# How to keep two catalogs of my library in 2 different external hard drives?



## Don1462 (Sep 1, 2012)

Hi, I have lightroom 3 and once I have finished editing my photos I export them to an external hard drive, using Lightroom and the delete them from my laptop. This was all my photos, keywords still appear in lightroom. Now i would like to make a second copy of catalog and photos in a second hard drive. Whenever I download new photos to my computer I put all photos for a given shoot in one folder and name the folder according to the subject and date. so I have probably hundreds of folders in my first hard drive. I would like the exact hierarchy to also appear when I connect my second hard drive. I was wondering if that's possible and if there's an easy way to do it.  This is my first post in this forum and I would appreciate any help/advice. Thanks


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 3, 2012)

Hi Don, welcome to the forum!  Sorry for the delay in replying.

So let me just check that I understand what you're doing....

You originally import your new photos to your laptop hard drive, and once you've finished editing, you copy the originals to the first external hard drive - and do you then link LR with that new location, so it looks at the external hard drive for the photos?

And then you basically want a replica of the first external on the second hard drive?

Where are you keeping the catalog itself - on the external hard drives or on the laptop drive?

And what are you going to use the second external for?


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## Don1462 (Sep 3, 2012)

Hi Victoria, thank you for replying
yes that's pretty much as you described. I keep my catalog on my laptop. Once I finish editing and have exported my files to first drive using lightroom, I then delete them from my laptop and remove the folder from lightroom library. The second drive is simply a second back up. When I travel I only take one of the drives with me not both. You're obviously a lot more experienced that I am, so is what I'm trying to do unnecessary, is there a more logical approach?

PS I only remove the folder from lightroom that is in my laptop not the one in first drive.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 4, 2012)

When you say you remove them from your Lightroom library, do you mean the catalog (so you can no longer view them within LR) or just from LR's folders on the laptop hard drive?

If I was doing it, I'd probably keep the catalog on the laptop, as you are, but I'd import direct to the first drive to save moving things around.  I'd then use backup or file sync software such as Chronosync to keep the second drive as a mirrored copy of the first.  And I'd keep them in LR's catalog on the laptop so I could still browse even if both drives were offline.


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## Don1462 (Sep 4, 2012)

Victoria Bampton said:


> When you say you remove them from your Lightroom library, do you mean the catalog (so you can no longer view them within LR) or just from LR's folders on the laptop hard drive?


I do both, remove lightroom library folder as well as laptop folder. Every time I go out for a photo shoot I take hundreds of photos and in no time my laptop hard drive would reach fully capacity. 
Can you please explain how you would keep both drives in LR as I wasn't able to do that, it gave a message saying those files are already in the library.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 5, 2012)

Ah, I think that's where we're at cross-purposes Don.  If only the catalog is on the internal drive, and the photos are always stored on the external drive, then it shouldn't fill up your laptop hard drive too much - it would only take up the size of the previews, not the full photos.

I wouldn't suggesting importing the photos twice.  If the photos are imported to drive1, and then you plug in drive2 with an exact copy of those same files, you'd just right-click on the missing folder and select Find Missing Folder to link it to the same folder on drive2.  No reimporting required (otherwise you'd lose all of your settings each time).


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## Don1462 (Sep 5, 2012)

thanks for your reply Victoria. Yes, but as I am not able to import folders when second drive into lightroom there would not be any missing folders to start with.
I found another way which takes a lot longer as I have over 130 folders. I open lightroom, find the folder in drive a in the library, and export the whole folder to the second drive. considering that i have over 7000 photos (mostly raw files and mostly very large) and many folders and I have to do this for each single folder it takes a lot of time, but at the end of the day the second drive folders show up in lightroom library


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 5, 2012)

That was why I suggested using Chronosync or suchlike to actually create the copy on the other drive.  It's made for that kind of job.  Exporting the whole lot to the second drive works, to a point, but it's not very efficient for regularly updating.


