catalog.

[John Cicchine]

Lightroom Version Number

5.7

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Hello.

I am running Lightroom 5.7 and planning to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC early next year. I believe under File in the Menu Bar if I drop down a bit I can choose "Optimaize Catalog". I also have that option picked when Lightroom backs up my Catalog once a week. But I still choose "Optimize Catalog" independently at times during the week. I have my Photos on 2 seperate external hard drives and my Catalog on it's own external hard drive. My 2 questions are...

-Can I just have the hard drive with my catalog connected to my computer when I just want to Optimize my Catalog or do I also need to connect all of the hard drives with my photos too?
For now it's not a problem since I have only 2 hard drives with photos but in the future when I have more hard drives with photos it can be a bit cumbersome.

-Also I prefer to only connect the hard drive with the photos I am working on at any given time instead of all of the hard drives that contain my photos. Is that ok to also do?

Thank You all for your help.

John

 

[Johan Elzenga]

- AFAIK, you can optimize the catalog without the drives with the images being connected.
- It's fine to work in a catalog with one or more image drives not being connected. You just can't edit the images (if you create smart previews then you could).

 

[John Cicchine]

- AFAIK, you can optimize the catalog without the drives with the images being connected.
- It's fine to work in a catalog with one or more image drives not being connected. You just can't edit the images (if you create smart previews then you could).

Thank You Very Much Johan.