Problem: Your Lightroom catalog contains photos spread across multiple locations, drives and devices. This usually results in the “Original file could not be found” error.
Goal: Have the Lightroom Catalog and all your images on a single external drive that you can use on any computer (with Lightroom) in any location.
Note: These instructions assume:
- You have an external drive large with enough capacity to hold a catalog with images.
- You have the drive correctly formatted. See formatting instructions before going further.
Set up External Drive #
- On external drive create a folder called Image Catalog
- In the Image Catalog folder create a folder called Images – this is where all images will be imported to from now until the end of time.
Import From Another Catalog #
- Select: File> Import From Another Catalog…
- Select the old catalog which is probably on the internal drive of the classroom iMac. It will be a blue icon ending in .lrcat.
Import Options... #
- Select: All Folders
- File Handling: Copy new photos to a new location and import
- Copy to: Choose a folder on your external drive where you will keep all your photos.
- Select: Import
Depending on how large the catalog is and your drive speed this could take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.
Double Check.... #
Your final file structure should look like this.
- Next time you want to import photos, open your external drive and navigate to the Master Catalog.lrcat to launch Lightroom.
- When you import new images choose the Images folder on your external drive as the location.
- The names of the folders and catalog can be anything you want as long as they make sense to you.
Note:
- From this point forward you should only be using the Lightroom Catalog on your external drive. Avoid launching Lightroom from the Dock since it will create a new blank catalog. The best way to ensure you’re using the correct catalog is to be sure you double click on the catalog on your external drive when you want to work on photos in Lightroom.
