# Multiple Libraries



## John Heuer

Operating System: OSX Mavericks
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): CC

Looking for suggestions as to how those of you with larger libraries manage them.  I have a MacBook Pro with a 500GB SSD that is getting full, and my performance is crawling.

My thought is two create two active Lightroom libraries:
1) Current (Say past year or so) where I have photos that I'll likely go back and work on.  Stored locally on the SSD.
2) Archived, older than ~1 year where I'm less likely to work on photos.  This library is stored on an external 5TB drive.  Performance is slower, but unlikely to impact me 90% of the time.

Question: Is this a solid approach, or would it be best to have one library, and just moved specific folders to the offline storage but all kept within the same library?  I'm a little (ok, a lot) pedantic with my folder naming structure and organization, so I'm trying to get this right.

[Edit: Typo]


----------



## Johan Elzenga

As long as the library and its previews fit on the SSD, it much better to move photo folders from the SSD to the external disk and keep using one single library.


----------

