How do I avoid duplicate photos when migrating to Lightroom CC

[whitfield77]

I recently had a PC crash that required me to rebuild from scratch.  I had recently migrated to Lightroom CC, and have my photos on an external drive.  Are there any steps I need to take in order to gracefully get Lightroom CC reinstalled/configured?  I know with the old LR, I just had to make sure the external drive used the same drive letter, then could just open my catalog from a backup.  Not sure what may be different with LR CC.

[hans-g.]

Hello

in these cases you describe Adobe has prepared this: Activate and deactivate Adobe products  >>> what means if you can't deactivate your program you can use these steps, esp. >>> If the computer on which you installed the product is no longer available, contact us to update the information in the system. Once the information is removed, you can install the product on a new system.

Hans-Günter

[whitfield77]

Thanks Hans, but I'm not having any issues with activation.  My goal is to avoid any issues with 'missing photos' or LR CC downloading/uploading duplicate photos to/from my local PC.

[whitfield77]

To add a little more clarity, hopefully...

When I first migrated to LR CC, I changed Preferences>Local Storage>Storage location for originals and set a location on one of my local drives.  I understand that LR CC keeps all of the photos on Adobe servers, so it looks like I don't have to worry about duplicate photos being uploaded.

When I configured it the first time, before the PC crash, I entered a simple path, F:\Lightroom CC.  LR CC then added additional folders, so I'm not sure where I should point it to now.

Here is part of the folder structure:
\Lightroom CC\Lightroom CC\e967bc813ee948ee924e3f06c0b1cbff\originals

So, I guess my real question is: now that I've reinstalled LR CC, what should I enter in the 'Storage location for originals' field?  If I simply enter F:\Lightroom CC again, will LR CC be smart enough to see that I already have local originals?  Or will it create some other random folder and duplicate all the photos again?

Chris

[Jeff A Wright]

Moving this discussion to the Lightroom CC: The cloud-based photo service forum.

[whitfield77 · Accepted solution]

So, I went ahead and selected the same folder (\Lightroom CC) as I did the first time when I populated 'Storage location for originals'.  LR CC appears to have been smart enough to figure out that I already told it to put them there the first time, and did NOT create any duplicate folders/photos.

fwiw, the fact that it was a different drive letter the second time didn't seem to phase LR CC.  That definitely would have thrown LR off, so it looks like Adobe may have done their homework this time.

To recap...

The first time I migrated to LR CC, I told it to store originals on an external drive at F:\Lightroom CC.  It created additional sub-folders, ending up with a folder structure F:\Lightroom CC\Lightroom CC\e967bc813ee948ee924e3f06c0b1cbff\originals

When I reinstalled LR CC after rebuilding my PC, I reconnected the external drive using drive letter G.  When I configured LR CC the 2nd time, I simply told it to store the originals, on the same external drive (which still had all of my originals), using path G:\Lightroom CC

So far, no issues, and no duplicate folders/photos.

Hope this helps someone else someday...

Chris