If you have more than one computer at your home to work on your photos with Lightroom, you might be wondering if there is a way to share your Lightroom catalog, so that you can work on the same images with the same catalog on multiple computers at once. Unfortunately, the database system that Lightroom runs on (SQLite) limits the catalog to be used on a single computer, on a locally attached drive. Hence, simultaneously accessing a single catalog with multiple machines is not supported and will not work. On top of that, Adobe strictly forbids placing catalogs on network volumes, because it can result in all kinds of Lightroom database corruption issues (placing photographs on a network share is supported). In short, Lightroom is a “single-user” application with no support for multi-user access. While some people have been requesting a “multi-user” edition of Lightroom, Adobe currently has no plans to make such Lightroom version due to potential complexities of such software. True multi-user applications require a server and client infrastructure, which can be too complex for most photographers to set up and use.
So what are the options for using a Lightroom catalog on multiple computers? Let’s take a look at some options:
- Keep a Lightroom catalog together with photographs on an external drive. As long as the external drive is mounted on each computer with the same drive letter, makes the process very simple to manage. You attach a network drive to one computer, work on Lightroom, then dismount the drive and attach it to another to work from there. A relatively good solution if you have a home and work PC and need to be able to work on the same catalog, but with multiple machines at different times. Lightroom performance is somewhat slow, because the catalog, image previews and photos are all stored on the same drive and external drives are typically slower in comparison to locally attached internal storage. The backup process is also simple – only the external drive needs to be backed up.
- Keep a Lightroom catalog on a local drive and manually copy the catalog between multiple computers, while storing photographs on an internal/external drive or a network share. Requires designating one computer to be a “master”, which holds the latest and the most current version of the catalog. If another computer makes changes to the catalog, the catalog file must be copied back from that computer to the “master”, since regular backups are performed on the main machine for consistency reasons. Since either machine can potentially add new or update existing photographs (while importing, moving or editing images), photographs must be stored separately in a common location either on an internal/external drive, or on a network share. This method allows to keep Lightroom catalog away from photographs for faster overall performance.
- Keep a Lightroom catalog on cloud storage such as Dropbox (with cloud storage client installed on each computer), while storing photographs on an internal/external drive or a network share. Requires reliable and high-speed Internet connection when syncing. Dropbox only does incremental copy, which means that newly added data can be synchronized somewhat quickly between computers. However, one needs to make sure that Dropbox is set up to only synchronize the Lightroom catalog (image previews should be excluded via “Selective Sync” feature on all computers). This solution can work relatively well, but there is a risk of having inconsistent data. Each machine writes its own data into the cloud and if the catalog is not fully synchronized between the cloud and the machines (due to slow Internet or Internet service issues), there is a risk of potentially losing data or changes to the catalog file. You must wait for synchronization to complete on all machines (upload and download) after closing Lightroom before opening the same catalog on another one.
Each method works just fine and I have tried all three. The first method was rather slow for me, so I opted for #2, which lets me keep the catalog file in a fast SSD drive, while accessing photos from a mirrored RAID array. The RAID array volume is located on the main computer (as the “D” drive), which is shared with other computers via local network (all computers are connected to a gigabit switch). I mount the network share as the “D” drive on other computers, so that I don’t have to locate missing images each time when I copy the Lightroom catalog back and forth between computers. The #3 method with Dropbox can work well with smaller catalog files, but I just find it easier and faster to copy it from the master computer to other computers over the fast internal network.
No matter how you look at the process, it is still rather painful to use. I wish there was a simpler way to access Lightroom catalogs from multiple machines. Ideally, it would be great if a single catalog could be opened on multiple machines at once. Then all we would need to do would be to place photos in a common location, so that all computers could read from and write to the same photo library. Unfortunately, with the way Adobe stores Lightroom catalog data today, it is impossible to achieve this currently…
Dear Nasim,
first of all I would like to thank you for all the great articles on this website. Ever since I am interested into photography, this platform has by far had the greatest inspiration place for me. This is highly appreciated and I hope that I can now give a little bit in return.
Lately, I was investigating my future needs for storage and decided to go with a DS923+ NAS for photo storage. Along with it I studied your advices for NAS systems but also informed myself beyond.
