It's time for me to move my catalog from my old pc computer to the new one; my photos are located on an Seagate 2 Tb external hard drive; what is the safest way to do the job? Thanks in advance!
Lightroom classic-moving to a new computer
- Thread starter Cristobal
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TheLRC
New member
Follow the guide on Lightroomqueens blog - safest way to do the job:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/moving-lightroom-free-ebook/
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/moving-lightroom-free-ebook/
If I understand your photos are already on an external drive and catalog is on the PC hard drive? If that's the case then it's simply a matter of copying the entire catalog folder over to the hard drive on the new PC. If the old PC had a single drive and new one has dual drives then you may have to point LR to the external drive.
TheLRC
New member
Yes, but there are many other things to consider if you want an exact match of the current installation.
- If you have used mobile and want to move the downloaded images to new PC
- Presets and templates has to be copied to new PC
- Plug-ins to be copied to new PC
- Preferences
etc..
And Lightroom Classic and the Creative Cloud app has to be installed as well.
Strongly recommend to download the free PDF and follow the instructions.
Good points all. I'm a fairly basic LRC user so transition in my case is simple as I described in my post. For those you use presets, templates, etc, sounds like it's more involved.
Thank you for your recommandation; a very clear and understandable document! I took the time to read and understand all the steps to be taken; I have scrupulously made a copy of all the elements (catalog, other catalog files, catalog backups, previews, preferences...) on an external drive; all those files will be transfered in my new computer very soon; I will not have to search for missing photos or folders because all my photos are grouped together on an external hard drive and its mirror copy.
Thank you for replying! effectively, all my photos are already on an external drive; I feel a little more reassured now; the next step will be the transfer of all the others files from the old desktop to the new one with the help of a technician (my computer skills are very very limited).