Copy files from laptop to desktop

[peterw61941313]

Hi

I asked this question before but cannot find the answer and the circumstances are different to described.

I have approx. 8,000 photos on a portable hard drive that were loaded and catalogued via my laptop.  The catalogue and preview files are all on the laptop.

I now want to add the photos, and keywords etc, to my desktop computer system. I thought this was simply a case of plugging the portable drive into my desktop and importing the files, but the catalogue data is all on my laptop.

I may be being dense but could someone explain, in simple terms, what I need to do.

Thanks

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

This is not a case of importing the photo files at all. DO NOT IMPORT PHOTOS!

To do this, you want to copy the catalog file to the external HD (same external HD that has the photos). Then, plug in the external HD to the desktop, copy the photos (keeping the folder hierarchy the same) and catalog file to the desktop, then open Lightroom on your desktop computer, select File->Import from Another Catalog and then select the catalog file that you just copied onto the desktop computer. This will now have all the information about the photos from the laptop, and you will have to reconnect the photos in Lightroom to their new location on the desktop computer, see Figure 4 and associated text of these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

[peterw61941313]

Thanks, that's really helpful. Can I just check which files I need to transfer from the laptop to keep all the keywords, edits and previews?

[dj_paige]

Do you mean you only want to transfer some of the files on the laptop/external HD to the desktop computer?

[peterw61941313]

No sorry, I want all the photos on the desktop (internal drive), I just want to be sure which lightroom files I need to copy from laptop to portable drive in order to do so.

[dj_paige]

peterw61941313  wrote

No sorry, I want all the photos on the desktop (internal drive), I just want to be sure which lightroom files I need to copy from laptop to portable drive in order to do so.

You need to copy the photo files (keeping the folder hierarchy the same) to the desktop computer. You need to copy the Catalog file from the laptop to the desktop computer. You do NOT need to copy the previews, I consider this a waste of time, as Lightroom on the desktop computer will re-generate the preveiws.

[peterw61941313]

Thanks guys, all sorted.

[Just Shoot Me]

Are both system using the same type of operating system, Mac OS X or Windows?

If they are then Copy the whole folder the Catalog file is in from the notebook and paste it to the same ROOT folder on the desktop as it was in on the notebook.

Then connect that external drive, or have it connected already, to the desktop and open that catalog file. If you are using Windows the drive letter assigned to the external might be different. Post back if you get any ? marks.

If one is Windows and the other a Mac there are some problems related to do this.

If both are Mac's once you open the catalog file in LR you should have all your images with all the edits.