External Hard Drive

[richfair]

I have been using my external hard drive with my Lightroom CC on my Laptop. I have recently purchased a new all in one and downloaded Lightroom CC to that unit. Is there a way where I can continue to use the same external Hard drive on both devices without having to importing each folder? I would really like to keep them all in the same format that they are already in.

[kglad]

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Lightroom Classic CC — The desktop-focused app]

[JohanElzenga]

I assume you are talking about Lightroom Classic CC, not Lightroom CC. Yes, that is possible. The easiest way would be to move your catalog folder to the external HD as well, so everything -pictures and catalog- is on that EHD. Then you can use Lightroom Classic on both computer with this same catalog, so that anything you do on one computer automatically also applies to the other one.

[richfair]

I do have all my files in catalogs on the EHD, but when I plug it into the new lightroom, it shows the EHD but none of my catalogs, files, photos. Just that it recognizes the EHD. Am I missing a step or something?

[cmgap]

Can you post a screen shot of the EHD showing your catalogs? And another of Lightroom?

[JohanElzenga]

richfair  wrote

I do have all my files in catalogs on the EHD, but when I plug it into the new lightroom, it shows the EHD but none of my catalogs, files, photos. Just that it recognizes the EHD. Am I missing a step or something?

I think you confuse your images with your catalog. The catalog is a database. It's like an address book. When you say that your friends are 'in your address book', you do not mean that they are physically in that book somehow. Their information is in that book, but they themselves are at home. Same for your Lightroom catalog. Your images are 'at home' in their folders. Lightroom keeps an address book called the catalog. The default location of that catalog is in your Pictures folder on your internal disk, so unless you moved the catalog from there, it still is in that location.

[JP Hess]

richfair  wrote

I do have all my files in catalogs on the EHD, but when I plug it into the new lightroom, it shows the EHD but none of my catalogs, files, photos. Just that it recognizes the EHD. Am I missing a step or something?

Your photos or files are in folders, not catalogs. Those folders are what are on the EHD. The only file that Lightroom opens is the catalog, and has the extension lrcat. That catalog is a database that keeps track of the folders and images, as well as all the work that you perform in Lightroom. On a Windows computer, that file is typically stored in the Pictures folder and in a Lightroom folder. In order to make your EHD images completely portable and movable between computers, that catalog needs to be moved to the EHD. It can be placed in its own separate folder. After you move it to its new location, the easiest way to redirect Lightroom is to double-click on it in its new location, and then Lightroom should remember where the catalog is now located. After that you should be able to start Lightroom as you normally start it.

[richfair]

Thank you, I figured it out now, I was not trying to open Lightroom with the Cat file on the External Hard drive, now that I did,  I have all my info from the other computer. Thank you Jim.

[cmgap]

You have a few options.

- If you want maximum performance on your new desktop computer, Lr will be faster if it is on your local drive. In this instance you can copy your Lightroom folder from your laptop to your desktop via an external hard drive.

- If you want to be able to work on both laptop and desktop int he same catalog, you can open the catalog from an external hard drive however it won't be as fast due to read-write time as you make edits. In this instance be sure to keep a back up on another device or in the cloud so that if your external dies you can restore your catalog from a back up and not lose too much productivity.

- If you use Dropbox or similar app you can copy your Lr catalog files there and access it from both machines - Not at the same time however. In this instance you need to be aware and patient so that the files sync to the cloud before you expect to see the last edits when switching machines. With good internet speed/connectivity this shouldn't be a problem.

- If you have Lightroom Mobile the companion app for Lightroom Classic - Not to be confused with Lightroom CC cloud version, you can copy your catalog from laptop to desktop, make it your master catalog and create synced collections. In this instance you can work with your images on your laptop from a browser via lightroom.adobe.com. In this instance you won't have all of the functionality in the desktop version however it is useful for rating, some developing, sharing images and more.

Hope this is helpful in understanding your choices.