Complete Lightroom backup and re-install

[seachangeliving]

Hi, Sorry to bother you all. I am very surprised that I am not able to find this info on the Adobe help pages. It must surely be a 'standard', allbeit somewhat complicated process. Anyway, due to reasons that are outside this forum, I have to reinstall LightroomCC on a clean computer. I do know how to physically re-install, and get my license IDs etc. However, I wish to make a complete backup of the Lightroom 'data'. I recognise that my photos on disk will be fine, and I know that I can backup and restore the Lightroom catalogue file. However, from what I have read on the Adobe help pages, the catalogue file holds (only) such items as

1. A reference to where the photo is on your system
2. Instructions for how you want to process the photo
3. Metadata, such as ratings and keywords that you apply to photos to help you find or organize them

There is no mention of info from the MAP module, such as locations. I wish to backup my locations and also info about the photos I have located on the MAP, whether they are tied to a location or not. It would be great if all this info where held in the catalogue file, but I suspect not!

Btw, I have not created any presets of any type, no special camera lens profiles, camera raw settings, or slideshows etc, so no need to worry about that side of things.

Any ideas please?

[F. McLion · Accepted solution]

Read this article from the Lightroom Queen: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Come back here with open questions anytime.

[seachangeliving]

Hi, Thanks very much. The article does the job. I also tried and verified the software that is referenced. Even though it mentioned tested to some older versions of Lightroom, I successfully tested it out a few times. The only difference is that, if your Catalog filer is > 4MB, then Lightroom on MAC automatically zips Lightroom's backup of the Catalog. When the backup plugin software runs, it ignores Lightroom's Catalog file backup if it is zipped. Now to buy another external drive, and... figure out how to get notifications from this forum, which I thought I had setup!

[JP Hess]

It is really a relatively simple process. Just follow  the steps outlined in that article. I switched to a new computer several years ago. I brought my Lightroom catalog to the new computer,  and all of my images were in the same folder structure on the new computer. All I had to do was install Lightroom and open the catalog that I brought from the old computer. Everything started up  without a hitch.