How to Move an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to an External Hard Drive
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalogs are easily moved from one hard drive to another. By default, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom automatically creates a folder to hold your Lightroom Catalog database files. Within your factory default Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog folder are two important items: the Lightroom Catalog.lrcat file and the Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata file. On the PC, the Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata file appears as a sub-folder.
The factory default behavior is to create these files and to put them into a folder inside of your computer’s internal hard drive. This program automatically places the default .lrcat and .lrdata files inside of a folder called Lightroom that it creates within your User Account > Pictures sub-folder. The program put these files, and others depending upon your preferences, within the default Lightroom to keep things neat and tidy. Moving the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog is easy since all the critical parts of the database are stored within a single folder!
Default Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog
Moving the whole Lightroom folder to another hard drive will not remove the actual application from your internal hard drive. Moving this folder simply moves your Photoshop Lightroom Catalog database files from one place to another. I demonstrate all of the steps involved in this process of moving an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to another hard drive in this short video tutorial.
Before you move your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to another drive please do two things. First, please make sure that you have everything backed up. Please implement Professional-Grade Backup Plans before making any significant changes to your image storage system!
Second, carefully consider if moving your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to an external hard drive will actually help you. Image data storage is not a “one-size fits all” problem and there is no universal solution. Every photographer has different needs and different equipment. For detailed advice on configuring an image storage system that suits your needs see Getting Started: Where Should I Store My Images?” and Getting Started: Where Should I Keep My Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog?” The big question is not “how do I move my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog” but rather what arrangement of all the image storage puzzle pieces best suits your current needs?
I recommend renaming your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog no matter where you choose to store these files. I also suggest creating an alias that leads directly to your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to prevent any confusion.
Related Tutorials:
- Getting Started: Where Should I Keep My Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog
- Getting Started: Where Should I Store My Photos
- My Photo Storage System: External Hard Drives and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
- How to Format An External Hard Drive
- How to Rename Your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog
- How to Create an Alias that Leads Directly to Your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog
Filed Under: (01) Getting Started • (12) FAQ • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tutorials
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom Expert. David has led Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Lightroom seminars and digital photography field workshops for The Rocky Mountain School of Photography, FirstLight Workshops, The American Society of Media Photographers, and the world-renowned Blackberry Farm Resort. To learn more about David's software seminars and field photography workshops, please visit 
No need to thank me Scott, you’re the one sharing a lot of information for a newbie like me.
Pascal
Scott,
Great question. Without a doubt, I recommend that you format any and all hard drives before using them on your computer. The “helpful software” that ships with most hard drives (Western Digital included) is far from helpful. It slows the computer down by loading programs on startup that have no need to be loaded. That’s something we expect in the Windows world, but we don’t want to allow it on our Macs. Besides, you’ve already got Time Machine built in if you need a backup solution.
Here is an article on how to format a new hard drive.
Here are some articles about backups.
Enjoy,
Scott Rouse
Just found this website and it is such a wealth of information. I just switched to a MacBook Pro as primary computer from a PC desktop. Just purchased LR2 but not yet installed. (New technology overload!) Reading and watching your tutorials has given me a wealth of info/options on how to start with the new computer and LR. Simple question: When using external hard drives should I reformat before starting to use the drive? My primary reason is to wipe the maker’s preloaded backup software. I have WD Mybook on the PC and it’s software seems to slow things down. Thanks for all the great tips and information.
Scott
Mike,
Sounds like she had you on the right track. First, though, I want to make sure I understand what your final goal is.
If you’re working on your laptop as your primary computer, I’d recommend keeping the Lightroom Catalog on your laptop’s hard drive and your photos on an external hard drive. That way, you’ve always got your Catalog with you for a quick slideshow or some organization, even if the external drive isn’t connected.
If you’re not completely sure what the Catalog file, this article on Catalogs vs. Libraries vs. Folders in Lightroom may help.
So, my recommendation is to leave the Catalog file where it is (probably in a Lightroom folder in your Pictures or My Pictures folder) and move the image folders themselves over to an external drive. If you do that moving within Lightroom, it’ll save you the hassle of having to remind Lightroom where all the photos are again. This article on Moving Folders with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can show you that process.
