Whether you’re backing up Lightroom ready to move to a new computer, upgrade your operating system, or you’re just double checking your main backups, you’ll need to know which Lightroom files to include in your backups. There’s a fair number of locations, so it’s worth checking every so often that your routines are up-to-date and all the files you need in event of any issue are on your list to back up. Let’s take a look at the various Lightroom files you need to back up…
- The Catalog
- The Previews
- The Catalog Backups
- The Photos
- Your Presets & Templates
- Settings shared with Camera Raw
- Plug-ins you’ve installed
- Your Lightroom Serial Number
- Your Preferences
Your catalog(s) have a *.lrcat extension and you also need the *.lrcat-data file too. Together they hold all of the information about your photos, including all of the work you’ve done on the photos within Lightroom, so it’s essential that you include your catalog in your backups.
By default it’s stored at:
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ My Pictures \ Lightroom \ Lightroom Catalog.lrcat
Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Pictures / Lightroom / Lightroom Catalog.lrcat
But stop! You may have changed the name or location of your catalog, so open Lightroom and go to Edit menu (Windows) / Lightroom menu (Mac) and select Catalog Settings. In the General tab, it will tell you the name and location of your current catalog, and the Show button will open to that location in Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac).
Even if you use your own backup software to back up the catalog, let Lightroom run its own versioned backups too. The Lightroom backup includes the actual catalog (*.lrcat extension) and the *.lrcat-dataCatalog corruption is rare, but user error (e.g. accidentally changing a setting on lots of photos) is very common. You never know when you may need to restore some settings from older copy of the catalog. Lightroom’s backup tool zips up the catalog and the *.lrcat-data file and places it in a dated subfolder, so you can always go “back in time”.
The previews are stored in the same location as the catalog. It’s a folder (Windows) / package file (Mac) with Previews.lrdata at the end of the name.
If you have available backup space, backing them up would save time rebuilding them, and if you deleted your original photos accidentally, they may be the only copy left.
That said, the previews would be rebuilt on demand as long as you have the original photos, and they do take up a lot of space. If you run a versioned backup system, which keeps additional copies each time a file changes, you may want to exclude the previews as they change constantly and will rapidly fill your backup hard drives.
By default, Lightroom offers to back up your catalog once a week when you close Lightroom, and it keeps each of those backups. They’re stored in a Backups folder next to the catalog, but you may have changed the location. In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic, the backups are zipped (compressed). To check the current location, open the Catalog Settings dialog, which you’ll find under Edit menu (Windows) / Lightroom menu (Mac), and change the Backup pop-up to When Lightroom Next Exits.
Then quit Lightroom and the backup dialog will appear, where you can view and change the current location of the catalog backups.
When you visit that folder using Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac), you’ll notice that Lightroom never deletes your older backups. You can delete older backups yourself to free additional hard drive space. I would recommend keeping at least the most recent backups, in addition to some slightly older ones (e.g., 1 month, 6 months, 1 year), just in case you later discover you’ve accidentally overwritten some settings or removed some photos from your catalog.
Of course backing up your photos is essential. Remember, the photos aren’t “in” Lightroom, but are stored as normal files on your hard drive.
Make sure you back your working files up using their current folder structure, in case you ever have to restore a backup. The Make a second copy backups from the Import dialog are only a temporary backup, and since they’re stored in a completely different folder structure, they’re extremely time-consuming to attempt to restore in the case of a disaster. Don’t forget, you’ll want to include your edited files (i.e. the ones created by Edit in Photoshop or other external editors) in your backups too.
Not sure where your photos are stored? Just right-click on your parent folder in the Folders panel and select Show in Explorer (Windows) / Show in Finder (Mac) to take you directly to that folder.
If your photos are a long list, rather than a hierarchy, you may want to use Show Parent Folder in order to more easily visualise how your folders in Lightroom relate to the folders in Explorer/Finder.
If you’ve ever synced photos from a mobile devices (and haven’t specified a custom location in Preferences), you’ll also want to back up the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file (or move the photos into a normal folder). You’ll find the mobile downloads at:
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ My Pictures \ Lightroom \ Mobile Downloads.lrdata
Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Pictures / Lightroom / Mobile Downloads.lrdata
You’ll also want to back up your presets, whether they’re ones you’ve downloaded or presets that you’ve created yourself. That includes Develop presets (LR1-7.2), Slideshow, Book, Print and Web templates, Metadata presets, Export presets, etc.
By default, they’re stored at:
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ Lightroom \
Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Application Support / Adobe / Lightroom /
If you’ve checked the Store presets with this catalog checkbox, some of your presets may be stored in a Lightroom Settings folder next to your catalog as well. Checking or unchecking that box doesn’t automatically copy them to the new location, so you may have presets in both locations. I’d recommend leaving it unchecked, unless you have a specific reason for using that feature, as it doesn’t include all settings and often creates confusion.
Settings shared with Camera Raw – Default Settings, Point Curves, Custom Camera & Lens Profiles
Some settings are stored in a shared location, where they can be shared with Camera Raw hosted by Photoshop or Elements. They include your Develop Presets (LR Classic 7.3 and later), Develop default settings, lens profile default settings, custom point curves and any custom camera or lens profiles that you’ve created or downloaded.
They’re stored at:
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ CameraRaw \
Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Application Support / Adobe / CameraRaw /
You may have downloaded Lightroom plug-ins, for example, Export plug-ins, Publish Services, custom web galleries, and so forth. You can probably download those again from the developer, but it’s worth backing them up to be on the safe side.
To find them, go to File menu > Plug-in Manager and on each non-standard plug-in, check the current path, as shown below. Don’t forget to write down your serial numbers or registration codes at the same time!
If you need to reinstall Lightroom and you’re not a Creative Cloud subscriber, you’ll need your serial number, and if you purchased an upgrade, you’ll also need a serial from an earlier version. As long as you registered your copy with Adobe, your older serial numbers can be accessed on Adobe’s website by selecting My Products and Services.
Finally, you may want to back up your Preferences file. That includes last used catalogs, last used settings, view options, FTP settings for uploading web galleries, some plug-in settings, etc. The preferences could be rebuilt if necessary, but you would save yourself some time by backing them up and restoring them.
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ Lightroom \ Preferences \ Lightroom Classic CC 7 Preferences.agprefs
Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Preferences / com.adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist
(The filename includes the Lightroom version number, so Lightroom 6 Preferences are called Lightroom 6 Preferences.agprefs / com.adobe.Lightroom6.plist etc.)
