Combining 2 different catalogues

[petermarrek]

Recently spent several months in Mexico and the SW-US, took over 4000 photos and started a new LR catalogue to store and keep the files. Learned to organize them better by storing all the files on an external HD( damm files tutorial) but now that I am home want to do the same with my existing LRcatalogue which has all my files scattered over several hard drives (poor housekeeping on my part, 29,000 files). I do not want to re-do everything but want the files to reside on a new external HD. what would be the best(simplest way to do this? Peter

[john beardsworth]

To consolidate catalogues - File > Import from Catalog. Do this first.

To move pictures around, if they are already recorded in Lightroom then move them around in Lightroom and not in Explorer or Finder. If they are not already in Lightroom, you have the choice. Import them and use Lightroom to move them, or move them in Explorer / Finder first and then import. And make sure you have everything backed up first.