# How to Sync LightRoom between Laptop/Desktop?



## MrKal_El (Dec 20, 2013)

Hey guys...I am an intermediate user of LR (currently 5.3)...but pretty beginner on the in-and outs of all the user customization's.


Long story short...I finally upgraded to hi-rez laptop (Yoga 2 Pro) and updated my NAS to a fast one (ReadyNAS 312 4TB) and would love to know how it could/would be possible to sync my catalog between my desktop/laptop.
I love the SmartPreview feature that allows me to store the RAWs on my NAS and not burn up my Yoga's SSD...so I wonder if I kept my complete catalog on the NAS, could I work on files on either the Laptop or Desktop and keep everything synced?
If so...how would I set it up?


Thanks again for any!


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## Selwin (Dec 20, 2013)

Hi MrKal_El, welcome to the forum!

Your catalog must be on a local drive, so you can't run it from your NAS. Of course you can use your images that are on the NAS from both computers. The challenge is where to put your catalog. Do you have dropbox? That would be a good way to go. Dropbox synchronises your catalog on all computers. If you should do it this way:
- copy your catalog to your dropbox folder
- After dropbox syncing is done, your catalog is on both computers in their respective dropbox folders
- Create a special folder inside your Pictures folder on both computers, like "Lightroom Dropbox Catalog" or another name that suits you
- Copy the catalog to the local hard drive into the "Pictures/Lightroom Dropbox Catalog" folder, then open it and do your work
Each time you switch computers, do the following:
- Close the LR catalog
- Copy the catalog (without the previews) back to dropbox, so it can be opened from your other computer
- Delete/Rename to "_old" the catalog in the "Pictures/Lightroom Dropbox Catalog" folder so you won't make mistakes
- On the other computer, do the same tricks: copy from dropbox to its "Pictures/Lightroom Dropbox Catalog" folder, open the catalog and do your work

If you don't have dropbox, you could run your catalog from a small external HD that you plug into different computers. Much easier but you'll have a hard drive hanging off your laptop. 

Remember NAS connection through WiFi can be slow, but that is for your to find out.

Good luck!


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## MrKal_El (Dec 20, 2013)

Thanks for the help!

If I Mapped the NAS drive onto my computers...would I be able to keep the Catalog there then?


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## Selwin (Dec 20, 2013)

I would be very surprised if that would work, but you sure can try. Even if it would work, you'll need to expect a bad performance. The LR database is doing massive I/O operations on every selection you make. There's lot's of discussion about moving the catalog to an SSD for improved performance (that works for me!) so running it off a NAS will decrease that performance.

If it were me I'd use a small USB-powered removable hard drive. This way you can also work outside of the house, using Smart Previews.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Dec 20, 2013)

Do note that when moving the catalog, assuming you move the file named XXXX.LRCAT, that it does not include previews.  So on each computer it will take some time for previews to display and/or be built.  I don't think you want to move previews - they are quite large -- just be aware of it. 

Also, realize there are a few things not stored in the catalog (even if they are stored "with" the catalog) - any user presets like develop or metadata presets, camera calibration (if you ever produced your own) are two good examples.  Also any preferences set for Lightroom itself, which may affect behavior.  You need to go thoroughly through each option on each system and compare if you want behavior to be the same.

A final caveat is that if you use published collections, take some care with them.  For remote collections like Smugmug, in theory, if you do the sync right, it should pick up right where the other left off.  but for things like disk publishing, your paths are likely to be different and so if you ever hit publish or sync on the not-correct machine, strange things may happen.  If all the paths point to the same physical devices you may be good of course.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 20, 2013)

To some extent you can use symbolic links or aliases to keep stuff like presets centrally and available to each computer. I keep mine on Dropbox (notes here).

You might be able to adopt the same idea with the previews folders, keeping them locally instead of at a network location. I've not tried it recently.

John


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## clee01l (Dec 20, 2013)

MrKal_El said:


> Thanks for the help!
> 
> If I Mapped the NAS drive onto my computers...would I be able to keep the Catalog there then?


Welcome to the forum.  Remote drives are not permitted.  The reasoning for this is the database engine underlying the LR catalog is SQLite. It is a single user database engine and if the catalog exists as a network file, there is no means to prevent two people from opening the same catalog and making changes that might nullify each other.  If that were to happen referential integrity of the database would be compromised and the database would become unusable.   The same referential integrity issue is possible with a shared Dropbox catalog.  However, in this case with simultaneous changes made buy multiple computers, the last catalog saved wins. 

LR requires the Previews folder (and the Smart Previews) folder to reside in the same folder as the catalog.  If you use DropBox, your Dropbox storage requirements will exceed the limitation imposed for a free Dropbox account. Subscribing to additional Dropbox storage might not be economically practical.  You can alias the LR catalog file with the "real" file in Dropbox and keep your Previews folder locally and not use space on the Dropbox server. 

I think a more practical approach considered a periodic merge of two catalogs.  It is unlikely that you will need every master image on both computers so one can contain a subset of the other and by using the "Import from Catalog" function, you can merge the subsidiary catalog into the master catalog.


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## Selwin (Dec 20, 2013)

Ferguson said:


> Do note that when moving the catalog, assuming you move the file named XXXX.LRCAT, that it does not include previews.  So on each computer it will take some time for previews to display and/or be built.  I don't think you want to move previews - they are quite large -- just be aware of it.


Hi Ferguson,
Both computers will have a previews folder built up, so all that needs to be done after a switch is updating the image previews of images that were added on the other computer.


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## MrKal_El (Dec 21, 2013)

Selwin said:


> Hi Ferguson,
> Both computers will have a previews folder built up, so all that needs to be done after a switch is updating the image previews of images that were added on the other computer.



One thing I wonder about...If I import on one computer and it generated Smart Previews there...How would I get Smart Previews on the other machine to work on (if my NAS is offline at any point)?


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## Selwin (Dec 21, 2013)

MrKal_El said:


> One thing I wonder about...If I import on one computer and it generated Smart Previews there...How would I get Smart Previews on the other machine to work on (if my NAS is offline at any point)?


You will need to build the smart previews on the other machine too, while your NAS is online. Otherwise, you'll need to copy them manually from the one machine to the other.

Based upon your questions it is probably best to go the EHD route in your specific situation. Your catalog, previews and smart previews will all be there on that drive so you'll have everything at hand.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 21, 2013)

I actually do something similar with my master catalogue of 70k images - and I do find it useful to have smart previews available. A few months ago I generated a lot of smart previews and copied them and the catalogue file, not the regular previews, over to an external drive. When I returned to London I just copied the catalogue back to my desktop. 

Today I've travelled again and  copied my master catalogue onto the hard drive. It will be able to access the smart previews which I generated before. But there is a little problem - smart previews for pictures since my previous trip. I can find which photos in LR don't have smart previews, but there isn't an obvious way to merge them with the smart previews on the EHD. I'd like to see if I could work out the folder structure of the smart previews folders or if I could just use their modified date.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to resolve the issue, but this is what I was thinking - copy the master catalogue onto the EHD, then on the desktop modify the new images (eg add a dummy keyword) in the desktop master catalogue, do an export as catalog for those pictures and include smart previews. On the laptop, because my new pics are modified, I can open the "older" master catalogue from the EHD, then do an import from catalogue and bring in the images with the dummy keyword and hopefully merge the smart previews. Clear the dummy keyword and I'm done. That's what I'm thinking anyway.

John


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