Backup on demand?

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Girts

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I've been using LR since the very first, so I should know this by now. :-[

You can specify LR to backup at various times, but always on opening. Surely it should be possible to specify 'backup now' or 'on closing'.

The reason this has come to mind is that recently LR launched without finding the right catalogue, so I had to hold its hand and take it to the right place. Then it did it again. If I wait for it to backup on launching, it may well backup the wrong catalogue instead of the one I've told it to use.

Any thoughts?
 
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Many of us work from one catalog only. That simplifies the situation greatly. There is no wrong catalog to open.

There is little harm in backing up the incorrect catalog as long as you also back up the correct catalog.

As a LR instructor, I have many ad-hoc catalogs lying around. 1 for HDR, 1 for Workflow, etc. I create them to go on my teaching laptops so that I can be efficient on stage. I have to say in 2.5 years, LR has never opened the wrong catalog for me.

For persons who feel the need for multiple catalogs, I always tell them to change their Preferences. General Tab set Default Catalog to "Prompt me when starting Lightroom". As long as you've named your catalogs descriptively you will have no problems.
 
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As far as I was concerned, I only had one catalogue - I don't have a need for any more than that.

But I still think it's a better procedure to backup at the end of a session rather than at the beginning. So my question is still is there any way to back up on demand?
 
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Girts, you could select all in All Photographs and go to File > Export as Catalog and export it without negatives or previews, which would give the same result. You'll probably want to create a dated folder to put it in.
 
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Thanks Victoria,
yes it would create the same result, but wouldn't it be better if one of the backup options was 'on exit', as it would make sure that the most recent version of your work (including any work in progress on an image) would be saved automatically.
 
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You can force a backup but not at "the end" of a session. Go to your Catalog Preferences and on the General Tab set the Backup Section to "Back Up catalog:" and select "
Next time Lightroom Starts only"

Close Lightroom. Open Lightroom. Catalog backs up. Reset preferences.

Personally, I prefer it on the front end. It seems that when I am closing LR I am also shutting down my machine to go somewhere. It makes it a longer process in my style of work.
 
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[quote author=Girts link=topic=8''7.msg54573#msg54573 date=1254491962]
Thanks Victoria,
yes it would create the same result, but wouldn't it be better if one of the backup options was 'on exit', as it would make sure that the most recent version of your work (including any work in progress on an image) would be saved automatically.
[/quote]I don't think the intention of the Adobe developers was to write an application to manage backups. There are a plethora of applications out there that already do this much better and much more globally that limiting to just LR. Keep in mind, LR's backup on startup only copies the catalog and not the images underlying the catalog. If you get a corrupted catalog during execution of LR, you have a recent catalog to fall bak to recover. If your HD containing your images dies, you lose those images unless you have some backup maintenance application working to protect all your important data on your computer. The LR catalog is notof any use if the image files are no longer available.

If you want to backup on exit, you could run LR inside a script that had at least two steps. Step1: Start LR, Step2: On LR end, Run A backup Application.

It might be possible to trigger an applicatiion like Microsoft's SyncToy 2.' to echo the LR catalog on a backup drive using the TaskScheduler. Or you could build this into a script that first initiates LR, then upon completion of LR, the Backup App.
 
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Hi Clee,
Maybe I've not been clear... I'm not talking about anything like as complex as this has become. I'm simply saying why not have the option of a LR backup (the catalogue etc) at exit as well as the existing launch options. That's all!
 
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[quote author=Girts link=topic=8''7.msg54578#msg54578 date=1254495661]
Hi Clee,
Maybe I've not been clear... I'm not talking about anything like as complex as this has become. I'm simply saying why not have the option of a LR backup (the catalogue etc) at exit as well as the existing launch options. That's all!
[/quote]It's not going to happen in this version of LR. Submit a Feature Request and hope for the best in V3.x. What I've done (and others too) has been to offer work arounds to help you get beyond what you see as a limitation to the current release.
 
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Yes, Cletus, I realise what you and the others have been doing and appreciate it.

I've already submitted a Feature Request about an hour ago, so we'll see what happens in V3.
You're wrong to think I see it as a limitation; it's just a way that LR could be even better.

Thanks again to everyone who took the trouble to answer.
 
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No worries Girts, you're not the only one to request it, and the LR team are pretty to popular requests, so you never know.
 
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