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LR Classic - Backup location issue

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Crazy Legs

New Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2011
Messages
18
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Operating System: Mac OS 10.13.2
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): Classic 7.1

Apologies in advance for size of thread - I have used screenshots as sometimes its easier to see than explain in words!

I'm a long time LR user and fairly happy with the editing side of things but I have never really got to grips with the catalog and backup 'stuff'

It seems that at some point I have messed up my back-up location and I want to get it back to how it should be. I did try to sort this myself once quite a while ago and found myself with no images in LR so I used Time machine and got it back to my messed up system.

From what I can workout I now backup LR into what was once an individual backup!? Specifically everything is going into one folder: '2016-11-28 1641'

This is my dialogue box when I close LR:

Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 10.07.46.png



This is my Lightroom folder:

Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 11.46.49.png



Then within backups:

Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 11.42.06.png




And then within '2016-11-28 1641'

Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 11.50.34.png


Within this folder Lightroom Catalog-3-2 is my catalog.

Everything that is in '2016-11-28 1641' should I believe be in the Lightroom folder. I can't seem to get my head around how I can clean this mess up so that LR knows where everything is and am I safe to just delete 'Lightroom Catalog-3.Ircat' and 'Lightroom Catalog.Ircat'? And what other folders/files can I safely delete?

I'd be most grateful for an explanation as to how I can sort this out - explained very simply please!!

Thanks in anticipation

Andy
 
Yes, you seem to backup into a folder that was a backup folder on its own. Do you have an external (backup) drive? Even though that is the default, it's not a good idea to backup to the same drive as your original catalog is stored. If that drive ever crashes, you'll lose your catalog and all your backups! Click the 'Choose' button in your first screenshot and select the new destination. If at all possible, use another drive.
 
Thanks for responding. I have my iMac linked to a 4TB external drive running Time Machine so my understanding is that if the computer hard drive crashes I would still have it backed up on that drive (hourly back ups) so I think that's ok?

Is it as simple as just choosing a new destination in the original screenshot? Would I not need to somehow link it to the folders in the last screenshot (Lightroom Catalog-3-2.Ircat etc) When I did what seemed simple before when I opened LR again there were no files or folders showing?
 
Yes, Time Machine will make backups, including backups of the catalog backup folder. You can store catalog backups where ever you want, so it is indeed simply a matter of clicking that button and then select a new place. There is no need to choose the 'Backups' folder inside that catalog folder, but there is no harm either in this case.
 
BTW, what you should check is which catalog Lightroom is using, and wether that is the correct one. You have two catalogs in the main catalog folder (second screenshot), but you also have catalogs in that dated folder (third screenshot). I can't say for sure, but it seems that Lightroom is using a catalog in that dated folder right now. That may not be the correct catalog however. You can check which catalog is being used in the preferences.
 
Hi Johan,

It is using Catalog-3-2. I assume it is perfectly fine to delete all other catalogs as I'm not using them?
 
Thanks Johan - all done - deleted all of the files/folders that were no longer needed and everything seems to be working fine.
 
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