Help needed with settings

[huguito]

My question is about Lightroom, I know there is a dedicated Lightroom forum on the website, but a similar question a few days ago generated not much help for me.

Besides the people in this corner are proven to be super knowledgeable, helpful and good looking.

Now, after the brownnosing is completed, to the question.

I just moved to Mac, and started to use Lighroom.
My pictures are kept on a external drive.
I have it working with the catalog and preview beingstored on the Mac drive.
Is there a way to change the settings so from now on Catalog and previews get stored on the external drive?
I backup often that external to another external very often.

Thanks

Hugo   

[hugowolf]

Can't you just move, or copy, the catalog to the exernal drive using the Mac Finder, then open the open the catalog from Lr on its new drive. Seems worth a try - if the catalog is too large for a test, just create a new catalog, with a few images, on the internal, close it, copy it to the external, and try to open it in the new location from Lr.

Brian A

[huguito]

Hi Hugowolf

I did just that, but when opening the catalog settings still shows that the place where Lightroom writes and updates catalog and preview thumbnails is the file in the MAC's hardrive.

What I am looking for, if possible, is the way to tell Lightroom from now on to write and update on the set of previews and the catalog on the external drive.

If that's not possible, I am willing to delete the catalog and set it up again, but I would like to know how to instruct Lightroom to save the previews and update files on the external.

That way, when I backup, everything will be backed up, Photos, catalog and previews.

Hugo

[cortlander]

In Lightroom/catalog settings/General there is a location setting where you can choose where you want the catalog to be. Previews, I think, are created in the same directory as the catalog.

[digitaldog]

I did just that, but when opening the catalog settings still shows that the place where Lightroom writes and updates catalog and preview thumbnails is the file in the MAC's hardrive.

Move everything where you want it (I'd dedicate an external drive for photo's, catalog and all associated settings that can live there). Double click on the catalog on that drive, you're all set. LR will remember you opened that catalog from that drive. Delete the old files too.

[huguito]

Thanks Andrew
Sounds exactly like what I was looking for.

[hugowolf]

Sorry, I should have been more explicit. You would need to File, Open Catalog...m then browse to the new location. I hadn't thought of double clicking, but that should work too.

Brian A