Once that’s all done, make sure you’re running a rock-solid backup routine. Make sure that those photos (and the Catalog) never exist in only one location.
Here are two helpful posts on backup:
Best of luck,
Scott Rouse
I followed some advice by a so-called Lightroom Queen before finding this much more thorough information. I believe she had me export the catalog. Now I have a catalog on my hard external hard drive but I have only 900+ photos in it. Prior to the move I had close to 6000 items in my catalog. I still have LR2 and the 6000 images on my laptop but I’m out of space there and want to move everything to my new 1Gig Lacie. Where do I go from here?
Dear Ivan,
Lightroom has exactly this question. It’s what the question mark in the upper-right hand corner of any missing photo means or the question mark symbol on a missing folder! Lightroom wants you to tell it where the files have gone.
May I suggest that you try Pascal’s “mount disk in an empty folder” trick (a few posts back on this page). I have been using it lately and its seems to solves Windows drive letter assignment issues.
best wishes,
David
Why cannt Lightroom have a question like “where are your images stored” that would solve any problems of people like me who uses a Windows Laptop and stores the images on a external drive and finds the drive letter changes from computer to computer, even within the one computer depending on what drives you have installed!
Pascal-
If you are still out there I just wanted to say thanks for the NTFS folder trick. I used it today and it was a blessing. Thanks for sharing.
David
I am using 2 external western digital hard drives for primary & back up of all LR files. The panel on the left side where the drives come up, always shows multiple copies of my main external that add an additional number to the end, WD1 12 or WD1 14. I also have trouble with files not being found this happens on a monthly (at least) basis. I am running this on a mac. Never had problems till I went to the externals. Any help or tips would be appreciated.
Pascal,
That’s a great tip and one that I’m sure I’ll use with clients and students. Thanks for pointing that out!
-Scott
Hi David,
just a little trick for PC users to get rid of the “drive letter” changing issue.
– connect your external hard drive to the computer.
– Create a folder on you computer and name it something like “Drive Name” + “Link” – On my computer, “My External Drive Link”, is on the desktop to mimic a mac…
– On Vista, go to Control Panels -> System and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools and run the Computer Management app.
– Select Disk Management in the left pane to get the disks and partitions list.
– Right click on the external drive or partition where your photos and catalog are,
– select Change drive letter and path
– click Add.. in the dialog box
– Click Browse.. and select “My External Drive Link” folder.
– Click OK and quit the administration tool
You now have a constant path or link to your external drive whatever letter is assign when connected to the computer. Just make Lightroom point to this link rather than the direct path to the external disk.
Regards
Pascal
Dear Mark,
I absolutely agree that it is not right and its a shame that it wasted so much of your time, but again opening the default settings folder can be quite useful.
You would need to poke around in the default folder to install the very useful Lightroom restart script no matter where your presets live. Check out http://thephotogeek.com/lightroom-power-nap-restart-script/ for more on the restart script.
May I also suggest that you send Adobe a little report on your frustration with this button / bug / feature. If no one raises the issue with the programers then things will never get better. To submit a bug / feature request to Adobe please use this link.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
David
David, You’re right! Thanks.
It’s not a half-bug, it’s a bug and a half, since it misled Scott and wasted a slab of my time.
Thankyou, both.
Dear Mark Adams,
Your not missing anything. That’s a half-bug with Lightroom. Its hard to explain but the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” always shows the factory default even if Lightroom is reading presets, like your metadata template or an export template, out of another location.
This is confusing and not the way that I would like the button to work but it does come in handy when you need to install things like scripts or web templates that have to be placed inside the default folder.
To double check that your presets are coming from the catalog on the external try creating a new metadata preset. Just make something silly and then save it. Once its saved quit Lightroom go look in your external disk > your catalog folder > the Lightroom settings folder > metadata presets. If its there success! Assuming that its there go ahead and delete it.
Hope this helps.
David
Thanks. That occurred to me, but I’m not sure it works. I ticked the box, checked that my working catalog is the one on the external drive, copied the presets folder from the internal to external drive into the same folder as the working catalog, quit and re-opened Lightroom, then clicked the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button and it still referenced the Presets Folder on the internal drive.
Am I missing something?