What a list!
If you’ve saved all of those files and you ever have to restore from your backups, you can simply return those files back to their correct locations, open your catalog, and carry on working as if nothing has happened.
Are your backups up to date?
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
If you have the Photography Plan, then as well as Classic you have access to the Lightroom cloud ecosystem including the mobile apps and web interface. For more information on these apps, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
Originally posted 29 October 2013, updated for Lightroom Classic and earlier versions in 2020.
In the section “Your Lightroom Serial Number”, it says to go to the Adobe website and find it/them by selecting “My Products and Services”. Alas, I cannot find this on the Adobe website. How can I navigate to it?
Thanks!
Answering my own question… After extensive searching, I found my serial numbers at https://account.adobe.com/products, if you are similarly interested.
We’re pleased you found them!
Minden mentést 2 példányban készítek HDD-re.
Első SSD-n vannak a programok – Acronis-al mentem.
Második SSD a munkalemezem Lightroom, Photosop számára. Lightroomot vagy lemásolom mentésnek, vagy Acronis-al mentem.
Fényképek a harmadik meghajtón vannak, ez HDD. – 2 példányban mentve külső HDD-re, + NAS-ra
Nagyon jó. Érdemes lehet valamilyen külső vagy felhőalapú biztonsági mentést is használni.
Hello Victoria,
I keep my photos on an external hard drive and my catalog on my internal laptop hard drive. Following your advice, I always also back up the catalog on the external drive.
I will be away for the whole summer, will have my laptop but not the external drive. I will continue to take photos, temporarily placing them on my laptop and will continue to use Lightroom. When I return home, I will connect the external drive and copy the new photos there from my internal drive. Will Lightroom get confused or will it be able to combine all changes in an updated catalog?
Thank you
Alex
Hi Alex
It does work similarly to that, but there are a few more steps.
Check our blog that deals with this specific scenario:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/classic-on-vacation/
Thank you Paul, I will read and make sure I follow the steps.
Hmm, I just read through this and thought I was ok – but I was only backing up the LRCAT file – wow, thanks for the article and referring to it in a newer post.
I have both the photos and catalog files on an external drive. Keeping everything on the external drive make me feel safer in case my main computer drive crashed (it has once before). Then, I backup the external drive to another one of course.
I’ve been learning and using Lightroom for 4 years now. In that time, I thought I had been doing a “responsible” job of backing up not only the catalogue and photo files but also the necessary system files. Reading your recent email and links, I see that I have not been backing up all the systems files – there’s files in a Windows directory for Camera Raw that are also used by Lightroom.
I am continually impressed by the services Lightroom and Photoshop provide to the end user photographer. The learning curve can be steep, although recent updates and improvements have made the products easier to learn and use. BUT, I do not think Adobe has a clear appreciation for the fact that most photographers are not systems programmers or computer “geeks”. We are for the most part end users. In the area of “backing up”, they provide few or no utilities and that can be a nightmare for the end user.
Lightroom and Photoshop are very “technical” and complex products from the “systems” point of view. I should not have to dive into the various menus and directories to easily and efficiently back up Lightroom in the 9 areas you outline.
There are several other areas, somewhat related where Adobe just does not provide good (or any) tools. If migrating to a new system, I should be able to almost “press a button” and have my system copied to an external device and then copied from that device. They have no problems enforcing licensing and this would not cause them a loss of revenue.
I would also love to have an easy way of moving work from my laptop, which I travel with and work with while traveling to my main desktop when returning home. Copying as a Catalogue is cumbersome and not always easy to navigate. Some of the files menus cannot be read due to space limitations. Again, tagging a folder or even individual photos, with their history, and moving those tagged files to another system should not be an issue.
I would be willing to pay for a set of system utilities for Lightroom and Photoshop, but everyone seems to want to provide brushes, presets and the like. Victoria, I think there’s money to be made in providing system tools, hint hint.
Regards and thanks for reading.
I echo your comments 100%. If I was chatting with Adobe ….. I would recommend “Put on an Apple lens” when it comes to backups. One button…. complete coverage …. and a matching one button restore process. Let us concentrate on using our brain matter for the photography. I AM a tech geek …….. and I don’t want to be thinking about all of this when I’m focusing on my photography/editing.
A one-button backup for everything Lightroom-related would be great. That said, you probably want to back up the whole boot drive anyway, because other apps you use will also store their preferences, templates, presets, etc., in those hidden App Data / Application Support folders too.
Your advice about backups is excellent, thank you. I make extensive user of shared collections, one for each specie of wildlife I shoot. Each one has its own URL assigned by LrC when I set up the collection’s share. I would like to backup those URLs because I once had an issue with my LrC installation and I had to manually reset all the URLs! Please would you tell me which file (on Mac) I should backup.
Those URL’s are set by Lightroom Web rather than Lightroom Classic, so they’re not stored anywhere other than the LR Cloud. The collections that they’re linked to are stored in the catalog file itself, but they’d only get deleted if you removed the collection from the cloud.
Hi Victoria,
I ask you for help.
My Windows 7 computer will get a completely new set-up. Is there anything else to do before that – I mean, compared to the procedure of migration to a new PC?
The internal SSD will be replaced. The LR 6-made backups of the catalog are on an external HD, as well as the catalog itself, and the preview data.
Thanks a lot,
Jaro
The process is exactly the same whether you’re moving to a new computer or reloading the operating system on the same computer.
Hello, I recently had to restore my Lightroom from my backup catalogue. For some reason I lost all my color coding of my images. I use the green, blue, and red coding to represent my editing process. Are these normally attributes not normally backed up with the Lightroom backup process? Is there any way to restore them? Also, I don’t seem to have any of my virtual copies any more. Are those also lost? Thank you so much for any help you can offer.
The color labels aren’t stored as colors, they’re stored as text. You can change which colors represent each text label by going to Metadata menu > Color Label Set > Images tab. You probably had a different set selected before.
There have been several updates to LR in the last year or so and I want to know if it is reasonable to delete old versions of files & folders such as those for v10 & v10-v11? For example the following:
Ron LRCC Catalog-v10 Helper.Irdata
Ron LRCC Catalog-v10-11 Helper.Irdata
Ron LRCC Catalog-v10-11 lcrat-Irdata
Ron LRCC Catalog-v10.lcrat
Ron LRCC Catalog-v10-11.lcrat
Since these have been replaced by version 12 I see no reason to keep them? Also what about Backups that were made of these earlier versions as long as I have the current version backed up? Thanks
That’s reasonable. Just ensure you have sufficient backups – see our suggestions on how long to keep in this post:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/catalog-back-frequency-keep/
On my Mac. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to have an external hard drive contain a duplicate of my internal SSD and an my main external Hard drive that holds all my data that is not on the SSD. This is automated each night. I have another hard drive that I keep in a fireproof safe that I use to do the same thing weekly. Additionally I have an external hard drive dedicated to Timemachine to be able and recover specific files.
