Lightroom catalog tutorial: Using catalogs between two computers

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Lightroom catalog management is something that can trip up new and long time users alike, especially when trying to work with Lightroom Classic on two different computers. In this video, I walk you through how to merge two Lightroom catalogs between computers.
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[@shootstuff_se]

You, my Dear Sir, are a life saver. You just saved me hours and hours of work.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Glad to hear this was helpful!

[@michaelwesolowski1065]

You the Lightroom Classic man! Been trying to wrap my head around using a new desktop build built for 4K editing (should handle LRC with ease) while still being able to work on the road via a laptop. Thanks for making this a much easier process.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Awesome! Glad I was able to help you out. 🙂

[@HP2441]

Outstanding. Thank you. I've struggled with this for the past 3 years. Can't wait for my next trip to use this method!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Glad to hear it helped you!

[@marcomaltes1688]

Great video, this helped me a lot! In case any body wonders, this works on MacBook (my travel pc) and Windows (home workstation). I was searching for a way to work out of home but stay organized at home, thank you so much!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

I’m glad it helped you out!

[@WimSijses]

Thank you very much. This is helpfull information when using both laptop and desktop.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

I’m glad you found it helpful!

[@annajison3690]

Thank you very much for the clear and very informative video.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You’re very welcome!

[@thecherishedlife]

Thanks for really simplifying this!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You’re very welcome!

[@noamanpatel9424]

Hey Michael, thanks for making this video. Very helpful and informative!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Glad it was helpful!

[@johnnyismybro]

Michael, i appreciate the information you give - it is tiring though, to go through several minutes of introduction until you come to the relevant steps. no offence, thanks for your video.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

I appreciate the feedback!

[@julessutton2773]

Thank you for that clarification.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You’re welcome!

[@mypersonalphotosite]

Thanks!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Thank you for the contribution!

[@julessutton2773]

This is great, but you don’t mention whether this adds your laptop catalogue to your desktop one, or replaces it.

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

I believe I do clarify that, but if not, it adds it via the Import Catalog process. Whichever catalog you have open on your desktop will “ingest” the imported catalog without changing what was already there.

[@annajison3690]

Thank you for the clarification..

[@jirby100]

Michael. Excellent video - you addressed my precise question. However, a couple of follow-up questions. My travel laptop is a newly purchased MacBook Pro and my desk top is a Windows 11 pc. Are you aware of any problems moving my travel catalog from a Mac to a pc? And second, in the field, do you load your raw photos onto your laptop's hard drive or onto the external drive? I assume in either case, once files are safely transferred to your desktop system (and backed up) you then purge the photos from laptop (or external travel drive). Thanks again. Jim

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Hi Jim, apologies for not responding sooner: I was traveling. Regarding your first question around Mac and PC, there’s no issue aside from the format of any external drive. Most drives formatted on PC use NTFS, but Mac can’t (natively) read that format. There are apps you can install, however, that resolves that issue. However you get the catalog files moved back and forth, rest assured that the actual files are fully interchangeable between both operating systems. As for my file workflow, at the very least I save the raw files to my laptop’s internal drive, but sometimes I also make duplicate copies - via the Lr import setting - to an external drive, as well. Just kind of “as the mood strikes” kind of thing. I generally purge the laptop files a few weeks after merging things into my main catalog on the desktop.

[@miltonbliss6020]

Do you have to pay for Lightroom twice? Once for the laptop and once for the home computer?

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Not at all! It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on the terms, but you still get at least two installs per subscription.

[@chibouki]

Hello Michael. Thanks for that great video ! I'm a bit confused by one thing though. I've noticed that you don't have any .XMPs when browsing your exported folders. Don't you need these files to retain the modifications you applied to some (or all) RAWs or does exporting to a catalog simply superseeds this need ?

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Saving XMP sidecars is, to an extent, an alternative to using multiple catalogs that are later merged together. I personally never bother with saving XMP like that as it doesn’t really serve any purpose given my needs (and, in my opinion, the needs of the vast majority of LrC users). In the workflow I use, the catalog has all the corresponding data that’s needed.