Mark,
Not a dumb question at all. The Lightroom Presets folder is important. Though the application will run without it (it will just create a new one), the folder contains your export, develop, printing, and other presets which you may have put a lot of work into.
If you go into the Preferences in Lightroom, under the Presets tab you’ll see a “Store presets with catalog” checkbox. When that box is checked, Lightroom will keep the presets folder in the Lightroom folder which contains that catalog.
To see where the presets folder is currently located, just click the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button to be taken to the folder location in the Finder or Windows Explorer.
Hope that helps,
Scott
Moved the catalog and photos to an external drive, but here’s a dumb question – how do I specify an external location for my pre-sets and other app. support stuff?
Glad to hear, Sheila. Thanks for your comments.
-Scott
Thanks everyone for your patience. My video on how to move folders from drive to drive using Lightroom has been completely re-recorded with better sound and video.
You can see it here.
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/09/moving-folders-with-adobe-photoshop-lightroom/
Scott/David.
I just wanted to thank you for your advice and the subsequent questions on this useful site about the topic of moving files to an external hard drive.I have now completed this task and thanks to your input everything went smoothly (the tips about formatting and importing from the new drive were especially good).Hopefully I can now go back to taking photographs.
You’re very welcome. Best of luck.
-Scott
Thank You Scott
I’ll try it
I’ll also check on the link you sent me
-Tinee
Tinee,
Use the “Import From Catalog” command under the File menu. That will merge imported Catalog information into the target catalog. The article on Moving Images from One Computer to Another may prove helpful for you.
-Scott
Thank you Thank you But how can I move or merge my existing catalog on my external hard drive and one on my internal hard drive together
I backed up… actually moved my catalog with tags and edited files from 2000 to the early part of 2009
I have files that I’ve worked on from then till now and my internal is getting full again
How do I move migrate or merge them all together with out loosing them. I edited and worked on the photos and I dont want to edit them one by one again
I work on my laptop and edit the pictures
How do I merge or add them to free my laptop so I can work on my laptop on locations and move them again to my external after editing and tagging them
Thank you
Tinee
Mac Book Pro w Lightroom and 2 external 1 tb western digital hard drives w firewire 800 and e sata connection
JJ,
Thanks for your question. The information about where your actual image files are physically located (the “file path”) is stored in the Lightroom Catalog. If you’re Lightroom Catalog file is stored on the same hard drive as the images, you should be able to move back and forth from machine to machine without too much trouble. With one exception…
On Windows, the external drive can get a new drive letter (i.e. “D:” drive, “E:” drive, etc) when it is moved from machine to machine. If your drive is being renamed on a separate computer when you move it, you’ll have to point Lightroom back to the actual image locations.
On the Folders Panel in the left of the Library Module, you’ll most likely see question marks on your folders, as well. You can right-click on a folder and choose “Find Missing Folder.” As I mentioned in the comment above, this is much easier if you have all your sub-folders in one large parent folder.
On a Mac, you shouldn’t see the drive name issue.
Check out this post on Moving Images from One Computer to Another.
-Scott
Hey!
So I have Lightroom installed on an External Hard Drive. We use a ton of photos for the office I work in, and the plan was to be able to use Lightroom on both a work laptop and the main desktop.
However, whenever I input photos into the External Hard Drive and do all the keywording and such on my laptop – when I plug in the External HD into the desktop – all the photos still appear but the folders have the question marks on them that claim they don’t know where the root folders for the photos are.
Any idea? I hate the idea of continuing to label thousands of photos if it won’t work on both computers.
Thanks!
JJ
Adam,
Glad the move worked out fine for you.
You can select (and move) multiple photos at once from the grid view. Shift-click to select contiguous files or Ctrl- or Cmd-click to select non-contiguous files.
What I think you’re asking, though, is if you can move more than one ‘folder’ at once. You can move parent folders and all the child folders contained in them will move as well. Unfortunately you can’t select multiple folders and move them at once in a different way.
The take home message here is to always have one or two parent folders for your images in which all other folders are contained.
Chances are, you already have your folders set up this way. Right-click on one of your highest-level folders and choose “Add Parent Folder.” Lightroom will now show you the folder that contains the folder you clicked on. You can now just drag that parent folder over to the new location on the second drive.