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## Don1462 (Sep 5, 2012)

I have found a application that came with my second drive (western digital), it auto synchronizes between two chosen folders. I have started the process, it will probably take a few hours. I'll see if I could then, once synchronized display both in library.  I'll let you know tomorrow thank you very much


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## NJHeart2Heart (Sep 5, 2012)

Hi Don,
Further to your question and Victoria's answer, LR will ONLY access the actual image files in ONE location per file at a time. If, as Victoria suggests, you import directly to the first drive, LR will reference the photos at that hard drive location. If you then make a mirror image of your photo files on the backup drive and connect your backup drive to your laptop, LR will NOT see where your photo files are on that second drive. Upon opening LR will look for your first drive, and seeing that it is not connected, will show ??s on all your photo folders. That's why she stated that if you connect your 2nd hard drive to the computer, you need to tell LR where to find your photo files. 

In your initial post, you did not mention if your photo folders are within one large folder (ie "my pictures" or "my lightroom photos" or "photographs"). If you place ALL of your photo folders within this one umbrella folder, it makes it very easy for LR to re-locate your entire collection since once you tell it where the parent folder is, it will see all the underlying folders as well. If you do not contain all of your separate photo folders under this umbrella folder, you would have to show LR where each individual folder is on your external hard drive.

I hope this helps clarify that part of the process.


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## Don1462 (Sep 5, 2012)

Thank you very much for your reply. May be my explanation was not very clear. But since my last post I tried the export method for individual folders: this is what I did. i connected my first drive Transcend 750 GB (E) which has all my picture folders, then I chose one of these folders (all this from within Lightroom), I pressed ctrl + A to select all the files, pressed export, chose an identically named folder in the second drive (Western Digital 1TB (F)), so for example F:\Pictures\Turkey 2012 and clicked export. The files were exported to the second drive, while the originals still reside in the first drive. And now both folders are displayed in lightroom library, so drive E\Pictures\Turkey 2012 and F\Pictures\Turkey 2012. The problem with this method is I have to do this 132 times for the 132 folders I have in my drive E. What I would like to do is use a program such as Victoria mentioned and synchronize both drives without using Lightroom. Then open lightroom, and have folder structure from the second drive (as well as the first drive) be displayed.

I have attached a screen shot, hope that makes it more clear. drive c obviously is laptop, drive e and f are the two drives, I have collapsed both, and both are right now connected to my laptop the Turkey 2012 folder is available in both drives.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Sep 5, 2012)

Hi Don,
I think you might be making your process more complicated then it needs to be. You do not need to export any photos out of Lightroom, nor do you need to delete photos/folders within LR.

Your first goal was to change the location of your existing photos which are filling up your laptop drive, to your external drive. You do not need to export any photos out of Lightroom, nor do you need to delete photos/folders within LR.

Here is a modified excerpt from another recent post: (original posted by Jim Wilde "TNG")

1. You already have an external drive, which I assume has an "umbrella folder" (this is important) which contains SOME of your subfolders - the photo shoots that you've already exported/moved using your previous workflow.

First, connect your external drive to your laptop.
Inside the Lightroom Library Module, click on the '+' sign at the right-hand end of the Folders Panel header and select "Add Folder". 
In the resulting file browser, navigate to your external drive's "umbrella" folder, click on it to select it and then click on "Select Folder". Now LR is aware of this umbrella folder.
Instead of exporting your photos, you can now simply "drag and drop" your folders, within the library module/folders panel, from your internal drive onto that new folder (you can drag and drop multiples holding CTRL down while clicking multiple folders). 

By doing this in LR it does two things: it MOVES your image files to the external drive/folder, thereby freeing space on your internal drive, while maintaining the reference to the locations of your image folders and files. You can move all but your most recent projects to that umbrella folder on your external drive.

The catalog remains on your laptop as always and as long as you move your folders WITHIN lightroom, it will now reference all of your photos in their respective locations - current work on your laptop, and edited stuff on your external drive. They can both peacefully co-exist in your folders panel.

You also had another goal, make a backup copy of your photos in a way that you can easily re-connect your backup to your laptop and have LR "KNOW" where those photos are:

First, you need to use an EXTERNAL program to copy your umbrella folder, with all it's photo shoot folders, from your external drive to your SECOND drive. Make a copy of your photo files onto a second drive.