Generally, I do the same approach in catalogue handling that you are following: I store all my raw files on the NAS and accesss them via a catalogue. Besides reading this article I also stumbled upon the following video by Spacerex and think this could be of good value also for your needs:
www.youtube.com/watch…80Fpe1FBrw
Spacerex is basically teaching how to setup a very convenient method of working on the same catalogue(s) on different computers using the Synology Drive. To put it in simple words, he suggests using a two-way sync task for the folder where you store the catalogues in. In my setup I have my catalogues locally on my MacBook Air under photos > Lightroom Catalogues and I am now syncing with my home folder of my user account for the NAS which works great.
Let me know if this system may be a help for your workflow. I found it a great addition to my current setup.
All the best from Hamburg (Germany)
Daniel
Im searching for a different 4th setup. I have an NVME (Samsung 1TB, the fast one), that I prefer to use, which has a Dual boot on it. Then i have a D drive, with a “Sync” Catalog on it. I want the ability to shove pics into at any time, from any machine ,Then resync down to the other machine. But i dont want to bring in any old changes from the sync, only keep the fresh ones. Still trying to figure this one out.
by other machine, i mean same machine, other boot system, which is nvme, which has the main catalog on it.
Ideally i want the same catalog, but the option to be able to import and work on photos from either, then sync through the sync catalog on the D drive (non nvme)
by the way, i started by making a copy of the catalog, which is in 3 places. @ C drives, and one D drive.
Thanks Nasim! After searching for this topic for several hours, your article is clear and really helpful. I spent a long time going through the Adobe help files… and you know they don’t help at all as they just seem to leave out what they can’t do! As Mike says below, sharing and lockout protocols on a network are well known now, there’s no excuse for Adobe not to look at this. I’m adding a new NAS and faster laptop to replace my slower i5, the process of migrating and sharing is SO painful!
The idea that Adobe can’t deal with files on network drives because they don’t want so support multi-user is ridiculous. It’s easy to lock down a file on a network drive so it can only be accessed by one user at a time. Nretwork-based and multi-user are two completely different things.
Great article!
Before I reached this site I setup my catalog sharing using exactly what is described on option 3, using Dropbox and selectively excluding the previews folders from sync as they are quite huge. To keep it even safe, I also added my catalogs (auto) backups in another folder inside Adobe CC storage, so an additional redundant system in case of unavailability of dropbox cloud for any reason.
Currently running flawless but, as indicated, keep your eyes on dropbox sync whether is finished before open the same catalog in another computer otherwise you will end up with conflicts.
I also setup a daily backup of lightroom settings in above backup folder but a new feature introduced recently on Lightroom Classic makes easy to keep setting together with you catalog.
cheeers
Like others, I’ve got my images stored on an NAS box attached to my home network.
The LR catalog files are stored locally and synced using Resilio Sync (ex BTSync). This works very well and I’ve had no issues whatsoever. Just make certain Resilio is done syncing the folders before opening LR on another computer.
I had tried to make this work with Google Drive, but was continually having issues with corrupted cache/catalog files.
Nasim, thank you for this article. I’ve been using my laptop as my main computer with an external monitor, but for a variety of reasons I am now setting up a desktop, and have questions about how to manage my images and catalogs on both computers. I’ve always used your second method, with my catalog on my hard drive and images on an external drive. For my new desktop I copied my catalog and previews to the hard drive, but on my new computer it calls my external drive I:, when it was D: on my laptop. I can’t choose D: as a drive name on my new desktop because that is assigned to the DVD/RW drive. Can I rename the external drive to I: on my laptop, then somehow direct LR to that letter drive and still have my catalog recognize it? On both computers?
I should have included in my previous post, I have a master Lightroom folder with the catalog, photos and all other files required in the same folder.
Using GoodSync on my office PC and also on my laptop makes it very easy and safe way to travel and be in sync with the office PC whenever a decent internet connection is available. GoodSync is a fantastic app I have been using for a few years. Having one copy on each computer and creating a P2P connection between them is so simple, fast and secure and there is no cost for the P2P facility. Your files are not being held on an intermediate server during the sync. This method is so easy I even use it to sync both machines when I’m working in the office.
My problem with the catalog is this. I want to have the catalog on an external HD to use it wherever I want: Home (Windows 10), on the road (Macbook), at the office (Windows 10).
Since Windows and OSX name the disk differently – Windows with the drive letter in front (e.g. C: F: G:) and OSX with only the name of the drive (Verbatim HD), every time I switch from one system to another I have to relocate the drive.
Is there a workaround?