LrC upgrade messed up catalog; now Mac mini storage used up

[JEASTWOOD75]

Lightroom Version Number

15.1

Operating System

1. macOS 15 Sequoia

Hi, I did the upgrade to LrC last Friday and it moved my catalog and many photos to the Pictures file (it was stored on an external hard drive). It also moved my photos, I think, to my Mac mini, which is now out of storage space. I can't rename files, until I fiddled with it, I couldn't even add now photos to LrC. I really need help figuring out which catalog is the most current (I think I know) but also, what's happening that I've now used up almost 1 TB space on Mini, which was not case before upgrade. Plus I was able to make some edits today and some commands in LrC seem different plus my mouse stopped functioning (eg. can't right click any more)! I'm in US, probably 6 hrs later than you but hope to hear from someone tomorrow. I heard you can also get help on Zoom in some cases. I'd be very open to that if it proves necessary. Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Replytoken]

Welcome to the forum. Where were your files located before you upgraded? And what did you exactly upgrade? Were you upgrading from an earlier version of Classic, or did you do some other type of "upgrade"?

--Ken

 

[camner]

While you may not be able to do this perfectly, it could be helpful if you would try to reconstruct in as much detail as you able what steps you took and in what order from the time you began the upgrade to 15.1. And, if prior to the upgrade, you did any moving around of catalog or image files, detailing as best you can what you did can help the folks here help you.

(As far as the time zone is concerned, there are many people from both Europe and all across the states who answer questions, so you won’t necessarily have to wait overight for responses.)

 

[Califdan]

You articulate a very peculiar situation which I have never come across in relation to an LrC upgrade. If this was a common occurance, I'm sure this and other forums would have been flooded with similar stories by now. So, something else must be involved which is what prior repsonses in this thread are trying to figure out.

I have pondered your post and tried to think what may have happened and from that we can determine how to get it straightened out. So, let me ask a pointed question. As part of the upgrade process did you at any point in time leading up to your full Mac Mini, make use of the "Import" or "Syncronize Folder" operations within LrC? Perhaps, the upgrade created a new empty catalog (which it would put in your "Picture -> Lighgtroom" folder) and you thought that re-importing your images was a normal part of the upgrade process (it is not). If you did this, depending on the settings in the import dialog, it could easily move or copy all your images from your external drive to your internal drive, filling it up. In other words it could explain all the symptoms you mentioned.

If you did do an "Import" see if you can recall if you used the "Move" mode or "Copy" mode. If you can't recall, and haven't changed it since, that setting should still be as you left it.

 

[Califdan]

correction: Only concerned about "Import", Syncronize Folder would not cause these symptoms.

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

Hi, I did the upgrade to LrC last Friday and it moved my catalog and many photos to the Pictures file (it was stored on an external hard drive). It also moved my photos, I think, to my Mac mini, which is now out of storage space. I can't rename files, until I fiddled with it, I couldn't even add now photos to LrC. I really need help figuring out which catalog is the most current (I think I know) but also, what's happening that I've now used up almost 1 TB space on Mini, which was not case before upgrade. Plus I was able to make some edits today and some commands in LrC seem different plus my mouse stopped functioning (eg. can't right click any more)! I'm in US, probably 6 hrs later than you but hope to hear from someone tomorrow. I heard you can also get help on Zoom in some cases. I'd be very open to that if it proves necessary. Thank you in advance for any help.

To answer Ken, I upgrade from 13. something (Lightroom Classic) to 15.1, skipping 14, which I thought I could do. By files, do you mean my catalog? My catalog was in my Pictures file on my computer hard drive. (I had long ago placed my catalog on my external hard drive, but one day, Adobe moved it back to my Pictures file. I had been planning to put it all back on external hd but hadn't yet.).

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

While you may not be able to do this perfectly, it could be helpful if you would try to reconstruct in as much detail as you able what steps you took and in what order from the time you began the upgrade to 15.1. And, if prior to the upgrade, you did any moving around of catalog or image files, detailing as best you can what you did can help the folks here help you.

(As far as the time zone is concerned, there are many people from both Europe and all across the states who answer questions, so you won’t necessarily have to wait overight for responses.)

I did not move around the catalog prior to the upgrade, although I had added some new image files right before I implemented the upgrade. Found the mess the nest morning (last THursday?). Mostly since then, I've tried to determine where my catalog was.

Now I remember that when I opened LrC after the upgrade, there were no photos visible, as though I had lost the catalog altogether. I also had other copies that appeared to be two versions of the current catalog and I have just now found a third copy on my desktop.. I'm not sure what I did beyond opening each catalog, one of which was recently opened but older and then the most recent one. If this seems like it should have been obvious which was the correct catalog, it wasn't at the time, nor was I sure where the catalog was located. Now, I think I have identified which is the correct catalog, but it's smaller than the other two. So would that be the correct catalog? Could I lose access to image files if I pick the "wrong" one?