Sounds like you’ve thought it through really well! Do you let LR do its backups too, so you have some kind of versioning in case of corruption?
Hi Victoria. Thanks for all you do for the Lr community. I see this list of files that are needed for backup doesnt yet include the new [catalog-name].lrcat-data and [catalogname] Helper.lrdata files which I believe are also necessary after version 11? Please verify and update as needed. BTW, I backup my photos on external HDDs which are then also backed up to the cloud using BackBlaze. I also keep multiple ZIPPed up compressed copies of the catalog data files in the cloud and on ext HDDs. Its no fun rebuilding from a corruption or PC that wont boot for sure. Backups are a hassle but a necessary evil for sure WHEN not IF it happens….
Thanks Stephen. The [catalog-name].lrcat-data is under the Catalog heading, and yes it’s pretty essential to include as it contains the AI-based mask data.
The helper file is just a local cache to speed up things like the Folder panel listing, so it does no harm to trash that from time to time, especially if something weird is happening like folder counts are wrong.
Sounds like you’ve got a great backup system going, I use BackBlaze too.
Hi Victoria,
In your reply to Stephen you pointed out that the new [catalog-name].lrcat-data under the Catalog heading contains the AI-based mask data and was essential to include in a back up.
In the latest update (Version 12), I do not see the folders like in Version 11. I used to see numerous numbered or lettered folders that held the AI masking data. Has this data been integrated elsewhere so there is no need for these folders anymore? Thanks.
It seems to be a bug in 12.0, I expect it’s one that’ll get fixed fairly quickly.
LR Classic backup the catalog (I selected a different disk than the one where the catalog) usually.
For additional safety is it correct if I do regularly a copy (right click and duplicate) of the xxx.lrcat file and store it in in a folder in the cloud, like Dropbox?
And use the same procedure with xxx.Previews.lrdata ?
And my main external disk (with the photos) is also regularly backedup with time machine.
Is this a correct procedure?
Sometimes I feel a little confused, still studying after many years of LR 🙂
robert
We’d suggest an off-site copy (cloud is logical) is a good idea, although we wouldn’t normally suggest previews need backing up. They are helpful if you lose an original photo (you can build a low res from them), but a robust system for backing up photos as well is more important.
Time Machine is good as all the other files mentioned above (as long as they reside on your System Disk) will automatically be backed up too (and versioned).
Thanks for your answer. I make a TimeMachine backup regularly on a dedicated HD + a backup on a different HD wich I weekly rotate (I use two of them) just in case somethig should happen to the main backup disk! In this case the risk would be to loose mximim one week of work which is for me acceptable.
Perhaps I’m over cautious…
How about backing up with a dedicated sw like GoodSync? Would it be redudant in my case?
It’s good you have a robust backup system. The one advantage of introducing a cloud backup too is it would give you off-site backup in event of a local disaster. Some feel that’s over the top, and in that case they’d have bigger things to worry about. All depends on your view of risk and the value of your photos (and other data you may decide to hold in the cloud)!
Is it possible to buy just the Lightroom Classic CC book alone without the Adobe plans which I already have?
Hi Douglas
We’re not a part of Adobe, the book is for sale on our Shop page (not as a part of any Adobe plan).
Paul
how to backup and move lightroom CC to another computer ? above one is for lightroom classic .
Assuming everything is synced to the cloud, it’s as simple as installing Lightroom on the new computer and logging in. Everything will download automatically. Easy as pie!
I have no .plist Lightroom file.
Backing up the catalog includes working folders, is that right!
LR installed on C:\ and pictures, including XMP files are stored on a external drive. The catalog backup is a xxx.ircat.zip format, also stored on a other external drive.
Thanks.
Mathew
Lightroom’s catalog backup only backs up the catalog – the database – itself. It doesn’t back up the folders of photos though, so you need to use backup software to back those up as well.
Hi, Victoria! What backup software are you currently using?
BackBlaze for cloud backups, Chronosync for local backups, SuperDuper for an occasional bootable backup.
Hi Victoria. I use Time Machine and Backblaze. I also use SuperDuper to create a bootable drive weekly.
I export all my photos as JPG’s to the Mac Photos app and use a Sandisk to back them up from my iPhone albeit they are also in the Cloud. Do you think that’s enough?
Sounds like you’re well covered! Only question mark I’d add is whether you’re letting Lightroom run its own versioned backups in addition to that lot, as Time Machine ones can end up corrupted if they run while LR’s open.
I use LR 6.14 and back up my Catalogue at least twice a month. A few month ago I had my computer guy do a complete rebuild of my hard drive. I reloaded LR6.14 and then reloaded my catalog from my most recent backup. All my files were restored perfectly but my Collections were nowhere to be found. What went wrong.? I am slowly rebuilding my collections but it is a lot of work. I have over 20 000 photos in mt catalog.
Thanks in advance.
The collections were completely missing? Or they had 0 photos in them?
All the collections were completely missing.
Weird. I’d try opening a previous backup catalog to check that they’re there. That’s not something that would usually go walkabout.
Victoria you are a lifesaver!
This letter was absolutely needed for me !
More safety again after these good recommendations !
Thank you.
Your advice is never wasted here!
Lex
Glad to help Lex!
Hello Victoria,
I received a message that I needed to update my lightroom classic, So I did, Now when I open it I get a message saying:
We need to upgrade our catalog for use with Lightroom Classic. Lightroom classic will create a new catalog file in the destination indicated below . The previews will also be moved to this location and converted for use in Lightroom classic.
Upgrade Destination: /Users/Sal/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog-2.Ircat
I thought I had Lightroom Classic but this sounds like I didnt?
Im Confused and dont want to lose anything.
It wont let me open lightroom now with out getting this message so I cant go in and see which version I have.
It also says:
This operation cannot be undone, and the new catalog will not be compatible with previous versions of Lightroom Classic. If you need backwards compatibility please back up this catalog and its preview files before upgrading.
Im not really tech savvy so I hope you can explain the easy way out of this.
