• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.

Lightroom Back Up problem

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

markhether18

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2021
Messages
48
Lightroom Version Number
11.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I just deleted some Lightroom Back Ups to save space on my PC then when I went back in to LR it said the catalogue could not be found and I had to reinstall the catalogue from my latest back up and I lost some imports and edits I did yesterday. I incorrectly assumed that LR would use the latest back-up catalogue. Is this normal or is there a setting I can change.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
markhether18 said:
I just deleted some Lightroom Back Ups to save space on my PC then when I went back in to LR it said the catalogue could not be found and I had to reinstall the catalogue from my latest back up and I lost some imports and edits I did yesterday. I incorrectly assumed that LR would use the latest back-up catalogue. Is this normal or is there a setting I can change.
Click to expand...

Lightroom Classic automatically zips up backup catalogs so that you cannot open them directly with LrC. Before that, it was too easy for users to open a backup catalog in the backup folder by mistake. At some point you probably opened an unzipped backup catalog file in the Backup folder and you deleted it during your housekeeping. You deleted latest catalog in the backup folder could probably be restored from the trash bin.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks my working catalogue was in a previous Back Up folder that I had utilised previously due to a corrupted catalogue. Thanks I managed to retrive the deleted catalogue from my recycle bin. Interested how I prevent this happenning again as I would not want to keep all the Back Ups indefinately? I am now using the catalogue from the latest back up but should the current catalogue be stored outside of the Back Ups?
This how my File structure looks not sure what I can safely delete?

1643109469649.png
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Your current catalog is stored outside the backups folder right now. If you ever need to revert to a backup, then do not simply start Lightroom from the (unzipped) backup catalog, but replace your current (corrupted) catalog file with that copy. Then start Lightroom again. That way you do not only keep the current catalog in the same place all the time, but it will also allow Lightroom to use the existing previews and smart previews, so it does not need to rebuild these.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
In that case your screenshot is confusing, because it clearly shows a backup folder at the same level of a catalog file. That must be a second backup folder in that case.

Click the "Show" button so Lightroom will bring you to the current catalog. Then quit Lightroom. Now move the catalog file and all the helper files to the root of the 'Lightroom' folder. Place any similar files that are currently there in a temporary folder. Finally, start Lightroom again by double clicking on the catalog file you just moved. That will tell Lightroom where you moved it to. Check in the Lightroom preferences that it will open this catalog from now on (or 'most recent catalog', that is fine too).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
markhether18 said:
Thanks my working catalogue was in a previous Back Up folder that I had utilised previously due to a corrupted catalogue. Thanks I managed to retrive the deleted catalogue from my recycle bin. Interested how I prevent this happenning again as I would not want to keep all the Back Ups indefinately? I am now using the catalogue from the latest back up but should the current catalogue be stored outside of the Back Ups?
This how my File structure looks not sure what I can safely delete?

View attachment 18021
Click to expand...

After you recover the catalog from the trash bin, move it and any previews in that folder to the /../Pictures/Lightroom folder. Next you want to move toy Backups folder to an external drive volume. When your primary disk fails (as it will eventually), it will not only take your master catalog but also your backup folder.
I catalog preferences you can specify a specific catalog to ope when Lightroom Opens and not just the default “Last catalog opened”. If you do these two things, you will always open the same catalog and in the right folder.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top