Syncing catalogue between ext hard drive and laptop

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amer369

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Amer
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Hi,

Hoping someone can help advise the best way to set up.

I have a macbook pro, with storage running out I decided to buy a 4 tb ext hard drive.

The set up I want is for the main catalogue to be stored on the ext HD but I still want the flexibility to be able to import/edit pics on the mbp while I'm away from home and then when I get back able to export all the DNGs with the edits into the ext hd catalogue.

Is this possible, if so is it easily done? Or do I have to wait to import the files from camera to the ext HD before I do any edits?

Hope someone has the answer.
 
I may be totally wrong on this and if I am please accept my apologies in advance but this is my understanding of the way LR works.
The Catalogue does not store the photos, it stores the location of the photos, so you can have photos all over the place and as long as LR knows where they are it can find them.
My LR catalogue is 63.6 mb stored on an internal SSD( E Drive) , the photos are 130gb stored on an internal ordinary drive ( D Drive) but it could be an external drive.
To do what you want I would store the photos on the external drive and the catalogue on the internal drive, with a backup to somewhere else.
When you are away from home store and edit your photos that you have taken on the internal drive and add them to the catalogue and when you get home move them to the external drive-WITHIN LR, if you do it any other way LR cannot find them.

This might be of help https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-to/lightroom-move-folder-files.html
This should free up a lot of space.

Do not take my word for this please do your homework first I would not want to be responsible for screwing up your system
 
I'll give that a go, it makes sense and covers the workflow that I'm intending to use.

If anyone knows a reason why that won't work your comments would be helpful.
 
I have a Macbook pro with the catalogue on the HD. All my RAW files are on an Ext HD that sits on my desk. If I'm on holiday I take my laptop and put the RAW files in a temp folder on my desktop and do any edits I want to them. When I get home I simply move the RAW files from the desktop to my Ext HD and then a few clicks in LR to tell it that they are now on my Ext HD and it should look there for them and everything is fine.

If you keep the folder structure the same when you move all your photos across to the Ext HD from your mac, then in LR it should be a few clicks for it to find them again.

Keep the catalogue on your Macbook. But back it up peridoically to your Ext HD.
 
Craigus said:
I have a Macbook pro with the catalogue on the HD. All my RAW files are on an Ext HD that sits on my desk. If I'm on holiday I take my laptop and put the RAW files in a temp folder on my desktop and do any edits I want to them. When I get home I simply move the RAW files from the desktop to my Ext HD and then a few clicks in LR to tell it that they are now on my Ext HD and it should look there for them and everything is fine.

If you keep the folder structure the same when you move all your photos across to the Ext HD from your mac, then in LR it should be a few clicks for it to find them again.

Keep the catalogue on your Macbook. But back it up peridoically to your Ext HD.
Click to expand...
Thanks for confirming that. Doesn't sound too complicated either.. I'll start on it tonight. [emoji106]
 
Learnt something new today... Smart previews. I finally understand its function.

They allow you to edit your photos even when disconnected from the raw file source and sync up the next time you connect.

Lightroom never ceases to amaze me.
 
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