# Copying (not moving) photos and catalogs to external drive



## Jaycohen13 (Oct 6, 2014)

Hello all:

I am brand new to this forum and am still relatively new at LR. 
All of my photos are stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to COPY my photos and catalogs to an external hard drive for safety reasons. 
I have seen instructions on how to MOVE photos/catalogs to an external drive, but I want to make a copy so that the photos are still on my computer AND on the external drive.
Can anyone tell me the best way to handle this?

Thank you SO much in advance for any knowledge you can share with me.


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## tspear (Oct 6, 2014)

If you are looking to backup the images, then search for backup lightroom. There are plenty of articles and methods, and even a few plugins. 
Beyond that to copy the images, you can either choose to export them from Lightroom, or open Finder/Explorer and just copy the image files via the OS.

Tim


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## Jaycohen13 (Oct 6, 2014)

tspear said:


> If you are looking to backup the images, then search for backup lightroom. There are plenty of articles and methods, and even a few plugins.
> Beyond that to copy the images, you can either choose to export them from Lightroom, or open Finder/Explorer and just copy the image files via the OS.
> 
> Tim



Thanks for the response, Tim. This was the conclusion I was coming to.


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## clee01l (Oct 6, 2014)

Welcome to the forum.  What you are really needing is a system wide backup of ALL of your critical data.  There is no better bulletproof backup app than TimeMachine that ships with OSX.  If you have an EHD that will support the critical data and version history of that data, then all you need to do is run Time Machine in the background.  It is painless and unobtrusive. 

It will protect your critical data from the eventual failure of the primary HDD.  Local backup will not protect from Fire, Flood or other pestilence.  For that you need an offsite solution.  Crashplan for ~$60/year will back up all of your critical date to the cloud.


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## Deeha (Oct 8, 2014)

Been struggling with a solution for this problem and still haven't found the answer I like. What I do is to make a note of the photos that I have added to LR and copy those originals to the backup drive. It's pretty cumbersome especially since I make another copy on a second drive. Copying the catalogue across is quite easy.

Recently I started a third drive backup using time machine (call me paranoid but I've had some bad experience) but since my computer drive is getting filled up I worry that if I delete any of the originals due to space issues, Time Machine too will delete these from the backup.
I do have the converted jpg final photos on my computer drive and don't back them up.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 8, 2014)

Deeha said:


> Been struggling with a solution for this problem and still haven't found the answer I like. What I do is to make a note of the photos that I have added to LR and copy those originals to the backup drive. It's pretty cumbersome especially since I make another copy on a second drive. Copying the catalogue across is quite easy.
> 
> Recently I started a third drive backup using time machine (call me paranoid but I've had some bad experience) but since my computer drive is getting filled up I worry that if I delete any of the originals due to space issues, Time Machine too will delete these from the backup.
> I do have the converted jpg final photos on my computer drive and don't back them up.



Hi, welcome to the forum.

I'm not going to call you paranoid....I also take three backups at a time, one of which is part of a cycle of three portable drives, which are cycled off-site (my version of CrashPlan). So at any time I have 6 copies of my data if you include the original. 

But I never need to ever make notes of what data I need to backup as I use a dedicated backup utility to do this (SyncToy on my main Windows platform, but also ChronoSync on my MBP). I would seriously advise to start using a backup utility such as Chronosync, which will take care of all that remembering to write down what needs to be backed up. Used as a system-wide utility, it will back up all the data you tell it to (images, catalogs, music, documents, application settings, etc.)....but will only process whatever has changed since the last backup. It will also do full bootable image backups if required, also on an incremental (i.e. what's changed) basis.

I haven't investigated TimeMachine at all, so I don't know if it will do multiple backups (i.e. the same backup to multiple drives) at the same time, Cletus will know that.


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## clee01l (Oct 8, 2014)

Jim Wilde said:


> ... I haven't investigated TimeMachine at all, so I don't know if it will do multiple backups (i.e. the same backup to multiple drives) at the same time, Cletus will know that.


TimeMachine will let you set up to multiple local backup drives.  It will also let you backup to a networked NAS (TimeCapsule) and at least one local drive.  When there are multiple backup destinations, TimeMachine will take turns backing up to a different volume each scheduled backup.  

TimeMachine keeps version of the unique files on your HDD. If  TM backs up a file on June 1st and you delete the file on July 1st, you can on October go back to the June 1st's backup and recover that file. However, this is not a useful solution to freeing up space on a local volume.  If you have images cataloged in LR and you want to keep them, add another volume and (using the LR Folder panel) move the seldom used image files to another volume.  I keep the last three months of cataloged images on my volume labeled "MacIntosh HD"  After ~3 months I probably have finished post processing and the images just need to be available if I print or export.  When these images have aged sufficiently, I drag the folders (using the LR Folder panel) to the location on another Volume that I have named ImageArchive.   TimeMachine backs up both volumes to a larger third volume. 