You are really good at easy…
Thanks, Sally
Sure, we did a blog post on this a few weeks ago: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-upgrade-catalog/
You did have Lightroom Classic, it’s just installed a newer update that requires a catalog format upgrade. That’s all fine, perfectly normal.
Thanks for a helpful post. I had anticipated there is no need for me to backup my *Previews.lrdata (including *Smart Previews.lrdata) files, and it’s nice to hear confirmation from you.
But what about the *Sync.lrdata and *Helper.lrdata files? They are small, so I suppose I may as well.
Sync.lrdata would be rebuilt if it got deleted, it just takes a while as it checks the cloud contents against the local catalog. The Helper files are just a local cache of folder counts and suchlike, so they can be deleted and rebuilt on demand.
Thanks for a great site!
I’m wondering if it’s possible to change the default location of LR files – e.g. that they are located in Dropbox instead of somewhere on C: ? And if it is, would then be possible to edit the same photos on multiple computers? My photos are all stored on a LAN Drive.
You can use symbolic links if you’re a little geeky 😉
Hello and thank you a lot for this helpfull post.
I have been saving my Lightroom archives on a separate HD for backup for years, following almost all your recomendations (without having seeing them before!), except for one important thing:
For backing up the photos, I use to export the entire cataloge on the separate disc. This way, on a new installation I may simply load that catalogue and voila!
Is this procedure correct and recommended?
Thank you and regards,
Rainer Stehr
Hi Rainer
If you mean you do an Export as Catalog, then it doesn’t include all of the different items in the catalog (from memory, Collections, etc) – just a straight copy of the catalog retains that. But we would still also recommend the Lightroom catalog backup (ideally again to an alternate disk) as then you can hold versions of it (so if the current catalog gets a corruption, then you can go back to an earlier one that doesn’t)
Paul
Your article made me check … I can see what looks like a catalog at
c:\Users \ [your username] \ Pictures \ Lightroom \ Lightroom Catalog.lrcat
but strange it’s dated Oct 2018 which is probably when I updated to LR8.
It’s 652MB in size so not trivial.
I’ve just been into LR, made a change to 1 photo, and came out. No difference.
It that as expected?
If I go into the Backups folder I can see my regular (weekly) backups made by LR. Interesting if I peek in the zip files the latest one is ~645MB unzipped and 175MB zipped. But it’s dated 21 March (today is 25th) so I cannot see anywhere my recent change is saved, except perhaps in a sidecar file?
Am I missing something? Thanks …..
Hi David
Check the Preferences – Catalog Settings – this will confirm where the actual (used) catalog is. You should see the date / time changes to the file when you work in Lightroom.
Paul
Yes LR settings say the catalog is in c:\Users\(myname)\Pictures\Lightroom. Furthermore it says it was created 16/10/18 and last backup 21/3/2019. I’m not sure what the relevance of “created” is. And I still can’t see a catalog dated today, which I’d expect.
Hi David
Created means what is says – and if that’s when you updated versions, then that makes sense.
Check properties (file info) – the Modified should reflect the last changes you made to the catalog (photos developed within) and Last opened should be today
Dear Victoria,
after reading through your emails and blogs, I decided to move now to the LR Abo system For me, LR is mainly my data storage tool and I would not mind to store my raw data in the Adobe Cloud additionally. Usually, I do only some minor touch up in post processing. However, I’m not interested in Photoshop, as my focus is mainly to shot with my camera and create daily photographs. So, I have two questions:
– Do you recommend for me to order LR CC 1.0 or are there reasons to better book the LR Classic CC 7.0 version?
– Should I order LR via your homepage? If yes, would you be so kind and send me the link?
Thanks so much for your support.
Cheers Michael
Dear Victoria,
After reading more in depth in your blog, question 1 is answered. I will order LR Classic. And I found the link on your homepage 🙂 So, no need to answer anymore.
Thanks for everything.
Cheers and have a lovely weekend,
Michael
Got the LR Classic CC even over your UK Account 🙂
Oh well done Michael!
Ps: I meant with upgradeability the concerns, that my LR5 files/database will lose its compatibility to upcoming LR5 versions
Got it! Anything you’ve done in Lightroom 5 will happily upgrade to Lightroom Classic. But once you’ve upgraded, you wouldn’t be able to open the catalog in LR5 again.
Dear Victoria, thanks so much for providing this list. I think I’m fine but I will definitely double check tonight.
However, I still have one question. I’m using daily my Fuji X-T1 and use quiet happily LR5 as my database and usually make only minor adjustments to my RAW files. Would you recommend to switch to LR Classic CC? Do I risk to lose my “upgradability” one day? Your opinion would be highly recommended. Cheers Michael
There are some really solid improvements in Classic, so yes, I’d recommend moving to the subscription. I’m not quite sure what you mean by losing your upgradeability though?
Thanks, Victoria, for your kind feedback! I will definitely consider it. First, I will add now two new internal hard disks (3TB) in my desktop. Then I’ll move my LR5 data to the new drives according your advise and reconfigure “Second Copy”. I really appreciate your support. Thereafter I will dive into your blog and will find out which CC solution, I should target. I was really happy to find you via Vision-Driven Community. Cheers Michael
My photos are backed up to OneDrive automatically.
When I import my photos they are stored in my OneDrive folder, my catalog is also in my OneDrive folder. As soon there are any changes to my OneDrive folder the cloud is also updated. Presently my OneDrive folder has 215,956 files and 36,753 of them are photos.
I export all my selected photos as full size jpegs to a OneDrive folder. However I don’t backup the original RAWs. In hindsight I could put that root folder in onedrive too, but now I don’t know if I have enough space on my hard disk.’can you move the original files – keeping the original structure? Then I could move that root folder to onedrive which would keep a constant backup of my original files.
Yeah, you can move the root folder. This blog post https://www.lightroomqueen.com/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/ is talking about moving to another hard drive, but the same principles apply.
Can anyone explain why Lightroom wouldn’t have the ability to find a missing photo file or folder? Lightroom is obviously running on a powerful computer that has full knowledge of where every file on it exists and on the contents of all its backups. How hard would it be to make it look through its file system or its backup software’s catalogs to tell you where the possible candidate files are and ask to confirm that these are correct ones. Then it could just put the file where it’s supposed to be.
You could certainly put that forward as a feature request, although it still wouldn’t account for stuff you’ve renamed or drives that are offline.