Hope that helps,
-Scott
Scott / Dave — Thanks so much guys. I really appreciate the hand holding.
I’ve successfully moved the catalog and several files to my external drive. Everything is working fine…Phew!
My only question at this point is this…
When moving folders within Lightroom, is there a way to drag and drop more than one file at a time? I couldn’t seem to do it… I’m moving about 500GB of photos which are organized into folders by shoot date. I want to preserve my folder organization and dragging and dropping one at a time is a bit laborious.
Thanks again for all your help!
Adam
Great tips, Dave. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me to the comments page. Wait…except for this morning. I slept in!!
-Scott
Hello Adam Smith,
Sorry to jump in on this one after Scott. I meant to get a response to you first. I think that both of you have excellent lists of steps for this process.
May I suggest one extra move and offer one extra caution.
Caution 1st: Let’s make sure that your external hard drive is properly formatted before we put anything on it. Here is an article on this process just in case you need the help.
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/01/formatting-an-external-hard-drive/
Before you move your images from one drive to another using Lightroom let’s set ourselves up so that its easy. The trick here is to teach Lightroom where the new files will go before you try to move them.
Easiest way to do this is to goto the external disk outside of Lightroom and create a folder. Name this folder something like “Photos Go Here” or “My Images,” something that says to you that this is the storage place for all of your photographs.
Once you have this folder move some photo, any photo even just a tiny jpeg that you grabbed from the web, into this folder. This image is just a dummy file. We just need something to import so that Lightroom adds the external disk and “photos go here” folder into its index.
Now start up Lightroom and import this dummy image using the “Add to Catalog without moving” option in the import dialog. This is the critical move because now Lightroom will know the name of both your internal and your external drives.
After the import take a look at your folders panel in the Library module. See how it now shows two drives and even shows the “photos go here” folder on the external! So, now when you want to move folders from one drive to another all you need to do is drag and drop from the internal disk to the “photos go here” on the external. Now everything can be done within the Lightroom folders panel.
Be patient when moving folders and files especially if the folders contain hundreds of images. Oh, and don’t be afraid to erase the little dummy photo. We only needed it to teach Lightroom about the external disk.
Best of luck,
David
Adam,
I understand your nervousness. Your steps look really close. Here’s my recommendation:
1) Close Lightroom and copy Lightroom folder containing Catalog to external drive.
2) Leave original Catalog/Lightroom folder on external drive temporarily.
3) Launch Lightroom, holding down the Alt or Option key. That will give you a dialog box that lets you choose which Catalog to open.
4) Choose the newly copied Catalog on the external drive.
5) Verify that everything looks ok.
6) Move folders containing photographs within Lightroom.
7) Once it all looks good, delete that original Lightroom folder on your internal drive containing the original Lightroom Catalog.
Best of luck,
-Scott
Thanks for these tutorials. I am in the process of migrating all of my photographs, along with LR catalogue to an external drive.
I think I’ve got a handle on what to do, but am still nervous to pull the trigger.
Could you confirm I have the order of things correctly.
1) With Lightroom closed, move Lightroom folder containing catalog to external drive.
2) Delete catalog on hard drive.
3) Launch Lightroom. When prompted point LR to catalog on external drive.
4) Within Lightroom, move files containing photographs.
5) Now everything should be working fine….
Thanks.
Adam
Sheila,
A “verified transfer” is just a method of moving or copying files that supposedly insures that no data is lost in the transfer. The odds of losing data in a standard file transfer are not very high, so I’ve never resulted to using a third-party program to verify transfers. That being said, there is always a risk when moving files from one drive to another, so many prefer to copy files from one hard to a second drive, then manually verify the files moved properly before deleting the original copy.
In any case, it’s always a great idea to make sure that as soon as you begin to move images off of your camera’s card, you keep at least two copies of each file at all times.
-Scott
Dear Mobius Strip,
I hate to tell you this but you are wrong. The corruption that you are encountering while attempting to move your catalog is entirely your fault not the programs. Try these things.
1. Make sure that your external hard drive is properly formatted before you put anything on it.
2. Launch Lightroom from your internal hard drive just to make sure that the catalog itself works.
3. Quit Lightroom. Quit the program don’t just minimize the screen.
4. Move the entire folder that contains your catalog to the external. You need the whole folder not just the .lrcat file.
