Question about moving Lightroom to a whole new computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deena
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

Deena

Guest
I'm retiring an old MAC notebook and moving to a new desktop MAC so I have to move LR and all my images, preferences, etc.

I currently have an internal hard drive with the following:

root\applications\adobe lightroom.app
root\pictures\lighroom\lightroom catalog.lrcat
root\pictures\lightroom\lightroom catalog previews.lrdata
root\library\preferences\com.adobe.lightroom.plist (what is this?)
root\library\receipts\adobe photoshop lightroom.pkg (I think this is the installer. can i delete?)
root\library\application support\adobe\lightroom\--- many folders with presets, etc

I also have an external raid system with my images on it:

external raid\lightroom images\-- organized by year and then subfolders -- these were all imported into lighroom

I also make backups of the lightroom catalog to another external drive:

external drive\lightroom backups

I plan on replacing this whole configuration with a MAC with an internal RAID configuration. I want to use the external RAID and external drive for backup only.

What I'd like to know is how I move everything and not break everything. I saw a FAQ that said to drag the catalog file over to the new location and relaunch but what if the images are moved too? Or should I do this in discrete steps?

I have my original CD media with the application but that was a few versions old now. I'm currently running 1.3.1.

Lastly, I'm wondering if I am missing any critical files in my list that I dont' know about and whether I can delete the installer (listed above) and the com.adboe.lightroom.plist file (listed above).

Oh, and do I have to put everything in these separate locations? I really would like to put all this in one place instead of having all this in disparate folders. Is that advisable? Maybe the app in the applications folder and then just a folder somewhere else called Lightroom with all the other components? Or is that stupid?

Thanks for any help or advice. I've got about 8,''' images and I'm anxious about this move.

Deena
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Okay, starting at the top:

(1) MacOS uses forward-slashes (/) like other real operating systems, not back-slashes (\).

(2) com.adobe.lightroom.plist is your Lightroom preferences file.

(3) The items in the Receipts folder are small, and I'd suggest leaving them there.

(4) The Application Support folder contains many items needed by Lightroom. You need these.

(5) You can use the Migration Assistant to move most things, but I would suggest moving the image files off of your external RAID device yourself afterwards. Connect it to the new machine, and double-click on the Catalog file (in its new home) to launch Lightroom. It should see the image files in their old locations. Then, within Lightroom, move the Folders to the new location. (You may need to create the new hierarchy within Lightroom. Victoria has a tutorial on this. Victoria?)

(6) Everything needs to be in these locations. (Well, there are some variations possible, but except for the image files, you should leave things where they are.) Why do you feel this need?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thank you, Mark and Victoria.

So, I understand your suggestions I think, but I want to make sure I have a solid process for this. Do you think this will work:

1) Install Lightroom 1.' with original license from disc on my new mac
2) Launch application and download updates to bring it to 1.3.1 which is my current version. ?WILL THIS CREATE A NEW CATALOG THAT I DON'T WANT? If so, can I just copy over what is created (see next step)
3) Copy my Catalog and Catalog previews files from my old computer on to the new computer keeping them in the default locations and overwriting the files that are there on the new computer, if any:
root/pictures/lighroom/lightroom catalog.lrcat
root/pictures/lightroom/lightroom catalog previews.lrdata
4) Copy my preferences file from my old computer to my new computer keeping it in the default location and overwriting the file if it is already there from the install process.
root/library/preferences/com.adobe.lightroom.plist
5) Attach my external RAID which has all my Lightroom Images on it to my new computer and name it the same thing as it has always been named if I have to name it (I'm not sure how that works but presumably I want the same path so the name needs to be the same).
6) Double-click on my Catalog file on the new computer (the one I copied over in step 3 above) and it should just find my images.


Next steps I'm still fuzzy on. I need to move my user presets that I've gathered over time over to the new computer. I think I can open Lightroom and treat these like new installations of presets by navigating to my old computer to find the files or if I copy these on a CD or thumb drive, navigate there to get them. Or, can I just copy the files and put them in the right place on the new computer?

Lastly, I want to move my Lightroom Images off of my external RAID and onto my local RAID on my new computer. If I understand Victoria's instructions right and I am happy with my actual file structure in Lightroom, I simply need to copy my Lightroom Images Folder to my new computer's internal RAID. I need to add one new file in that directory. Then I need to launch Lighroom and choose Lightroom Import command and UNCHECK ALL and that will re-link my images keeping my folder heirarchy the same? I'm a bit fuzzy here since I don't want to change my file structure and that is the focus of the instructions and I'm also on a mac, not a windows box so I don't know if that extra file is necessary or not and what level of the heirarchy to put it in. My images are currently stored in this file structure:

Lightroom Images/Year/YYYY.MM.DD/... and in Lighroom all I see in the folders area are the years folders and then if I expand them I see all the specific date sub folders.

I'm sorry to be so painfully detailed. I just want to be really clear on this process so I don't undo all my work. If anything sticks out as really wrong, please let me know.

Thank you very much for the help.

Deena
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Let's start from the top then.

1. You can skip this step - the 1.3.1 (or now 1.4) download is the full program and it'll ask for your serial number.
2. So yes, opening for the first time will create a blank catalog (useful for checking it's installed ok) which you can delete or overwrite.
3. Yep (for clarification, the path is actually MacHD/users/[your username]/pictures/lightroom/... not the root of the drive)
4. Yep
5. At this point, I'd not worry about renaming it personally. If you've followed the folder hierarchy steps (I'll come back to this in a mo), then you can move the folders/files over in Finder and then tell LR where to find them.
6....
7. Presets - I'd grab the whole MacHD/users/[your username]/library/application data/adobe/lightroom folder and put it in the same location on your new machine. That'll transfer all of your presets.


Ok, back to the hierarchy for a minute....

While you've still got LR and the images on your old machine, we want to set it so that LR's folder list shows your 'Lightroom Images' folder. Does it show that already? If so, no need to do anything else right now. If it doesn't, then follow the steps on the link. It won't change your folder structure or import new images - it'll just allow LR to show the 'Lightroom Images' level folder in the Folders panel. No need to import a dummy image, that's just for Windows.

Once you've moved your images over to the Internal Raid on the new machine, disconnect the External Raid and open up your LR catalog. The folders will gradually turn red. Now you right click on the top level 'Lightroom Images' folder and show it the new location of that folder on your Internal Raid. It will cascade down, updating the location of all subfolders. See now, why we only want a single top level folder? If you had 2''5, 2''6, 2''7, 2''8.... folders as your top level folders, you'd have to do that for each top level folder. That's ok if you've only got a few, but a real pain if there's hundreds. Does that make more sense?

Do let us know how you get on, and ask if you have any more questions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ok, Victoria, I now understand the top level folder's role in making the re-linking more efficient. That makes sense. I just have to mull over if I want that to show in Lightroom or if I want to go through about 1' folders and do the process 1' times.

Thank you so much for the clarifications. The computer should arrive late next week and I'll probably do the migration the following week. I'll report back here how it goes. Wish me luck! :-)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you've only got 1' folders, it might be just as easy just to relink those. It's when it runs into larger numbers that it works better to have the full hierarchy. Glad it makes more sense now anyway.

Hope it all goes well - I'm sure you'll be fine!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top