I would collect all my images from all the scattered drives and store them in a central location. This could be a NAS, a cloud or simply a large USB drive. And in this drive and only there you browse with DxO PL. It also makes it much easier to create and manage backups.
Is there a disadvantage using xmp over dop as a sidecar? I currently use both and I am looking for the optimum solution. Dop is proprietary, xmp can be read and written by many other applications. What is your experience? This might also be interesting for Mike.
Donāt you also want to save the finished exported Lightroom files that were created with your LR edits? Wasnāt the creation those output files the only reason you edited your raw files in the first place,? I donāt understand why you would get rid of your exported output, especially if you were happy with the results.
Mark
I donāt know for LR . For PL read what Joanna mentioned.
The .dop file includes everything you did, step by step, in editing a photo. You can send me your original file from your camera, and your .dop file, and I will be able to open the image in my own computer, with all the settings you used.
If you are using PhotoLab, the .dop file is created after you edit, and if you change your mind and make additional edits, the .dop will include everything you have done.
No, I want to do it all over again using PhotoLab (or maybe DarkTable). For learning purposes, I need to keep practicing with DarkTable. But for the best results, likely better than what I did decades ago, I want PhotoLab.
You probably donāt want to rely on an 11 year old video of a 11 release old/superseded release of obsolete software to train yourself on the current versionā¦
Thanks Mike this is crystal clear. My question is, in xmp is there more or less information related to dop? This could be important when using other tools than DxO, because dop is proprietƤr but xmp can be read by many tools.
Sorry, my mistake. Link is removed. Thank you for your attention.
There was a post here eight minutes ago about something from DxO, a new Optics Module, #8 I think, and I clicked on it to watch the how-to video, but the video stopped mid-stream, and the post seems to have vanished. Very strange.
I was going to post something about it, asking if itās an add-on feature to PhotoLab, or a standalone program, but now itās gone??? If itās new capabilities for PhotoLab that sounded interesting, but it looked like a whole new version of Photolab.
I was going to write that I preferred the current version, but apparently DxO removed it?
The .dop file starts with any image, original or otherwise, and when you open that image in PhotoLab, everything you do INSIDE PHOTOLAB is recorded. When you close PhotoLab, the .dop file is closed. If you then edit the image in some other software, then close it, the .dop file will ignore what youāve done. It only works while you are editing inside of PhotoLab. You can have multiple Virtual Copies, each one independent of the others. If you created three virtual copies, you can select which one you want to continue working on.
If you use other tools first, then save the file, and then open that file in PhotoLab, thatās the version you will be editing, complete with any changes you made before opening the file in PhotoLab.
Mike , this was me. I posted a very old link describing an old version. I removed it. My apologies.
Thanks Mike, but this is not answering my question regrads xmp. Iāll do some tests by myself. Iāll force PL to produce a dop AND a xmp file and will compare the content.
.xmp is information about the image.
.dop is information about your editing.
Iām not that familiar with .xmp files, but if you scroll back a few days, @Joanna was explaining them a little.
They are totally different. The .dop file may contain information about how you cropped, or adjusted color, or saturation - itās as if someone was recording your screen, over your shoulder, as you were editing. If you post your original file here, along with the .dop file any of us can see what you did, what tools you used, and if itās @Joanna, any mistakes you made. 
Let me see make sure I understand this. It sounds like you are saying that you donāt have a single photo you ever processed in Lightroom that you like enough to want to keep, and you would rather re-edit all your older raw files from scratch in PhotoLab. That is astounding. It suggests that you wasted all the time you ever spent editing files in Lightroom and have nothing worthwhile to show for it. Is that really what you are saying?
Mark
I meant what I wrote, no more, no less. Feel free to interpret it any way you wish.
Iām not interpreting anything. I was just asking questions which I guess you donāt want to answer. No problem.
When I was a Lightroom user I edited thousands of raw files over several years before I moved to PhotoLab. I have hundreds of exported Lightroom images that are very meaningful to me. I would not delete those exported versions of my edited raw files. I was just surprised that you would be willing to delete all of yours, which suggests that none of them are all that important to you. It was just idle curiosity on my part, but we can drop it right here.
Mark
@HGF: if you need technical pieces of information, never ask mikemyers. He is so confused you canāt use what he says. Be very carefull!
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DOP files contain the editing steps and data, only accessible from PhotoLab
XMP files are only used by PhotoLab for metadata but, unless you tell PhotoLab to update them, they are not written to.
If you use PhotoLab to edit metadata, you will find the same data in both types of file, as well as in the database. Furthermore, if you have software that writes metadata directly in RAW files, you can end up with the same data in four different places - the RAW file, the XMP sidecar, the DOP sidecar and the database. The golden rule is to only ever modify metadata from one app.
But, as far as image editing goes, just rely on the DOPs alone.
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My old edited photos are like my old cameras.
I prefer to use my new cameras for many reasons, resolution being just one of them. I also prefer todayās PhotoLab to any of the software I used in the past, not to mention my own limitations from way back then, compared to today.
If I want to send one of my 20 year old photos to someone, itās like putting on a 20-year-old shoe. Iād rather go back to the original, and re-edit it, using what Iāve learned over the past 20 years, or whatever.
The important thing is the original images, not the old Lightroom edits.