How to manage having the same photo directories on HD and on external Drive?

[nutmix5]

When I had a windows laptop it was easy - I had 3TB of the fastest SSD money could buy, and had my 1TB of photos always on it.

Now I have a mac book pro, which is equipped with a feeble 512GB ssd.

when I have a new batch of photos, I put them on the local HD first and import them.

Later, I copy the photos onto one of my many external HDs.

Then When I want to work on older pics which are only one my external HD, I plug one in. Usually I have to "find missing folder" and select the new drives copy of my pictures folder.    At this point I have my latest pics folder in two places, local HD and on the external HD.  however, on the external HD they are not visible yet as I have not explicitly imported them. If I do try to import them from the external HD, it wont, as they are already imported from the internal one.  I guess the solution here is to either

a) delete form local HD, and then import from external HD. However, I guess this will fail as it will still think that these photos are imported.

b) rename the local Dir, then right click on the folder shown for the local HD, do "Find missing folder" and point to the external one.

The problem with both these solutions is that If i later want to work on my latest pics and don't have the external drive (which is most of the time), I will need to point LR at the local folder, which under option a) wont exist, and under option b) will have a different name.

How do others handle this situation?

[dj_paige]

nutmix5  wrote

When I had a windows laptop it was easy - I had 3TB of the fastest SSD money could buy, and had my 1TB of photos always on it.

Now I have a mac book pro, which is equipped with a feeble 512GB ssd.

when I have a new batch of photos, I put them on the local HD first and import them.

Later, I copy the photos onto one of my many external HDs.

Then When I want to work on older pics which are only one my external HD, I plug one in. Usually I have to "find missing folder" and select the new drives copy of my pictures folder.    At this point I have my latest pics folder in two places, local HD and on the external HD.  however, on the external HD they are not visible yet as I have not explicitly imported them. If I do try to import them from the external HD, it wont, as they are already imported from the internal one.  I guess the solution here is to either

In Lightroom, right-click on the folder that is on the Internal drive, and select Update Folder Location; then select the equivalent folder on the external drive.

DO NOT IMPORT.

This is so important, I am going to say it two more times:

DO NOT IMPORT.

DO NOT IMPORT.

DO NOT IMPORT.

DO NOT IMPORT.

DO NOT IMPORT.

[Laura Shoe]

When you're done editing them on the internal drive, use Lightroom's Folders panel to drag the folder to your external - this will move rather than copy them, and LR won't show them as missing. (Just be sure never to cancel a move while it is in progress - if you make a mistake, let it finish, and then move them again.) For a video tutorial on using Lightroom's Folders panel to do file reorganization, watch the first v...

If you want to be able to edit photos that reside on the external - without the external plugged in - then build smart previews for those photos (or all your photos. Here's a video tutorial on Lightroom smart previews.

[dj_paige]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Laura+Shoe  wrote

When you're done editing them on the internal drive, use Lightroom's Folders panel to drag the folder to your external

There have been so many bug reports when people do this that I advise you to NOT move the photos this way in Lightroom. A better way, where there are no bug reports, is to move the photos using your operating system, and then reconnect in Lightroom, The full instructions are here: www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm (scroll down to Part 2 — Updating Folder Location)

But an even better way to handle this is to import the photos directly to your external drive, straight out of the camera, and then you don't have this issue of moving the photos at a later time. The only time when this advice doesn't work is if you are travelling and you don't have your external drive with you.

[cmgap]

Something to try on your next round of new images... Create a collection upon import. Cull, rate, sort and delete directly in the collection. The images remaining in the collection presumably will be first and perhaps outtakes that you want to keep/edit. All others are deleted and removed from disk. Select the remaining images in the collection and create Smart Previews and if you want to work in a browser or access the collection from a tablet or smart phone, sync the collection.

If you want to print at a later date, you'll need to have the EHD connected.