My friend’s house just burned down in N. Santa Rosa. Fortunately, he kept a mirror of his disc drives on a cloud (and escaped with his life). I don’t do that (yet) but I do copy all of my image files to Amazon Drive. They provide free storage space for all image files (including raw files) and a some free space for non-image files (such as sidecars) to Prime members, which I joined anyway.
Oh wow, thanks for the great reminder Rob.
Victoria
at one time in changing computers, i forgot to copy my 2013 images. they are lost forever. Lightroom, though still has the “virtual” copy of the images. His there any way to use these images when the master images are gone? Any tricks or hacks?
thanks,
Gil
Hi Gil
Happily there is. The results will only be the same quality as the Lightroom previews you have, but they will at least be a copy!
Victoria did a post on it here:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/accidentally-deleted-photos-hard-drive-dont-backups-can-create-jpegs-lightrooms-previews/
Hope that helps you!
Paul
Paul
Thanks. This works great
Gil
Hi
I’m new to Lightroom… My catalog is stored on my Mac HD and I use Time Machine to back up my whole Mac, no exclusions so does this mean that all the files I would need are automatically backed up?
As long as the photos are on the Mac HD too, then yes, you should be covered.
I’m confused by your statement re backing up presets: “Checking or unchecking that box doesn’t automatically copy them to the new location, so you may have presets in both locations. I’d recommend leaving it unchecked, unless you have a specific reason for using that feature, as it doesn’t include all settings and often creates confusion.” Which two locations are you referring to?
It’s referring to the “store presets with this catalog” checkbox Dennis. Toggling the checkbox doesn’t copy presets between the global and catalog-specific location. There’s more info about that checkbox here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/store-presets-with-catalog/
Hi Victoria,
Or should I say Your Majesty?
I have LR 5.7 64 bit and have downloaded your ‘e’ book though have to be honest I simply find LR as one of the most unintuitive pieces of software ever, I really cannot get my head around how it works, which is so infuriating as so many of my friends prefer it to PS. As a point I use it on a PC running windows 10.
Geoff Howard
Hi, does the new LR2015.8 support having the catalogue on an external drive or NAS system, yet? Asking this die the changes of the backup change of 4mb.
Thanks. Also thanks too for the informative blog/website.
You’ve always been able to store the catalog on an external drive, it’s just a NAS you can’t use.
Hello! I’m looking to see about a Behance plug-in for LR.. is there one available at this time?
Thanks!
It was withdrawn a while ago, pending some improvements: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/behance-publish-service-plugin.html
I’m a new LR user and plan to migrate my files from Apple’s Aperture eventually. This makes my current LR catalog relatively small. However, I have installed a RAID system that is composed of two external drives, one mirroring the other. Should I also go through what seems to be a pretty complicated system discussed above to back up the LR files AGAIN? My original files are already backed up twice on other external hard drives, but none of the backed up original files have any “post-processed” work on them; they are just as they came from the camera. Also, I don’t know how to check on the second drive in the RAID system to see if it actually has anything on it. Can you make a suggestion about how to do that too? Thanks so much. I can see I will really learn a lot from your newsletters.
Hi Marsha. RAID isn’t great as a backup. It can rescue you if the drive dies, but if there’s any kind of corruption or user error, that immediately gets replicated to the second drive.
I’d consider a tweak to that system… rather than RAIDing the drives, I’d keep them as 2 separate volumes and use software such as Chronosync to mirror the first drive onto the second. That allows you to set a time offset (e.g. back up every 2 hours) which would give you time to spot a mistake and recover it from the backup drive, and it can also archive deleted/changed files to a separate folder, so you stand a better chance of recovering from mistakes made some time earlier too.
If you’re doing that, then you can easily double check that all of the files above are also included in your backups too.
I shot and processed in LR4 on a laptop and stored the files on 2 (1 a backup) Lacie rugged drives 3 months while out of the country. Now that I’ve returned, I want to move the files onto my permanent drives and access the files on my desktop computer. I realized though that I am losing all my processing/settings on some 50,000 images. Is there a simple way to import the relocated files with settings onto my desktop LR4? Thanks in advance.
You’d need to move your laptop catalog to the desktop and plug in the Lacie drive, then open your normal desktop catalog, go to File menu > Import from Another Catalog and direct it to the laptop catalog. That’ll pull all of the processing/settings into your main catalog. Then, once you can see all of the photos and edits in the desktop catalog, you can move the photos from the Lacie drive to your permanent drives using these instructions: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/
Thank you so much.
Hi there, just wondering do you know how much file space on my PC roughly 15000 photos should take up? Im very confused as my last backup in LR 5 was taking up LOADS of space (and I dont think that 15000 photos is that many) to the point where we had to reformat the whole computer to get rid of programs to accommodate for it. But ever since I had a LR representative change my backup to my F: rather than C:, its barely taking up any space at all. I’m concerned its not working properly.
Last time I checked my 25k photo catalog, the numbers were:
Catalog—1 GB (with zipped backups of around 250 MB each)
Previews (1680px, medium quality, discard 1:1 after 1 day)—16 GB
Smart Previews (optional)—25 GB
Original Files—300 GB
There are a few possibilities – you might have had loads of catalog backups, you might have been copying the original photos to the boot drive, when you meant to send them to an external drive.
I moved from windows to imac without reading all your great tips first. I now have lightroom working but all the presets I’ve made and my watermark and export settings etc is not there. I moved it from my external harddrive to the imac but don’t know how to link it to lightroom?
Where do you have the presets stored now on the iMac? In a Lightroom Settings folder next to the catalog? Or in the Application Data location? Watermarks with images don’t usually move well, but everything else should.
Hi Victoria – thanks for this helpful post. I’m not sure what to backup for the Presets & Templates using the location C:\users\username\appdata\raoming\adobe\Lightroom – do i backup all of the folders within this location? (or select Develop presets, export presets etc). Also, I don’t have a CameraRaw folder in this location (but i do have photoshop) – can you explain this?
Just back up the whole folder Melissa, as that’ll make it easy to restore if there’s a problem. There should be a CameraRaw folder there too, so no, I can’t explain why that’s missing, sorry!!
Hi Victoria,
I’m a bit stumped an wondered if you could help me out please?
I have a mac with around 20,000 pictures on, all of which I view and edit through lightroom. I also setup lightroom on a 2nd users login, however when they access the library catalogue, the picture file blocks are there ,but there is no picture, its simply a grey box and that is the same for all pictures in all folders.