[@chibouki]

@@MichaelRungPhotography Wonderful ! As with many things with LRC, there are numerous ways to acheive the same goal. But clearly, using exported catalogs to save edit data seems more straightforward for the average user than using XMPs. Thanks for clearing that up Michael and thanks for the swift response :)

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You’re welcome!

[@bewildurd]

Can't you just plug your laptop into your network when you get back home, then use "Import from another catalog"?

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

If you’re comfortable doing it over a shared network, I assume that would work as long as Lightroom sees the laptop as a drive (for lack of a better way to put it). Depending on your network speeds, using an SSD and fast wired connection may be faster, too. Anyways, there are different ways to approach it for sure. 🙂

[@manosalexakis]

Hello Michael. I own a small studio with a nas server. We store all our files there. In order to edit we need to move the catalog on a local hdd or on the Mac desktop. That is slow and inconvenient. We need to click each directly from the nas server instead. Lightroom says it cannot open a catalog on an online nas server (Synology ds923). We have bypassed it for our windows pc with a line of code but we cannot do it on our 4 other macs. Is there a solution? I could defined pay for a solution of that kind. Or if there is someone on this comment sections. Thanks!

[@mypersonalphotosite]

You deserve more but im retired. Lol

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

No worries, it's always very appreciated!

[@krenkurts5054]

Could this system work with an iPad Pro 11"?

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You would need to take a very different approach with an iPad since it’s centered on the Adobe Cloud ecosystem for file management. At a very high level: Import on iPad, allow everything to sync up to the cloud, then sync the full files down into Lr Classic. There’s more to it than that, but you wouldn’t need to do any importing or exporting of catalog files as the mobile versions are fundamentally different from Classic in terms of all the file and data management stuff.

[@billymoellendick8285]

Hey Michael, I know this is going to sound crazy but I essentially edit my files and then export them to both OneDrive and to an external hard drive. Can I just purchase 2 separate licenses under different emails ... that I currently have on my at home desktop and another for my new laptop? Then I would not have to worry at all about mixing them up and corrupting everything. I have had this happen once and it was a nightmare to get it all straightened back out. I know it would be another $120.00 a year for the additional license but I think it would be worth it. I realize that if I downloaded photos off the card while traveling to my laptop I would have to complete them there but again.. for me and my computer addled brain I think it would be worth it. Am I missing something thinking this is a possible way to deal with this?

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Just to clarify, you essentially mean keeping two entirely separate catalogs, one on your home desktop and the other on your new laptop, and never merging them? If so, yes, you _could_ do that, but I wouldn't recommend it. The first drawback that comes to mind is you'd lose the ability to organize and search across all your photos as they'd be completely separate, with no way to link the two catalogs. So, perhaps you have a specific photo you want to view/edit but you can't recall when it was taken, what computer it's on, etc. If you wouldn't plan on ever merging them together at some point, you wouldn't even really need a separate account, as long as you would be okay not syncing one of the catalogs to the Adobe cloud (you can only sync one catalog per account). That would save you money as you'd just create a second catalog for your laptop, but you'll still have the same issue re: searching and organizing. My gut tells me there are other likely drawbacks, but I'm not coming up with any at the moment. I'd also caution you to think long term: what happens as both catalogs get bigger and bigger, and what happens when it comes time to replace the desktop or laptop. Would you just add yet another catalog? Probably not, so you'll be transferring one or both catalogs to a new system eventually anyways... might as make your life easier and keep things nice and tidy for your current usage, too. :) As long as you're following the steps to ensure you have proper catalog backups before you merge catalogs, corruption should be a non-issue as you would just roll back to the backup you created before the merging process.

[@billymoellendick8285]

@@MichaelRungPhotography you have given me something to think about. I don’t keep anything in the Lightroom Catalog. Once I have edited the photos I export everything to OneDrive and an external hard drive. I have them all organized there by date and location so I don’t have any problem finding photos. But I may try to set up a separate catalog for the laptop and save the $. I appreciate the video and the response!!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

You’re very welcome!

[@jvo8673]

Thanks!

[@MichaelRungPhotography]

Thanks so much for the kind donation!