Today’s Question: My catalog is nearing capacity on my 4TB external drive, and I want to split it between two drives. Do I plug in the new (empty) drive, let Lightroom Classic discover it, then just drag and drop folders onto it? This frightens me a bit.
Tim’s Quick Answer: In this scenario I recommend first creating a new top-level folder on the new hard drive from within Lightroom Classic. At that point the new folder would be visible within Lightroom Classic, and you would be able to drag folders from the existing drive to the new folder on the new drive.
More Detail: The most important thing to keep in mind for this task is that all the work should be done within Lightroom Classic. If you attempt to move folders and photos from one drive to another outside Lightroom Classic, the folders and photos will appear as missing within your catalog, and you’ll have a bit of a mess on your hands.
I should also hasten to add that before performing any of this work I recommend updating your backup of all photos. Hopefully that goes without saying since I tend to write a lot about backing up photos!
After connecting the new hard drive to the computer, you can click the plus icon (+) to the right of the Folders heading and choose “Add Folder” from the popup menu. Navigate to the new hard drive, then click the “New Folder” button. Create a new top-level folder with a meaningful name, such as “Photos”. When you click the Choose button the new hard drive and the new folder will appear within the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module.
You can then drag-and-drop individual folders from the original hard drive to the new folder on the new hard drive. Note that it is possible to select multiple folders at a time from the old drive and drag them all at once to the new location. However, if you’re going to do so I recommend dragging in relatively small batches. Otherwise, if an error occurs it can be more challenging to get things back on track.
I also recommend creating some form of logic or strategy for choosing which folders and photos will be on the new drive versus the original drive. Doing so can make it easier to keep track of where specific photos belong and can therefore be found between the two drives. This can be especially helpful if you might tend to have just one of the two hard drive connected in certain situations. You could divide photos based on older versus newer images, higher versus lower priority, or some other criteria that makes sense for you.