The only way the 2nd user can view the actual pictures, is by going into develop mode.
Do you know what might be causing the problem at all?
Many thanks!
That’ll be a permissions problem Andy, either on the Previews.lrdata file or some of the files inside. I’m not certain there’s a permanent fix for it though, other than putting the catalog and previews on a separate hard drive that doesn’t worry about ownership.
Oh thank you, thats at least a workaround solution for me 🙂
Out of interest, I tried to create a completely new catalogue, as figured maybe that would fix it, however when I try to save files to the catalogue, it says I cant save files or folders there and to check permissions etc. Ive enabled sharing through it though and cant work out why it wont let me, do you know what im doing wrong or why it wont work?
Yup if their LR catalog was on their normal location inside the pictures folder inside of their user name folder then they moved it out to a folder outside their isername and they didnt have permission (login password) for that location then they cant access it. if you have admin rights to look at all accounts then you can see/edit them but its riskier to have admin rights on your daily personal login. should create separate admin user for installing and doing pc gloabl things to be safe in case you get a virus to take over your machine and kill your files or get full access to all your personal data.
I’ve also seen the same issue with the catalog placed in the Shared folder, FWIW.
OK thank you both 🙂
What in your opinion is the best thing for me to do at this stage? Are you able to talk me through what to do in order to share a catalogue via the computer itself, rather than using an external HDD? I’m so confused because it’s worker perfectly for the past year or so and then my son made a copy of the lrcat, so it now says copy.lrcat and it suddenly stopped working, however when I change the file name to just read lrcat and remove the copy part, it still says copy in the file path of LR?
Hope that makes sense?
It’s easiest to post on the forum at http://www.lightroomforums.net as we can bounce screenshots and things there.
Any backup resource for us not using mac/apple products? That link you provided is for Apple users only not Windows
Which link are you looking at salsaguy? Although the screenshots are of the Mac version, all of the instructions (and the mentioned plug-in) work on both Windows and Mac.
Ok thats great if it works on PC. with the mac shots and no mention of PC it wasnt clear that it worked for PC. They should specify that somewhere on the page:
http://photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/index.php
If you click on the links down the side, like the install instructions and user guide, it does mention both, but I agree it could be clearer. For future reference, most plug-ins work on both OS’s.
I went ahead and bought it. just need to try it now. I also have another question. I have my catalog backed up using dropbox watched folder but it seems to slow things down on my older PC. should I move them back over to the hdd and not use the dropbox watched folder method to auto update? if so how do i migrate it back safely as there is a lot of files its copying up to the cloud. My dropbox is “almost full” i keep getting errors so…. i had to delete some files from there to prevent crashing
I’m not certain of what you mean by “I have my catalog backed up using dropbox watched folder” and “not use the dropbox watched folder method to auto update”. Can you tell me more? Do you mean your catalog is stored in Dropbox’s folder, and therefore copied to cloud storage?
Hi Vic,
Thanks for this article. What about custom camera profiles? moving from PC to Mac? (yes I’ve gone to the dark side….)
Thnks,
Chris
If you’ve stored them in the right place, they should be in the “Settings shared with Camera Raw” section.
Hi
I am such a novice at the computer and have never copied a file between my laptop and a new pc. I copied everything you mentioned onto a usb drive and then on the new pc, installed the newest version of lightroom. Now I am ready ( I think) to take the usb drive and put it on the new pc. Now what do I do? Where do I put these files that I’ve just saved to the usb drive? I am guessing that it’s important to put them where they need to be and I don’t really know where that would be!! Help???
You might find the instructions how to move to a new computer more helpful: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/ but in short, you put them in the same locations on the new computer.
Hello Victoria,
Thank you for a great article! Very helpful. I’m backing up the catalog to my server now which is where I also store my original RAW files. Do you recommend also copying the dng files & file structure to the server? In case the laptop gets compromised.
Thanks!
Yes, you want a copy of the entire photo folder structure to make restoration as easy as possible, in case you do have a disaster.
Hi,
Claudy wrote “backing up the catalog to my SERVER”.
Would this work with a NAS type too?
Thanks!
Yes, backing up to NAS is fine (you can’t run the Lightroom Catalog on a NAS, but as a backup that you can then restore from it’s fine – main thing is to have backups!!!)
Hi Victoria,
I am currently using an external hard drive to store my pictures instead of the internal hard drive on my Macbook Pro. Is there a way to backup my catalog upon closing LR5 to both the internal and external hard drives? Right now it looks like it’s one or the other unless I alternate manually. Where is my catolog stored?
Thanks for all your helpful info.
Not through Lightroom. You’d need backup software to automate that.
Excellent article. I have upgraded several times with different computers and will be getting a new computer early next year. This will help immensely. My question is I have 2 500 WD external hard drives. I would like all of my pictures from these 2 external hard drives transferred to my new WD 4TB. I tried it, however when I connected the new drive to my laptop, Lightroom 5 did not recognize the new drive. Am I missing a step? Thank you so much!
If there’s a large number of photos, I’d move them to the new drive (entire folder structure) using Explorer/Finder and then relink the missing files. Check the folders are set up as a hierarchy before you move them, to make it quick and easy (https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/long-list-folders-can-change-show-folder-hierarchy/) and then relink the missing files (https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/lightroom-thinks-photos-missing-fix/)
hello Victoria, I have combined many folders into one and made catalogs for what were folders, all within Lr I now see that Lr hasn’t altered the macbook file structure but retained the old version ….I can see all my photos in both Lr and HDD but not in folders emulating the catalogs 🙁
is there anything I can do to reinstate the mirroring of the catalogs please … I thought thats what Lr did and frankly it has done so till now. It was a larger change making new catalogs in one session.
Appreciate any input
Dale
sorry Victoria I mentioned catalogs when in fact I have one catalog and many collections with now one file in Lr but not on the HDD which still shows my old many folders …. basically Lrs collections are not emulating the HDD folder setup.
Dale.
I’d expect folders to mirror the file structure, and if it doesn’t, you can follow these instructions: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/long-list-folders-can-change-show-folder-hierarchy/
I wouldn’t expect to collections to mirror the folder structure, so if that’s what you’re expecting, you may need to explain more.
Hi Victoria. A very clear piece of guidance that helped me greatly. I’ve now successfully moved everything to a new computer and Lightroom (CC) doesn’t appear to have lost any of my settings etc.
However, I was shocked to see when transferring my preview files to see that they were just over 130GB in size! That’s based on a catalogue of nearly 100,000 photos.
