Moving Catalog Location in Lightroom 3?

How can I move my catalog location in Lightroom 3?
The back up that runs when I exit Lightroom is on my main OS drive which is a nice SSD but it doesn't have a lot of space, and I don't want my backups being stored on there.

So I'd like to point Lightroom to a different internal drive on my MacPro, but I'm not seeing where I can do this? The catalog and backups are all stored on the SSD drive under users/myusername/pictu​res/lightroom, but I'd like this somewhere else on a different drive.

Do I just need to create a new catalog in the location I want it to be, then import all the pictures/files from where they are being stored?

There are a few approaches you can try.

One quick attempt would be to close LR, and then in your system browser copy your catalog folder onto the internal drive and your complete image library structure over so that the structure "looks" the same in essence. Then, open Lightroom and have it open the "new" catalog copy. If things are "cool" everything could come up fine, otherwise you'll see folders show grey and with little question marks. Right click on a top-level folder and choose to Find missing files and folders and it should do a search to re-synchronize things. If that works, delete the old stuff from your SSD drive and you're good to go.

Alternatively, you can take the approach you suggested -- create a New catalog on the internal drive and then do an Import from Catalog and follow the steps. You might want to read Help on details for this. But if you do this you'll still need to move your images if you want to.

Backups are out of Lightroom -- they are just versions of your Catalog folder with previews and metadata and references to the library images. I'd suggest putting them on an external drive for safekeeping, but wherever you have Lightroom put them, you don't need to keep them all. Delete older ones, maybe just keep a few.

I would just copy the catalogue file to the new location, rename the original to something else, just in case. When you launch LR it will tell you it can't find the catalogue file. At this point just browse to the new location and it will open.

Just make sure you rename and backup the original file.

You don't have to replicate the entire folder path when moving your Lightroom catalog; it can reside just about anywhere.

1. Close Lightroom then use Finder to move the Lightroom Folder to your preferred location. Note that the Lightroom Folder contains sub-folders so be sure to move the actual Lightroom Folder and not the subfolders.
   
2. Hold down the ALT key and click on the Lightroom Desktop icon. You will be presented with a dialog box asking you which catalog to open. Use the dialog box to point Lightroom to the new location. At the same time you can also specific that you want that catalog to be opened whenever Lightroom is started and you can also run a check on the catalog's integrity.

ChrisMc73 wrote in post #11769996
How can I move my catalog location in Lightroom 3?
The back up that runs when I exit Lightroom is on my main OS drive which is a nice SSD but it doesn't have a lot of space, and I don't want my backups being stored on there.

So I'd like to point Lightroom to a different internal drive on my MacPro, but I'm not seeing where I can do this? The catalog and backups are all stored on the SSD drive under users/myusername/pictu​res/lightroom, but I'd like this somewhere else on a different drive.

Do I just need to create a new catalog in the location I want it to be, then import all the pictures/files from where they are being stored?

PixelMagic wrote in post #11770828
You don't have to replicate the entire folder path when moving your Lightroom catalog; it can reside just about anywhere.

1. Close Lightroom then use Finder to move the Lightroom Folder to your preferred location. Note that the Lightroom Folder contains sub-folders so be sure to move the actual Lightroom Folder and not the subfolders.
   
2. Hold down the ALT key and click on the Lightroom Desktop icon. You will be presented with a dialog box asking you which catalog to open. Use the dialog box to point Lightroom to the new location. At the same time you can also specific that you want that catalog to be opened whenever Lightroom is started and you can also run a check on the catalog's integrity.

This was what I was looking for, thank you, it worked perfect!

PixelMagic wrote in post #11770828
You don't have to replicate the entire folder path when moving your Lightroom catalog; it can reside just about anywhere.

1. Close Lightroom then use Finder to move the Lightroom Folder to your preferred location. Note that the Lightroom Folder contains sub-folders so be sure to move the actual Lightroom Folder and not the subfolders.
   
2. Hold down the ALT key and click on the Lightroom Desktop icon. You will be presented with a dialog box asking you which catalog to open. Use the dialog box to point Lightroom to the new location. At the same time you can also specific that you want that catalog to be opened whenever Lightroom is started and you can also run a check on the catalog's integrity.

Excellent explanation! I was trying to figure out the best way to do it, and this is definitely the best I've heard/ read!

Thanks for sharing, and Great question,
Jay

jason324 wrote in post #11774869
Excellent explanation! I was trying to figure out the best way to do it, and this is definitely the best I've heard/ read!

Thanks for sharing, and Great question,
Jay

Jason, this was the question that I was going to ask you, that I had replied to another comment of yours on another thread and asked "mind if I PM you a question", so disregard that question now, its been answered here.

Yeah I figured that Chris

Thanks,
Jay