OK. You've copied your image files onto your back-up copy, and for some reason you can't use your original external drive. 
Connect your backup drive to the computer.

When you start Lightroom, since you do not have access to your original external drive, LR will show your umbrella folder and all it's photo shoot folders with ???s on them - It doesn't have access to the locations of those folders. Sooo.. here's where it's soo important to have an umbrella folder...Right click on the PARENT folder- the UMBRELLA folder within lightroom, and click on the option that says something like "find my photos". In the dialog box that comes up, navigate to your BACKUP hard drive, to the UMBRELLA folder on that drive, which is identical to your original hard drive folder.
Select that folder, I think you hit "select folder" again, and LR will then re-connect the umbrella folder. Once it re-connects to the umbrella folder, it will then also re-connect to all the separate photo shoot folders within.

Your current workflow:

Import photo files to laptop drive 
Edit photos 
Connect your external drive.
DRAG AND DROP, within Lightroom the photos from within the laptop hard drive to external drive, in order to re-gain space on your laptop drive
Back-up your external hard drive to the secondary hard drive.

ALTERNATIVELY,

and the way a lot of people do it, is to import your image files DIRECTLY to your external drive, to save time moving files from your laptop later.
You can edit your photos while they are on the hard drive. Just make sure the external drive is connected.

Keep in mind that all these processes do NOT back-up your photos, catalog, or your preferences/presets/keywords *that are stored in your laptop hard drive*. You need to back-up those files regularly as well. You can back-up your catalog through Lightroom, but that STILL will not Back-up your laptop files. 

If you need clarification on that aspect let us know.

Hope that helps!
Dawn


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## Don1462 (Sep 6, 2012)

Thank you NJHeart2Heart and Victoria for your time. I read your detailed instructions and this is what I did, which worked for me. As you both mentioned I used an external program to synchronize the picture folder on both drives. My first drive is already available in Lightroom library. Then I clicked the 'add folder' as you mentioned, and chose the picture folder (the parent folder) in the second drive and lightroom import dialog was opened. It displayed all my photos from the second drive but almost all photos didn't have a check box next to them. So I unchecked the 'Don't import duplicates', and I finally clicked import button. It took a while but now both drives are displayed in my library. Once again thank you very much to you both.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 6, 2012)

Hang on Don, do you understand exactly what you've done there?  Now the photos exist in LR's catalog twice, so they can end up with different settings on different drives.  Was that really what you intended to do?  I'm still not sure I understand why you want both drives plugged in and active at the same time.


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## Don1462 (Sep 6, 2012)

> Now the photos exist in LR's catalog twice


Yes, that was my intention. Whether that's a good thing or not, I am not sure. As you mentioned if I change one photo in one drive it would be different to the same photo in the other drive, but wouldn't that be the case whatever approach I take?


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## Don1462 (Sep 6, 2012)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh now I understand what you guys are saying, think I've made a mess of it. What should I do? should I remove the lightroom folders that link to second drive? (not the actual folder/photos, just the link in lightroom?


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## Mark Sirota (Sep 6, 2012)

That's what I do. I have basically the same setup, with multiple identical external drives containing identical folder trees which hold my photos. All that differs is the drive name. Lightroom knows about only one of these.

In the case of failure of the primary (the one Lightroom knows about), I would either rename the backup drive to the name of the primary, or point Lightroom at the backup. Either is a trivial operation.

The thing that could foul this up is if you do anything in Lightroom which would modify the contents of that primary drive. That is, if you're writing out XMP data, it will only go to the primary. If you convert to DNG or rename or remove files, or update DNG previews, or anything like that, it will only update the primary. Your backup system may then update the backup copy, but be careful -- accidents or corruption would then propagate to the backup.

I've set up my workflow such that those folder trees are read-only so I don't have to worry about any of that. When files are imported they are renamed on import, then copied to each drive so that I have multiple copies, then marked read-only. Only when that process is complete do I reformat my camera cards. And my system backups do not include those drives, since there are already backed up and never change.


