Today’s Question: When travelling, I create a temporary Lightroom catalog. However, I miss all my hierarchical and well-structured keywords. Is there a way to transfer my “desktop” keywords to a travel catalog, so that I don’t risk making duplicates or otherwise to mess up with my keyword hierarchy?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, indeed, you can export your Keyword List from your primary Lightroom Classic catalog and then import that list into your traveling catalog.
More Detail: In Lightroom Classic all of the keywords you have added to photos for the current catalog are displayed on the Keyword List on the right panel in the Library module. That list of keywords can be exported from Lightroom Classic and then imported into another catalog so the same keywords will be available for adding to photos in that catalog.
The first step is to export the list of keywords. To do so, in the Library module, go to the menu and choose Metadata > Export Keywords. In the Export Keywords dialog navigate to a convenient location to save the keyword list and update the filename if you’d like. Click Save to save the exported keyword list.
You can then copy that exported keyword list to another computer that you’ll use when traveling, for example. In the catalog that you want to have the same keywords available in, go back to the menu in the Library module and choose Metadata > Import Keywords. Select the file from the keyword export and click the Choose button. This will cause the full keyword list to be imported into the current catalog, so that your keywords will be available in that catalog.