moving photos and maintaining imatch data

[gba1]

I have about 4000 images stored in the "my pictures" folder maintained on my C drive.  For memory usage purposes, I should move those photos (and IPhone videos) to my D drive, where I currently store my documents (I have 2T of capacity there which should be fine for a very long time).  As opposed to simply charging ahead, and then creating problems with my imatch database, the thought occurs to me that maybe there is an organized and efficient way to do this that maintains a usable imatch database.  the Help manual seems to suggest that I could just move the whole "my pictures" folder to the D drive and just use the relocate command, but suggestions are welcome.

[jch2103]

You'll probably want to move the Windows default location for Pictures to your D: drive: https://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-10/how-to-change-the-location-of-user-folders-in-windows-10/ Just don't have IMatch open when you do this.

That will ensure that any photos you add to your Pictures folder in the future will be where you expect them.

And, yes, when they're moved use the IMatch relocate command.

While you're at it, you may want to move other Windows default locations at the same time. Microsoft should make this simpler/more obvious, as a lot of people are in the same situation with a relatively small C: SSD and a larger D: (usually hard disk). But keep your IMatch database on the C: SSD drive for optimum performance (it's not a significant performance issue to have photos on the D: drive).

[Mario]

The simplest way to do this:

1. Close IMatch.
2. Make a backup copy of your database. See What to Backup?

3. Move the files in Windows Explorer

4. Open IMatch. The folders you have moved will show as off-line (yellow warning triangle).
5. Use the Relocate command to tell IMatch that the "C:\Users\USER-NAME\Pictures" folder is now "D:\DATA\IMAGES" (or whatever you use now).
IMatch updates all references to point at the new folder. This is very fast and all data remains in the database.

See Off-line Folders and Files in the IMatch help for detailed information.