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## Don1462 (Sep 6, 2012)

> Only when that process is complete do I reformat my camera cards. And my  system backups do not include those drives, since there are already  backed up and never change.


What if you decide to edit one of your archived files? How would you proceed?
Right now I have an external program that synchronizes the two drives, and I have noticed there are XMP data in the folders.


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## Mark Sirota (Sep 6, 2012)

Don1462 said:


> What if you decide to edit one of your archived files? How would you proceed?



If by "edit" you mean to fiddle with metadata or Develop settings, I'd just go ahead and do it. The original files and folders are never touched by Lightroom for that purpose.

If you see XMP files, you probably have "Automatically write changes into XMP" checked in the Catalog Settings dialog (Metadata tab). Unless you need this (like if you also view your files with Bridge), uncheck it and then you won't have XMP files messing up your folders.

If you need the XMP files, though, then you're stuck with 'em. Synchronizing the drives is a good solution in this case, you just have to be careful not to propagate mistakes or corruption, or you need a way to recover from it if you detect it later.


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## mcpdigital (Sep 30, 2012)

Hi, this is my first post and the information here for sure helped me to quick understand the LR approach. Although I like very much the benefits of the database organization used in LR, it seems I will have to change my workflow radically to fit my specific needs.
Please let me know if this is considered hijacking a thread and if possible move to a new if that is the case.
How I do that now:
Basically I have 4 Windows 7 x64 PCs running at least one  version of PS and Bridge (CS5 or CS6).
Only two computers have LR 4 installed, my Desktop and my Notebook.
Everyone of this computers have a folder named 0-MASTER in Drive E:. My family is already trained since long ago to always use this folder to store pictures from any device, inside sub-folders named by year and camera / phone model.
Those computers have duplicate files between them, but each one of them can have images that are not in the other computers 0-MASTER.
Joining the gang, there is a 2TB external disk that has every single image and folder of all the 4 computers. So everything in this external disk came from the internal PCs disks, and maybe they are not in their original locations anymore, they have been deleted from internal.
So what I want is, use my standalone computers with those 0-MASTER folders imported to LR, and be able to "export", save or synchronize with the External 0-MASTER. The computers without LR will keep the todays sync method (SyncToy).
Well after all that explanation, my questions are about the best way to create the local catalogs for each of the two LR computers in a way I could maintain the same workflow as before. 
I want to be sure the files in the external drive are updated and accessible to all other computers by connecting the External drive, and if I modify any file in Bridge they will later be reflected on the external drive after some kind of sync.
The only two computers where I edit the same image but in different places are the ones with LR. The others usually have images from family events and if edited it will be locally only.
Please taking the described scenario in  consideration where should I start. Various catalogs with the same name on each computer, a catalog for the external disk or try to replicate or export catalogs between computers and the external drive.
Wow, sorry for the long post.

Thank you.
MCP


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 30, 2012)

Hi mcpdigital, welcome to the forum!

Oh boy!!  That is quite a tangle you're potentially creating there, which will require quite a lot of management.  Are you sure you want to do that?

Is it only you who will be working with the photos?


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## mcpdigital (Oct 1, 2012)

Hi, thank you Victoria.
It seems more complicated than it really is. I just wanted to cover what really happens.
In todays workflow, it is just a matter of sync each one of the computers with the external disk using one way from internal disk to external. Simple and efficient.
Obviously I could stay with the same workflow but what worries me now is the idea I cannot edit the files in the LR library using other editors or even bridge+ACR+Photoshop with changes in metadata or other stuff. I hope I understood it wrong that is not a good idea to change files outside LR. 
But all of this questions is because I really would like to free my notebook hard drive and start using the external drive to view and edit images. The photos that I use more frequently I used to maintain in the internal disk but it just can't handle with 500GB disk. So I will start using the external disk attached to the notebook and keep all the files in the Desktop with LR.
So if I'm not lost, I wonder if the following idea is fine.
1- Create catalog 0-MASTER in the Desktop PC running LR and keep most used/cataloged images in the internal disks.
2- Create catalog using the notebook with all or most of the images from the external hard drive, with 75000 images. This catalog will be stored in the notebook.
3- The 2 other non LR computers will keep using Bridge and Ps and sync to the same external drive using SyncToy or similar or even pure copies.