I’ve now read-up on changing the catalog settings so that previews get sucessfully discarded after (in my case) 30 days. But, this has only reduced the file size by about 8GB and, as I want to keep the SSHD on my new computer as clean and free as possible, I’m beginning to think that I might need to take amore radical step and delete all the previews and allow them to build as I work with images.
So, my question is in two parts:
First: If I delete the previews file, will Lightroom just begin to build previews of everything as it would if I imported 100,000 images? Or would previews just be generated, for example, as and when I opened up into loop view in library grid?
Second: If I deleted all the previews, would there be problems (other than time ‘generating’ individual images) that I’ve failed to predict?
If there is no big downside to deleting the preview file, I assume that I could proceed with a strategy of deleting the file when ever I saw that it had reached a size of, say, 10-20GB? If that’s not going to cause me problems, it makes me wonder why Adobe hasn’t put in place a simple method of automatically culling the file size…..because the current method of deleting after 30 days (or whatever you want it set to) clearly doesn’t work if you have a monitor with a large resolution and are working with large image files.
Thanks in anticipation of your advice.
Mike.
Hi Mike. If you delete the previews, Lightroom will generate them as you view them. The downside is the extra time it takes to view the photos. Most people would rather have viewing speed rather than hard drive space, which is why a way of culling the standard previews haven’t been a priority.
Thanks Victoria. I agree. Viewing speed is my priority. I think I’ll live with the previews sitting on my C Drive for now.
Mike.
Mike you also need to be aware that the Develop History file in Lightroom can grow very large. When my catalog backups that execute when I exit Lightroom began taking hours to complete I checked my Catalog file size and was horrified to see that it had grown to 13.73 GB! It wasn’t clear how much of this was related to Develop History so I created a duplicate of my Catalog, selected the 75,000+ images and clicked on Clear History. I then Optimized the Catalog and exited Lightroom. Catalog size had been reduced from 13.7 GB to 2.92 GB! While nondestructive editing apps like Lightroom have a lot going for them there’s a price to pay when it comes to storage requirements.
Hi Victoria, I’m using LR 6.1.1 on Windows 7 64-bit. The serial number is not there when I bring up the Sys Info screen from LR. It’s also not on the LR “Help – About” screen. Is there another place where it’s viewable?
Best,
Dennis
Your account on Adobe’s website is the easiest place.
Hi Victoria, thanks a lot for the comprehensive list. I think it will be even better if we include the watermarks as well, which are in the folder
C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Watermarks
Thanks!
Yang
Yep, they should be covered by the “Presets & Templates” folder.
Hi there! So when I backup a catalog it does not backup the previews? So if that preview file is now absent, there is no way to recreate it? Thank you!
As long as you still have the original photos, missing previews is no trouble at all. They’ll be rebuilt automatically as you browse through the photos, or you can select all and go to Library menu > Previews > Build Standard Previews to recreate them all in one go.
Hi! I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I’ll try anyway:
I’ve backed up my files with special backup-software (rather than the built-in backup-feature of Lightroom itself). And as you might know a program like that just compares two locations for differences and updates whichever you tell it to update.
Anyway, almost every time I do a backup the program says there are .lrprev-files only on the backup-drive. Which at first worried me, but then I figured they’re probably files Lightroom itself has removed on the original drive.
However, I wasn’t 100% sure if I could just throw away the ones on the backup. Cause, although it might not hurt to keep them, they both clutter up my backup-drive, and in case I have to restore from the backup they might be old files with old states that I’m not looking for anyway.
Can you verify that this is what happens, or would these files perhaps still be important?
I mean, again, Lightroom seems to delete them and make new ones (I guess), but that all happens in the background, so I’m not sure.
Thanks.
.lrprev files are the previews that are contained inside the Previews.lrdata folder/file. It’s not unusual for those to be removed, replaced or updated, so I wouldn’t panic. Any missing previews could be recreated as long as you have the original files, so I don’t usually worry about backing them up myself.
I will just raise a red flag however – does your backup software keep versioned backups of the catalog? If not, you might want to use LR’s catalog backup in addition. Keeping multiple older versions can save your bacon if the catalog becomes corrupted or you make a mistake.
Thank you for this, very helpful!
The only problem I encountered with reinstalling was that I not only had to give the actual LR5 serial number, but also the serial for my original version, LR3. This is apparently because my LR5 is an upgrade version.
Luckily I had kept the old box of LR3 with the serial on it, else I wouldn’t know where to look…
Words cannot express how much this article has helped me. Thank you so much for sharing. I have to repartition my entire PC because of software issues, so I am frantically trying to cover my bases on backups. I am following your instructions, but I am having trouble “finding” my preferences files. (Yes, I’m fairly new to this.) I’m not sure how to find or create? Also, I have made copies of all photos and catalogs on external hard drives. Is this sufficient? Any additional help would be greatly appreciated.
The easiest way to find the preferences on Windows is to open Lightroom, go to Edit > Preferences and select the Presets tab. Then press the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button. If the Store Presets with This Catalog checkbox is checked (I don’t usually recommend it), then you’ll need to uncheck it and press the button again to access the rest of the preferences. As long as you’ve followed the instructions above, you’ll be fine.
You are Awesome! I would have missed that and not had copies. Thank you again so much for being willing to and taking the time to help me.
Hi,
I’m rather new at this, when you refer to backup are you suggesting using backup software or copy/paste folder structures or export files from Lightroom? Your help is very much appreciated.
Thank You,
Either software or manual copy/paste, Patty. These are the files that need to be backed up, however you choose to do so. I’d recommend backup software as there’s less room for human error.
Hi! Your explanations are great – helped me a lot. Thanks for your efforts.
Glad to help Matt!
If I store everything, the Picture Folder structure along with the Catalog files and whatever else Lightroom creates, on the same external drive then clone that drive to another external drive – would that second drive work if the first fails ?
Thanks
Yep, that’ll work fine. Depending on your OS, you might want to rename/reassign the drive letter if you had to switch machines, to save you relinking the missing files.
Excellent article! Does it make sense to save save the metadata as XMP as well as backing up your “normal” catalogue? In that case, you’d have at least some settings stored with your files…
Yes, there’s certainly no harm in doing that, and it can be a good safety net in the case of disaster. Only things to be aware of:
* It doesn’t include everything, as you’ve noted. It’s missing things like flags, virtual copies and collection membership, to name the most important.