If space is a problem, are you automatically creating Smart Previews?  These are only necessary if you use them for LR Mobile or have a laptop with your master images stored on a removable drive that may not be available if you go portable.  I do not keep Smart Previews since I do not us LR Mobile and my Master catalog in on my desktop with permanently attached External HDDS.  This alone can free up Gigabytes of space. 

Deeha, You are not unique to keep multiple backups. In addition to Time Machine, I use Crash Plan to backup to a local drive (this is a free backup app) Since backing up locally only protects against HD failure or stupid user mistakes, I still am at risk of losing all copies of my critical data to fire, flood or pestilence.   For this reason I have subscribed to CrashPlan's cloud backup service.  So I have a third backup to the cloud incase I have to recover all of my critical data from a catastrophe.


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## Deeha (Oct 9, 2014)

Thanks Jim and Cletus. It's apparent I need to change my file handling method of copying files and let either Time Machine or Chronosync handle it for me. Looked up Chronosync and it does do synchronising apart from backups and looks great. 
I like the concept of keeping three months catalogue images and moving them to another volume as an image archive after sometime. 
I do use smart previews as I find it convenient. The space issue has stemmed from a variety of issues including converting the final images to jpg in a separate folder set,  doing a lot of scan and retouch work of old photos and dabbling with mov files 
I do keep one of the backup drives offsite. 
Thanks again for the great advise. This should help the file management of the OP as well.


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## Sodapop (Oct 14, 2014)

I want to copy my photos from one external drive to another external drive that I have. I do not want to move them, just copy them. I would like to retain the same file structure, collections,  keywords, etc. Is this possible?


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## clee01l (Oct 14, 2014)

Sodapop said:


> I want to copy my photos from one external drive to another external drive that I have. I do not want to move them, just copy them. I would like to retain the same file structure, collections,  keywords, etc. Is this possible?


Yes, but this is not a LR related question. In Windows explorer select the top most folder in the source volume and drag it to the target volume.  Windows operations between volumes default to copy.  Only Windows operations within the same volume default to move


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 14, 2014)

The question isn't entirely clear. Are you saying that you want to copy the photos to another external drive *and then have Lightroom reference the photos from that new copy*?

If so, copy the photos outside Lightroom using Explorer, taking care to maintain the same folder structure. Then, when the copy is complete, in Lightroom right-click on the top-level folder in the Folders Panel and select "Update Folder Location". In the resulting file browser, navigate to and select the new copy of that folder on the new external drive. Lightroom will then switch it's reference links to the new drive for all the folders and files, whilst maintaining all your Lightroom work (collections, keywords, etc.).


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## Sodapop (Oct 14, 2014)

Jim Wilde said:


> The question isn't entirely clear. Are you saying that you want to copy the photos to another external drive *and then have Lightroom reference the photos from that new copy*?
> 
> If so, copy the photos outside Lightroom using Explorer, taking care to maintain the same folder structure. Then, when the copy is complete, in Lightroom right-click on the top-level folder in the Folders Panel and select "Update Folder Location". In the resulting file browser, navigate to and select the new copy of that folder on the new external drive. Lightroom will then switch it's reference links to the new drive for all the folders and files, whilst maintaining all your Lightroom work (collections, keywords, etc.).



Thanks for both replies. I will copy via explorer..


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## Aoraki (May 31, 2021)

clee01l said:


> TimeMachine will let you set up to multiple local backup drives.  It will also let you backup to a networked NAS (TimeCapsule) and at least one local drive.  When there are multiple backup destinations, TimeMachine will take turns backing up to a different volume each scheduled backup.
> 
> TimeMachine keeps version of the unique files on your HDD. If  TM backs up a file on June 1st and you delete the file on July 1st, you can on October go back to the June 1st's backup and recover that file. However, this is not a useful solution to freeing up space on a local volume.  If you have images cataloged in LR and you want to keep them, add another volume and (using the LR Folder panel) move the seldom used image files to another volume.  I keep the last three months of cataloged images on my volume labeled "MacIntosh HD"  After ~3 months I probably have finished post processing and the images just need to be available if I print or export.  When these images have aged sufficiently, I drag the folders (using the LR Folder panel) to the location on another Volume that I have named ImageArchive.   TimeMachine backs up both volumes to a larger third volume.
> 
> ...


Time machine isn't full proof. I recently found when shifting to a new Macbook and an upgraded OS that I could not access earlier Time Machine saves. It's certainly easy, can do multiple drives but maybe the likes of Carbon Copy Cloner


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## clee01l (Jun 1, 2021)

Aoraki said:


> Time machine isn't full proof. I recently found when shifting to a new Macbook and an upgraded OS that I could not access earlier Time Machine saves. It's certainly easy, can do multiple drives but maybe the likes of Carbon Copy Cloner


But it is "foolproof".  As designed you can only access the backups of the one computer you are on.  The migration assistant will let you restore from a backup of a foreign computer (the old computer).   The ability to backup FROM multiple drives or TO multiple destinations is the feature that I was promoting for the OP.  And the most important feature is that it is an included free app.


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