Questions:
1- How should I backup the Desktop PC to external hard drive
2- Will LR in the Notebook be able to refresh the connections with the cataloged images in case of changes in the external disk images, in case it was edited in the Desktop PC and saved to the external disk. What about the new created images in the same folders as the original images that are new for at least the Notebook catalog. My edited and output files need to be included in both catalogs. 

Thanks for the time.
Marcelo


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 6, 2012)

Hi Marcelo, sorry for the delay in replying, was off sick.  It seems everyone else was scared off completely!!! 

You're quite right in understanding that it's not a good idea to change photos outside of LR - technically it's possible using XMP but it adds complications.  It's a database, not a browser.  If you change photos outside of LR, then LR won't know about those changes until you tell it to read the updated metadata.  And if you rename or move the files outside of LR, then LR will expect you to manually go find them again.

I'm still waiting on an answer as to whether it's just you or there are multiple people doing completely different edits to the same photos (i.e. do all of the photos need to be looking at the same settings or different settings?).  That would significantly influence my recommendations.  

If it's multiple people doing completely different edits, I'd carry on with your current sync setup to get the photos onto the external, and consider putting the catalog on there too, so it's available to both LR computers.

To be honest, it's such a minefield you're walking into there, it's boggling my brain slightly.


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## mcpdigital (Oct 7, 2012)

Thanks again Victoria. I hope you feel better and don't get sick with all my questions. This time I won't ask a lot.
Anyway,  I'm the only one editing my photos, and I believe I can control what really happens.

Since we talk last time, I already created the catalog for the entire  external disk and it is working fine with the notebook. I did a copy of  the catalog folder and put in my desktop and since all the drive letters  are the same and all the images are under a MASTER folder, it will  probably be easy to maintain. I've been working with computers since  there was no PC, even before the first TK85 and Comodores so I'm more  computer literate than photographer. 
In the past I have used IMatch, a powerful image database that was  available before Bridge became usable, and I used it  to create my own  queries as needed, creating what we call today Collections.
After Bridge, I just gave up IMatch and used Bridge happily. Today I'm  able to process 95% of my images inside ACR, using the tools available,  ND filter, correction brushes and so on, and thats why I ended up so  attached to Bridge, even though it is a file manager. Sure it is slow to  find images when you have almost 100.000 images, but is usable since  normally I select specific folders to work with.
From now on, I will change my workflow and use only the "commercial"  images with LR and keep the sync between computers to backup all the  images, all of them, the ones in catalogs and the ones outside catalogs.  I will use XMP sidecar files, to help with the modified files.


The copy catalog brought another annoyance. To copy the catalog to a  fast pendrive it took to something like 4 hours +, and my desktop would  probably read all the images and create previews faster than this copy  process. There were 100.000 folders and files inside the catalog folder  and it was consuming a mere 2 GB. Compress with ZIP or RAR  was not an  option, since it would take longer than just copy. This slowness can  become a reason not to use LR, more than all the personal management  needed. 
This is really annoying and will probably put a lot of people away from  single catalogs and single master folders. I will try to figure out some  kind of incremental copies instead of full catalog copies.
Another bad thing with thousands of small files is that I format my  storage based on the kind of files I will put inside the partition, so  for images, videos and other type of large files I use 64Kb clusters  when formatting and for small files like documents I use 4KB or max 16KB  clusters. Once again LR becomes a problem, XMP files are small as the  entire thousands of files and folders in catalog, making very  inefficient use of my storage. Remember, anything below 64KB will make  me loose at least 64KB. When talking about thousands it is simply  ridiculous the amount of storage that I loose, not to mention the  slowness of transferring and using those small files. For the last 10  years I was able to avoid XMP files because of this, and now I feel I'm  stepping backwards.
As a matter of fact I put the catalog in my other partitions with small  clusters, but this is another potential management nightmare.
At this moment I would say I'm disappointed with LR, because the  Database should be able to manage different computers, network disks and  so on. Thats the base of a database oriented solution and at the end LR  seems amateur in this area. Too many restrictions and limited  functions. Databases should be used to perform queries, and it should  not matter where the requests came from. Thats the reason why there are  lock mechanisms in databases since forever. It is used to avoid  inconsistency between different users changing the same registers. 
I know LR use lock but not for the reasons it should use it. 
Obviously I will not try to discuss Adobe approach since it seems to be a  successful product for non-computer geeks photographers and with the  last price reduction it is pretty inexpensive, maybe avoiding the need  to buy a 700 dollars Photoshop and helping photographers being more  productive. I cannot imagine a LR user opening Photoshop to enhance his  images, using actions and so on.Not in my case, unfortunately. 
All that said, I hope you as a LR guru doesn't feel bad with my comments  and maybe can enlighten Adobe for future releases of LR.