5. Go to your external drive and open this folder.
6. Double click the .lrcat file to launch your catalog.
I suspect that you are getting corruption problems because you are trying to move the catalog while the program is running. The lock file, by the way, only appears in your catalog folder while the program is running and I believe that it appears only on the PC version of the program.
Sadly, this does not work. I tried it twice with Lightroom 2 on the Mac. Copying your catalog data to another volume will result in a “catalog is corrupt and cannot be used” error when you try to open it in Lightroom. It’ll give you the option to try to repair it, but that will fail.
There’s also an Adobe TechNote on the issue, which claims corruption can be caused by moving a catalog without moving its “-journal” file. But there’s no such file in the Lightroom directory, not even a hidden one.
Just as I was thinking the Lightroom was less annoying than most Adobe apps, this utterly moronic failure comes to light. There is no excuse for not having a “move catalog” or “copy catalog” function built into the app.
David and Scott.
Just picked up your really useful video on how to move files around in LR from one drive to another.This is very timely!
As you may have gathered I am new to this process but have been trying to do some reading around it including the DAM book.I have a question based on this which is relevant to this video.It makes perfect sense to me to move files around rather than copy them and I appreciate the need for LR to “follow the path” so it sees what is going on.I am still a little confused where a verified transfer fits into this process.Do you only need to do this if you COPY files outside of LR?
I was under the impression that you can lose data and this is why a verified transfer with other software is sensible,equally I am all for making life as simple as possible especially with computers.
Does LR have some sort of safety mechanism within it to ensure it doen’t lose files in the process of moving them around? I would rather do it the way you describe but would like to protect the work I have done to date.
Hello Sheila, Lisa, and all the others who have been waiting patiently for the video on moving files and folders from place to place within Lightroom.
Thanks so much for your patience. Here’s the good news. I have a video for you. Bad news is the audio is terrible. I have no idea why but for some reason tonight I cannot get a decent audio recording without a ton of crackle. I am going to put a hyperlink to this video in here but for those who are in desperate need of this information. BUT you are warned. The audio is lousy.
When I get home to Montana next week I will see if I can re-record this with another mic and get better sound. Apologies for the delay and the lousy sound but perhaps something– clean video, at least–is better than nothing.
Here’s the link.
Moving Files and Folders in Lightroom
Scott.
That is very helpful advice.Hopefully I will be able to move forward now.
Thankyou once again
Sheila
Sheila,
Thanks for the compliment. I’m glad you enjoy the site.
I’ve not personally used SyncBack Pro, but I’m sure it will work fine. A “mirrored backup” doesn’t sound like what you’d want to use to move files from the PC to your new 1TB drive.
If the 1TB drive is to become your primary working drive for Lightroom (containing both your images and your Lightroom Catalog), I would either manually copy the Catalog and images to that drive from your PC or use some sort of verified copy function in SyncBack Pro, if that exists. A “mirrored backup” implies that the software (SyncBack Pro) will try to keep the two devices mirrored, monitoring them for changes and writing those changes to the other drive. If you intend to remove the images from your PC to clear up space, this “mirrored backup” function wouldn’t work.
A mirrored backup would work, however, between your primary working drive and your second external hard drive. That way, whenever you make changes to images or the Catalog on your primary drive, those changes will be copied to your backup drive in case of emergency.
Hope that helps,
Scott
Scott
Thankyou so much.It is the first time I have had to do this so I am trying to do as much research as possible.This website is wonderful!If you have the time,one other question.I want to free up the hard drive on the PC.When I do a verified transfer(I have SyncBack Pro)which I havn’t used before,onto the 1TB drive, should it be a mirrored backup as I want an identical copy of all my photo files from the PC and then another mirrored backup onto the 2TB as the backup of all my data?.I am a little confused as there appears to be a slight difference.I do not have optical disk backup and was hoping to keep everything electronically.I appreciate I will have to update the LR catalogue and currently I keep the up to date version on the 1TB drive which can be moved.
Sheila,
I’ll jump in and answer for David as this is his extremely busy season. First of all, there’s no need to install from the the CD and then upgrade to the current version (2.4). You can just download version 2.4 from here and install it directly. When it asks for your serial number, just use the one off of the back of the box/CD case that you received.