I should tell you my catalog had been stored on my external hard drive, which I did maybe two years ago. sometime recently (but months before this recent upgrade), Adobe decided to move my catalog back to Pictures. ( I had never thought to figure out what was supposed to happen with the Pictures file according to Mac or Adobe.)

So are the extra versions of my catalog what is filling up may computer hard drive? That doesn't really seem right. Thank you (all) in advance for your help. Good to know you're on muliple time zones. Should have known that.

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

correction: Only concerned about "Import", Syncronize Folder would not cause these symptoms.

Yes, I did do an import. At first, I wasn't paying attention and was using copy. Nothing happened. So I switched to "add" and my catalog reloaded, if you will, ie., I saw my images appear in LrC. however, it was then that I started to be unable to do anything else with LrC, because my computer hard rive had no capacity. So it does seem obvious that LrC populated my hard drive with my catalog. Since the "older" Lrc catalogs are bigger than the one that is most recent, should I be concerned about eliminating them? I am backed up via Backblaze, so presume I could find older missing photos, but not sure.

Thank you.

 

[camner]

Yes, I did do an import. At first, I wasn't paying attention and was using copy. Nothing happened. So I switched to "add" and my catalog reloaded, if you will, ie., I saw my images appear in LrC. however, it was then that I started to be unable to do anything else with LrC, because my computer hard rive had no capacity. So it does seem obvious that LrC populated my hard drive with my catalog. Since the "older" Lrc catalogs are bigger than the one that is most recent, should I be concerned about eliminating them? I am backed up via Backblaze, so presume I could find older missing photos, but not sure.

Thank you.

When you did the first import (with “copy”), were you trying to reimport all (or at least a large number) of your photos? If so, and you did not notice in the right hand panel the destination to which Lightroom was set to copy the photos, AND that destination was on your Mini, then you would have “told” Lightroom to copy a large number of photos from your external drive to your Mini’s internal drive, which would explain why the internal drive is nearly full.

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

Thank you. To clarify, I stopped "copy" (all of my photos) and imported them all via "Add." I got a mostly populated LrC but it had no metadata, eg, keys words, ratings, when captured, etc. (I forgot this in my previous recounting because it occurred over days.). I quit LrC and went to bed. Next day, all metadata restored, but now I had no room left on Mac mini. In fact, I've tried to share multiple screen shots, but they don't even persist on my desktop because no room. I'm contemplating what I can get rid of so I have some space to make changes.

Is the above helpful? Wondering if I should just put some of what I think are old catalogs in trash and empty it to create more space.

 

[Replytoken]

Thank you. To clarify, I stopped "copy" (all of my photos) and imported them all via "Add." I got a mostly populated LrC but it had no metadata, eg, keys words, ratings, when captured, etc. (I forgot this in my previous recounting because it occurred over days.). I quit LrC and went to bed. Next day, all metadata restored, but now I had no room left on Mac mini. In fact, I've tried to share multiple screen shots, but they don't even persist on my desktop because no room. I'm contemplating what I can get rid of so I have some space to make changes.

Is the above helpful? Wondering if I should just put some of what I think are old catalogs in trash and empty it to create more space.

I strongly recommend that you DO NOT throw any files away at this time, as you do not even know what files you may be deleting. And I do not recommend doing any more activity in LRC until you get things sorted out, as it is still not really clear what you did.

I recommend doing a search of your drives (internal and external) and see what LR catalog files you currently have. These files have an ".lrcat" extension so you can do a search for "*.lrcat" and see what files come back. Then I would recommend studying the name of the files and their locations. do not move or rename them. You can do that after you know which ones are needed and which ones can be safely deleted.

Also, you need to know where your image files are located. In following best practice, you would ideally place all of these file and folders under one top level folder dedicated to soring LRC images so you always know where they are and can migrate them more easily if need be in the future. Having said that, I want to take a step back and say that when files are imported (through add, copy or move) that LRC is only recording their location. Remember these files need to liv e somewhere (internal or external drive), so it is best to get in the habit of knowing where you want them to reside, and either copying, moving or adding them to that location. And you should not re-import files as this only creates a bigger mess.

If your current catalog contains a lot of files, data and edits, I would recommend resolving these issues and getting things cleaned up before resuming work. If your catalog does not have much data or edits, then you could start from scratch as you would not be losing as much, but that is not often the case.

--Ken

 

[camner]

Just to add to Ken’s excellent advice, you might want to consider telling Finder to show the Date Created column in Finder windows (to do that, open a Finder window, change if necessary to List view, right click on any column header and select Date Created). With Date Created visible, you can more easily look at multiple .lrcat catalog files and determine when they were created, which might help you to identify which catalog is which. Date Modified won’t necessarily help with that, because (AFAIK) the Date Modified field is updated whenever you open a given catalog.

