The 2025 Guide to Moving Lightroom Classic: Safely Transfer Your Catalog & Photo

Are you dreading your computer upgrade? Moving Adobe Lightroom Classic to a new machine is one of the most stressful tasks for a photographer. A simple "drag and drop" approach can be disastrous, breaking links within your Catalog and destroying years of editing work.
 
Don't risk your creative history. This comprehensive, step-by-step guide walks you through the proper, safe method to migrate your entire library. Whether you are moving to a new Mac or Windows machine. Updated for 2025, this guide covers modern challenges and helps you preserve critical data that older methods maymiss.
 
What You Will Learn:
Avoid the "Import" Trap: Learn why importing photos into a new Catalog is the worst thing you can do and how it destroys develop history.
Preserve AI Data: Ensure you don't lose 2025’s AI-generated masking data, generative AI instructions, and people recognition data.
Cross-Platform Workflows: Clear instructions for moving between Mac and Windows, including handling changes to drive letters.
Complete Asset Transfer: How to correctly migrate Presets, Templates, Plugins (DxO, Topaz, Nik Collection), and Mobile sync data.
Catalog Health: Steps to find and fix missing folders and images before the move to prevent errors on the new machine.
 
Who is this for?
This guide is designed for intermediate to professional photographers who need a calm, methodical approach to ensure their new computer is set up exactly like the old one—without the panic.
 
Format: Digital PDF Download
 
Author: Martin Sproul, Sproul Photography