* It may mean your backup software wants to back up all of the TIFFs/JPEGs/PSDs/DNGs again, as they’ll have had their embedded metadata updated. That can be a problem if you run a cloud backup, and even for a local backup, every time you rewrite those backup files, you run the risk of introducing corruption to the backup, so that puts some people off.
Cheers for the prompt reply! So if I only save the settings of my RAW files to xmp that would discard the second problem, right?
Yep, absolutely right.
Cool, thank you!
Excellent. Thank you.
Thanks so much for this information Victoria! It helped me avoid a disaster when migrating to my new MacBook Pro and converting to Yosemite. There are some minor differences with where Yosemite puts things as opposed to where Mavericks does but things seem to be working when you put logic to work.
Great to hear it Alice! What differences did you notice on Yosemite? I haven’t noticed any but I haven’t looked closely.
Many thanks Victoria for these free additional Lr helps–they are much appreciated and certainly help to attain a higher level of understanding about the program and especially about transferring images from earlier versions of Lr to the current version and from 32bit systems top the 64bit system (with respect to the latter, is there a difference between the two?)
Happy to help Ron! No, there’s no difference between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, apart from behind the scenes the 64-bit version has access to a lot more memory.
Before getting LR, I used to just drag images in dated folders to an external HD every month or so. Do I need to do something different now that I have LR?
And what’s the easiest way to manually back up the entire catalog to an external HD that I only periodically connect to the computer? (It’s usually kept in a safe)
Dragging the dated folders to the external drive works, but make sure you don’t forget to back up any extra photos or Edit-in photos in the process.
To manually back up everything – I assume you mean all of the photos too – try File menu > Export as Catalog and make sure you check ‘include negatives’.
Dang. I started doing this shortly after I asked the question… I didn’t check “include negatives,” though. It’s about halfway through the export of 30k+ files. Now what?
Let it finish, and copy the folders over to that drive too. If a disaster happened, you’d just need to use Find Missing Folder to link them up again.
Watching LR under ‘exporting catalog’ as it works, it looks like it’s exporting everything (CR2s, Tiffs, resized jpegs). If I would have checked “include negatives,” what else would that be giving me?
If it’s putting all of the original files on the external drive, then you did have include negatives checked.
Cool. many thanks.
I may be slow but I don’t see a “File menu > Export as Catalog and make sure you check ‘include negatives’” option. I’m operating on Windows now and have done my backups the same as Moose, “drag images in dated folders to an external HD every month or so”.
In addition, I’m considering purchasing a MAC to replace my Windows laptop so I’m researching to be sure I get the transfer correct. I’ve read your article “How to Move LR to new computer” which was great, but I still have questions that I’ll probably ask separately. Thanks for your website, it’s been a great help.
It’s about half way down the File menu Sharon. It might be grey if you don’t have any photos selected.
Hi.
I write the metadata automatically into an Xmp file which is stored next to the original file. when putting the settings like this, do i really need to backup the whiole catalog? The changes to a image should be recreateable through the Xmp file?
Does this make sense or do I get it wrong?
Thanks for clarifying 🙂
Bear in mind that only a limited range of settings can be stored in XMP. Off the top of my head, you’d be missing flags, virtual copies, collection membership, Develop history, stacks, Develop module panel switches and zoomed image pan positions. If you don’t care about that information, your XMP will be fine, but a lot of people use things like flags and collections particularly.
Thanks for linking to my post! This post is awesome! I think I will add this to the section of my post that talks about switching computers and transferring files. Really great resource to bookmark!
Need a reminder of why it’s so important? Jill Levenhagen has a great post of horror stories to scare you into backing up! http://www.jilllevenhagenphotography.com/2013/10/31/horror-stories-of-losing-files-backup-your-computer/
The post is gone! I know is a few years old. Was the post moved?
I believe she closed her blog. The gist of it was, you really really really must back up.
Excellent, that sounds good Mike. Just bear in mind that not all of the presets are stored with the catalog. I discovered the other day that the panel end marks aren’t included, for example. On Mac, I use a program called Hazel to do something like your backup script for a variety of different software backups. Works well.
Yes, I hadn’t considered panel end marks, nor the new (customizable) splash screen image (I don’t much use either of those!). Thanks for the tip!
Mike.
Thank you for this helpful information! Question: how do I back up my “edited” file as suggested?
If you’re backing up your working folder structure, it should also include all of the -Edit files. If you keep them in a separate folder structure, then just be aware they need to be backed up too.
I’m just going through various posts after my mistake in deleting a subfolder from within LR6.1 and want to make sure that I fully understand the backup system.
Firstly my original images are stored /backed up on a couple of external drives…..secondly when I process them, only the “changes” are stored in the LR Catalog, is this correct?
So if I want to back up the finished/processed images how is this done? Silly question probably but suddenly, I am totally unsure of a couple of main points.
Hi Peter. You could export the edited photos, or better still, just make sure you back up the images and the catalog. If you have to restore, you just put the photos and catalog back in the right place, and everything’s back to normal.
What the heck – this is not easy… I call foul, foul sir! Why does Adobe not make a backup tool. Want to move Lightroom 4.4 to a new machine. Looks like designed to fail…
If you’re backing up your whole computer (as I hope you are), then a Lightroom backup tool isn’t really necessary, but I know many people would appreciate an easier way to back up and restore catalogs.
If you’re moving to a new computer, try this post: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/
If I backup my files to an external drive using a windows program, will all of the edits that I make in LR and photoshop be saved on the external drive? How will the catalog on my PC record this backup?
Just make sure that you include the catalog in those Windows program backups. All of your Lightroom edits are contained in the catalog, and if you had to restore your backups, you’d restore both the catalog and photos. For Photoshop edits, as long as you’re restoring the photos, then yes, the edits would be included.
I am confused? Do I need to create a separate light room collection and catalog like I did in Aperture? For example, China.Icat, Thailand.icat, Europe.icat or do I put all the photo in one catalog structure like my collection.icat and import folders?
No, I’d strongly recommend a single catalog Marc, dividing topics by collections or folders. Multiple catalogs gets messy fast.
Thanks for the tips. I see the backup plan is no longer available as on option! Time machine will not backup full res files. What other options for 3 TB? My computer can only hold upto 250 GB.
Time Machine will back up anything you like. Perhaps it’s another backup system you were thinking of?
Do I just copy all these file over to a external drive if I’m backing up to a external as well? Thanks
Yes, that’ll work. Might be worth looking at proper backup software to stay updated without having to do it manually though.