Given the pickle you find yourself in, if you haven’t done (much) productive work in LR since you upgraded to v15 AND if you haven’t moved/deleted any original image files on your external drive, you might find it productive to go back to a catalog backup (you do have those, right?) from just before you upgraded and open that catalog. That will force LR to upgrade that backup catalog, and that newly upgraded catalog SHOULD have in the catalog all the metadata, edits, etc., as of the date of the backup, and no files/folders should be missing unless they were already missing in the backed up catalog.

 

[Replytoken]

Just to add to Ken’s excellent advice, you might want to consider telling Finder to show the Date Created column in Finder windows (to do that, open a Finder window, change if necessary to List view, right click on any column header and select Date Created). With Date Created visible, you can more easily look at multiple .lrcat catalog files and determine when they were created, which might help you to identify which catalog is which. Date Modified won’t necessarily help with that, because (AFAIK) the Date Modified field is updated whenever you open a given catalog.

Given the pickle you find yourself in, if you haven’t done (much) productive work in LR since you upgraded to v15 AND if you haven’t moved/deleted any original image files on your external drive, you might find it productive to go back to a catalog backup (you do have those, right?) from just before you upgraded and open that catalog. That will force LR to upgrade that backup catalog, and that newly upgraded catalog SHOULD have in the catalog all the metadata, edits, etc., as of the date of the backup, and no files/folders should be missing unless they were already missing in the backed up catalog.

Good suggestions. But I am wondering about creating more files when we do not yet know if copies of the image files have also been duplicated in an import process. I would first recommend getting a handle on the catalogs, and then on the image files. The OP may need to run some kind of duplication check to see if there are multiple copies that may have been created and/or added to catalogs that need addressing as well. We still do not know the magnitude of the issues needing to be resolved.

--Ken

 

[camner]

Good suggestions. But I am wondering about creating more files when we do not yet know if copies of the image files have also been duplicated in an import process. I would first recommend getting a handle on the catalogs, and then on the image files. The OP may need to run some kind of duplication check to see if there are multiple copies that may have been created and/or added to catalogs that need addressing as well. We still do not know the magnitude of the issues needing to be resolved.

--Ken

You make good points. I may have been getting a bit ahead of things in my suggestion.

 

[Replytoken]

You make good points. I may have been getting a bit ahead of things in my suggestion.

It is a good suggestion (as were your suggestions above), and I appreciate any good information that we can provide to the OP.

--Ken

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

Of course I was eating dinner while you wrote the above. I did find tremendous duplication between mini, external hard drive and "Macintosh hard drive". I've never seen this Mac Hard Drive in my finder before and wonder if somehow my MacBook Pro is suddenly connected to my mini differently (for example, I got a system message on my mini that usually only occurs on my MacBook). It's packed with the same redundant info as on my mini (e.g, catalog files, I'm ignoring that for now, but this Macintosh hard drive did have the most recent catalog on it, so I'm trying to move that to my external hard drive.

You asked about going to my back up files, which I've always kept. Now I can't locate them. I'll keep looking, then do what you suggest.
This is a mess but I feel better that at least I know what. my current catalog is and was able to make a few edits on photos I have to submit hopefully tomorrow. I'm only going to work a little longer, then call it a day. I will check this again before I completely wrap it up tonight. Thank you for all the helpful direction you've given me so far. I hope to soon be at the end of this.

My question to tackle tomorrow: Should I delete the mysterious "Macintosh HD" from my mini. My actual MacBook Pro seems to be working fine and I can't find if/how they got connected or one copied on to the other, if they did. Any thoughts welcome.

 

[Replytoken]

Of course I was eating dinner while you wrote the above. I did find tremendous duplication between mini, external hard drive and "Macintosh hard drive". I've never seen this Mac Hard Drive in my finder before and wonder if somehow my MacBook Pro is suddenly connected to my mini differently (for example, I got a system message on my mini that usually only occurs on my MacBook). It's packed with the same redundant info as on my mini (e.g, catalog files, I'm ignoring that for now, but this Macintosh hard drive did have the most recent catalog on it, so I'm trying to move that to my external hard drive.

You asked about going to my back up files, which I've always kept. Now I can't locate them. I'll keep looking, then do what you suggest.
This is a mess but I feel better that at least I know what. my current catalog is and was able to make a few edits on photos I have to submit hopefully tomorrow. I'm only going to work a little longer, then call it a day. I will check this again before I completely wrap it up tonight. Thank you for all the helpful direction you've given me so far. I hope to soon be at the end of this.

My question to tackle tomorrow: Should I delete the mysterious "Macintosh HD" from my mini. My actual MacBook Pro seems to be working fine and I can't find if/how they got connected or one copied on to the other, if they did. Any thoughts welcome.