Once you’ve installed 2.4, you can open your old version 1 catalog (which will cause Lightroom to create a copy of the catalog and upgrade it for use with Lightroom 2).
Quit Lightroom and move your upgraded Lightroom 2 Catalog to the 1TB external drive. You can then either move your photo folders outside of Lightroom and point Lightroom to the new location or just use Lightroom to move the images from one drive to the other.
Best of luck,
Scott
David.
I am a keen amateur in need of some advice.I am about to upgrade from version 1:1 to latest version.I have just purchased CD upgrade for 2.I also wish to move my photos and catalogue from internal drive to external 1TB and backup tp 2TB external.I was thinking,install CD for vs 2,download vs 2:4,connect with old 1:1 catalogue then move all photos and catalogue onto external 1TB using verified transfer.Backup to 2TB.If this is not logical could you suggest a better way please.
Hi!
I seam to have the same problem that Lisa has… where is that second tutorial? This first one has been great and very helpful but I also need to move the files to my external hard drive so I have space in my internal hard drive… HELP!
I have an already existing lightroom cataogue I want to move to an external hard drive to free up space on my mac’s hard drive. (and then have all new photos I import be stored on the external hard drive) David mentioned a second tutorial covering this – as it posted yet? I can’t seem to find it. Help
Also, if I have an external hard drive I use to back up all my files, should I have a dedicated one for my lightroom catalogue?
[...] How to get your Lightoom catalog on to an external hard drive Share and Enjoy: [...]
Dave,
I also want to move my lightroom catalog from internal hard drive to a external hard drive. I have a 1TB external hard drive and set it up as 2 partition so I can have one for Carbon copy cloner to back up my computer and one for Lightroom catalog and all my photos. However, after I did that I realized there are two hard drives on my desktop which mean when I do CCC backup, it will also back up another copy of my Lightroom, correct? Do I need to have another hard drive to store my Lightroom (instead of partition method) so CCC would only back up my computer but not the Lightroom?
Getting confused.
Sabrina
Sabrina- These are great questions that you can get answered in person. Please bring your hard drive to your first assigned digital lab and one of us will help you get all of this backup > multiple lightroom catalogs > etc stuff straightened out.
Ernest,
I’m not 100% sure of what you’re asking. You can only have one “catalog” open in Lightroom at a time. Are you trying to access multiple “collections” or just hard drives, perhaps?
If you have folders grayed out in the “Folders” panel on the left in the Library Module, you can right-click on a folder and tell Lightroom you’d like to locate the missing folder. You can then browse around and show Lightroom where the folder is now located.
Let me know if that doesn’t answer your question.
-Scott
After importing photos to a catalog on my laptop, I can no longer get Lightroom to access my huge catalog on my external hard drive. The catalog is listed in the library, but “grayed-out” and when an item in that listing is clicked, the message “the file xxxxx is offline or missing. (Note: I can still access the photos in the external hard drive with Elements).
Is there some trick to get Lightroom to re-recognize all of its files on the external hard drive?
Mike,
Don’t mean to speak for David…I’m sure he’ll add his answer soon, as well…but I’ll go ahead and tell you that, yes, you can still move your files and catalog. The process is very similar.
You’ll go ahead and physically move the Lightroom folder with the catalog, as David explains above, then move your image folders. If you move the image folders from within the Folder panel in Lightroom, it will keep track of where those new images are. If you move them outside of Lightroom (from the Finder or Windows Explorer), you’ll have to tell Lightroom the new location of those files. It helps if you have one or two large parent folders which contain any smaller folders you may have. That way, you just have to tell Lightroom where the parent folder is, and it will automatically locate the child folders.
To tell Lightroom where the folder(s) now reside, in the Folders panel in Lightroom, right-click on one of the top-level folders with a “?” icon (that icon will appear if the folder has been moved from outside of Lightroom). Choose “Find Missing Folder” and tell Lightroom the new location of that folder. Repeat this process for any other top-level folders that have a “?” on them.
-Scott
David,
Can you do this when you already have an established database rather than it being done from a brand new install?? I want to reorganise my images/catalogue and change it from the computer HDD onto an external HDD