Moving Lightroom to new computer

[kevinma]

I'm going to be moving my image files to a new computer and will be reinstalling Lightroom. Could you tell me how I get LR to recognize where all of my images are i.e. the folder structure etc without having to reimport everything? Is it simply a matter of copying over the catalog file?

[KENB]

I am also in the process of changing computers, and will be moving Lightroom. Looking forward to hearing from those who have gone before.

[ohtoberich]

If the images are stored on an external drive, you could just copy the catalog and preview files. Otherwise, I think you'll have to point to the new location. You could always export the catalog too if you can share the drives between the computers.

[rsealy]

Are you moving to a different platform i.e., PC to Mac? If you're just moving to a new computer with the same platform, make the folder names and path in the new location the same as the old and copy the files over. Then copy the catalog database to the new computer.

Also, if you're using raw files, you'll need to find the Lightroom Database.lrdb file which holds your metadata, edits, etc. In Windows I think it's located at [Username]/My
Documents/My Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Database.lrdb but I don't remember for sure about that. You can do a search to find it if not.

Moving between platforms is a little more difficult but it can be done. I just did it about a month ago from a PC to Mac and didn't have too much trouble.

Good Luck.

[kevinma]

Thanks for your help. I am moving from a PowerPC Mac to an Intel Mac but I am not going to use the migration assistant. I would just like to copy over the relevant files. Sounds like the database file is key... Anything else?