Backing up Lightroom for changing laptop

[rafaellima_hk]

Hello everybody, I'm selling my MacBook Pro and will take a while to buy another one. I would like to know what's the procedure to back up my lightroom catalog on my external hard drive being able to tranfer all this data to my new laptop later on. Thanks in advance for the help

[D.A.R · Accepted solution]

The simplest method will be to copy the Lightroom Folder in your Pictures folder to the external drive.

When you setup your new MacBook copy the Lightroom Folder back to the same location. Install Lightroom and open the catalog from the Lightroom folder.

NOTE. This only copies the catalog and associated data (previews/smart previews) It does NOT copy any images. You will need to do that separately. Perhaps your images are already on an external drive? If not, then simply copy the entire Pictures folder to an external drive and replace when you get the new MacBook running.

[ManiacJoe]

See this link to make sure you get ALL the files you need.

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

At a minimum, you will need to copy:

all original image files,

all your catalogs and their backups,

all your various types of presets,

all your plug-ins.