Thank you very much for your attention in answering my questions and I  will try to keep you updated with my findings and solutions or detours.

Best wishes.
Marcelo


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 7, 2012)

Ah, ok, let me throw an idea into the mix then.  If you're the only one editing, then you could try working the same way I do.  I keep my catalog on Dropbox so that it's automatically updated on both of my computers.  The images themselves are on an internal drive on one computer and an external drive for the laptop, which I sync using sync software every so often.  I have to be careful to ensure I only open it on one computer at a time and let Dropbox finish syncing, but it's doing a pretty good job.  It's not officially supported, so keep good backups, but that would save your hassle with copying it to a USB stick repeatedly.


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## Don1462 (Sep 1, 2012)

Hi, I have lightroom 3 and once I have finished editing my photos I export them to an external hard drive, using Lightroom and the delete them from my laptop. This was all my photos, keywords still appear in lightroom. Now i would like to make a second copy of catalog and photos in a second hard drive. Whenever I download new photos to my computer I put all photos for a given shoot in one folder and name the folder according to the subject and date. so I have probably hundreds of folders in my first hard drive. I would like the exact hierarchy to also appear when I connect my second hard drive. I was wondering if that's possible and if there's an easy way to do it.  This is my first post in this forum and I would appreciate any help/advice. Thanks


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## mcpdigital (Oct 8, 2012)

Victoria, thank you for the Dropbox idea. I've never used it since most of the time I was offline. I will check it and give a try.
regards,
Marcelo


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## patricklgv (Mar 10, 2014)

*external hard drive to EHT -- new questio*



mcpdigital said:


> Victoria, thank you for the Dropbox idea. I've never used it since most of the time I was offline. I will check it and give a try.
> regards,
> Marcelo



Hi all,

I have read the above saga, but I have a separate, but hopefully simpler, issue.

I have two iMacs - one at home and one at work.  I have two EHTs - one at home and one at work.  The home EHD contains my LR4 catalog and all the photos.  I do all my LR work on the home iMac hooked up to the home EHD.  That is all well and good.  

What I want to do is to bring the work EHD home and copy (NOT move) the catalog and photos onto the work EHD so that I can look at (NOT change) the photos on my work iMac.  This arrangement addresses two issues: I have a full backup copy in a separate place and I can see (NOT manipulate) my photos in the office on the work iMac.  Of course, I would make sure that the work EHD is updated by copying it from the home EHD every week or so.

What would be the best way to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance for help, Patrick


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## patricklgv (Mar 10, 2014)

Sorry, I said EHT -- I meant EHD, as in External Hard Drive.


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## Tony Jay (Mar 11, 2014)

patricklgv said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I have read the above saga, but I have a separate, but hopefully simpler, issue.
> 
> ...



Hey Patrick good to catch up with you!

Having read your post I think you are overthinking this.
It is much easier to just plug the EHD into your work computer and launch Lightroom via the catalog on the EHD.
You will be able to both view and edit images at work and all the changes remain current with the catalog on the EHD.

There is no need to download anything onto your work computer.

Tony Jay


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