Using an external hard drive with Lightroom

I have older photos on an external hard drive and my newer ones on an internal hard drive.  If I plug in my ext hd and load those photos into Lightroom, do I have to always have it plugged in to be able to edit/view those photos?

For Lightroom 4 and earlier, yes you must have the drive plugged in to edit or view the photos (although Lightroom will display a thumbnail in the Grid module even with the drive not plugged in)
For Lightroom 5, if you create smart previews, then you can view and edit the photos even when the drive is unplugged.

Similar Messages

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  • Can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

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    Hello. I am still using a 2005 PPC iMac running Tiger. My photos are stored in Aperture and Lightroom 2, however they are all stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to remove them from my computer and store them on an external hard drive instead.
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    MacDrive for the PCs... allows them to Read/Write HFS+...
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  • How can i use an external hard drive with my ipad

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    I have a 1TB external hard drive and also a 16GB flash drive. Is it possible to use either of these with Time Machine?

    IMO Time Machine should be on its own Dedicated External Drive... one that is twice the size of the drive that it is backing up... the 16 GB Flash Drive is not appropiate for the task.
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    I use two Lacie external hard drives and Time Machine to back-up my iMac, swapping over the drives each week to have one off-site.
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    As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
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  • Using my external hard drive with my Mac?

    I have a Maxtor external hard drive I used with my Dell.  Can I use it with my Mac?  Any worries about simply connecting it and seeing what will happen?

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    Hi there.
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  • Using an external hard drive with iPhoto

    I stored my pictures on an external hard drive, but since they were in iPhoto format I have to import all of them to my computer just to view them.  Is there a way to fix this, or will I just have to keep the pictures as jpegs?  *I was hoping that I could use iPhoto to load and view pictures periodically while storing them on the external hard drive, rather than relying on Finder and Preview

    iPhoto isn’t a photo format. If the drive contains a volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, which can be a partition or disk image, launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and either create a library on that volume or choose one already there.
    (110321)

  • Using an external hard drive with FCPX?

    I plan on using Final Cut Pro X with an external hard drive to edit dv footage captured from my camcorder.  Is there a "best choice" for the external drive?  And what about formatting the drive?

    Sorry, Tom. I am sure I'm not being precise enough in my language. Let me put it this way.
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  • How can I use my external hard drive with my new (firewire-less) MacBook?

    I read in another post that the available firewire adapters don't work for external hard drives. So how can I get my music, etc. off my external hard drive and onto my new computer?

    Like the second or third one in this picture?
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/USBtypes2.jpg
    They are USB ports - the smaller one is a mini-USB (like you might find on a digital camera) and the third is a USB-B port (such as on a printer). You can use a mini or standard USB cable (depending on the port) to connect it to your Macbook.
    Matt

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