Adobe Lightroom: Images on external media

The Adobe Lightroom program offers you several options to edit your images. In order not to save images directly on your computer, you have the option to import or outsource them to an external data medium. Get an overview of how this works.

How to move images from Adobe Lightroom to external storage

To free up disk space, you can move images already in Adobe Lightroom to external storage. To do this, search for the location of your images on your Mac or Windows PC and copy the folder to the external data medium that you previously connected to your computer. In Adobe Lightroom, now still go to "Folders" and after right-clicking on the previously copied folder, select the "Update folder location" option from the menu.

Adobe Lightroom: Import images to external data medium

If you would like to import new images into Adobe Lightroom and save them directly to another data medium, it is first necessary to activate the "Smart Previews". If the function is enabled, it allows you to change the location of your photos and still access them in the program.

1. To do this, open the "Import" window and there, under "File Management" > "Smart Previews", place a check mark next to "Create Smart Previews".
2. To move the original files of the images, please first connect an external data carrier such as USB stick or external hard drive to your PC.
3. Then navigate to "Destination" and select the previously connected data carrier with a click.
4. Determine a folder in which your images should be stored and start the import of the images by clicking "Import".