Do I need the Archicad Migration Libraries

[Keymaster]

When I started at this firm the Archicad work flow was terrible. To start a new project they would just use an old project and delete stuff and then start the new on in it. So many errors and duplicates. They just compounded problems.

Fast forward to now. I have developed a new template for the firm and fixed all the issues. No my libraries are; embedded library 36MB, archicad library 26 950MB, archicad migration library 732MB, CI tools library 105MB and MEP library 26 19MB.

Opening the Archicad Migration Libraries there are folders for Archicad Migration Libraries 13-25. So 13 LCF files that are libraries. Do I need these in my template or are they are a hold over of the bad workflow the firm used before that I haven't yet gotten rid of?

[Lee Hankins · Accepted solution]

You don’t need the migration libraries in your template. A new file created in your template will only use the Archicad 26 library unless you have Favourites that are saved using objects prior to 26 that cannot be directly upgraded to 26 versions. An example of this was doors between 19 and 20 and kitchen cabinets between 24 and 25. You should swap out any Favourites you have saved with the most current versions of the objects. 

You should only need the migration libraries when opening an older Archicad version file in a newer version. If you open a 25 file in 26 you’ll need the 25 migration library.

Hopefully that makes sense. 

[Keymaster]

Makes sense. I think I'll take the migration libraries out of my template. I'm pretty sure I upgraded all the favorites in cleaning up and remaking the template. All our older projects will still have the migration libraries in them, so they will open fine on our newer versions of archicad. 

[scottjm]

Migration libraries should absolutely never be used as a permanent measure on a live project. They should only be temporary measure.
If there are objects within the migration library that are essential, i.e. it would be to onerous to manually reinstate them with the latest version cause they are not auto migrating, you can use the library manager option to embed only the used objects of the migration library.  

But for a fresh template this is bad practice.