As I am a Windows user, I am not going to give you advice on the issue you just described. I do not know iCloud well enough to help sort this out, but we do have a number of experienced Mac users who may be able to advise accordingly.

--Ken

 

[camner]

You’ve just added a new wrinkle to the equation (metaphors deliberately mixed…): your MacBook Pro.

I think it would be helpful if you would explain clearly what your setup is. Where do you keep your original photos and your catalogs, and your cataog backups? Do you use both your Mac Mini and your MacBook Pro with Lightroom? If so, how do you handle that ( by that I mean how do you manage going back and forth using LrC on two different computers…copy the latest catalog back and forth, keep your catalog on your external drive, something else?). And, when you refer to “Macintosh HD,” do you mean only your internal MacBook Pro drive? Isn’t your Mac Mini internal drive also “Macintosh HD”?

 

[clee01l]

Of course I was eating dinner while you wrote the above. I did find tremendous duplication between mini, external hard drive and "Macintosh hard drive". I've never seen this Mac Hard Drive in my finder before and wonder if somehow my MacBook Pro is suddenly connected to my mini differently (for example, I got a system message on my mini that usually only occurs on my MacBook). It's packed with the same redundant info as on my mini (e.g, catalog files, I'm ignoring that for now, but this Macintosh hard drive did have the most recent catalog on it, so I'm trying to move that to my external hard drive.

You asked about going to my back up files, which I've always kept. Now I can't locate them. I'll keep looking, then do what you suggest.
This is a mess but I feel better that at least I know what. my current catalog is and was able to make a few edits on photos I have to submit hopefully tomorrow. I'm only going to work a little longer, then call it a day. I will check this again before I completely wrap it up tonight. Thank you for all the helpful direction you've given me so far. I hope to soon be at the end of this.

My question to tackle tomorrow: Should I delete the mysterious "Macintosh HD" from my mini. My actual MacBook Pro seems to be working fine and I can't find if/how they got connected or one copied on to the other, if they did. Any thoughts welcome.

The Volume Named "Macintosh HD" is the Primary Volume on every Mac. Every Mac has a volume with this name. You will find it listed in the Locations panel of Finder. DO NOT delete or rename this volume. If you are still confused, please post a screen shot of what you are seeing in Finder.

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

You’ve just added a new wrinkle to the equation (metaphors deliberately mixed…): your MacBook Pro.

I think it would be helpful if you would explain clearly what your setup is. Where do you keep your original photos and your catalogs, and your cataog backups? Do you use both your Mac Mini and your MacBook Pro with Lightroom? If so, how do you handle that ( by that I mean how do you manage going back and forth using LrC on two different computers…copy the latest catalog back and forth, keep your catalog on your external drive, something else?). And, when you refer to “Macintosh HD,” do you mean only your internal MacBook Pro drive? Isn’t your Mac Mini internal drive also “Macintosh HD”?

Sorry I did't reply sooner; was gone all day into evening yesterday. I should explain that I do not do any photography work on my MacBook Pro. It's where I used do my work, but earlier this year, I got the mini and moved all photography related work off the MacBook Pro. It's possible that LrC is still on that computer. My next action step will be to remove the LrC application from my MacBookPro.

And upon further study, I realized that the contents of my external hard drive (all my image files, which are more or less intact) are duplicated on the mini. I can't believe I didn't perceive this earlier, but I was obsessed with where my latest catalog was. I think in order to free up space on the mini so I can work again, I need to

The Volume Named "Macintosh HD" is the Primary Volume on every Mac. Every Mac has a volume with this name. You will find it listed in the Locations panel of Finder. DO NOT delete or rename this volume. If you are still confused, please post a screen shot of what you are seeing in Finder.
View attachment 27876

Thank you for this information. So I did not delete Macintosh HD, fortunately with the benefit of a day away from thinking about this. However,when I looked at Locations in the Finder, whether I'm looked at MacIntosh HD, or the mini, the mini isn't highlighted while my external HD and Macintosh HD are. Is this at all meaningful?

 

[clee01l]

Sorry I did't reply sooner; was gone all day into evening yesterday. I should explain that I do not do any photography work on my MacBook Pro. It's where I used do my work, but earlier this year, I got the mini and moved all photography related work off the MacBook Pro. It's possible that LrC is still on that computer. My next action step will be to remove the LrC application from my MacBookPro.

And upon further study, I realized that the contents of my external hard drive (all my image files, which are more or less intact) are duplicated on the mini. I can't believe I didn't perceive this earlier, but I was obsessed with where my latest catalog was. I think in order to free up space on the mini so I can work again, I need to


Thank you for this information. So I did not delete Macintosh HD, fortunately with the benefit of a day away from thinking about this. However,when I looked at Locations in the Finder, whether I'm looked at MacIntosh HD, or the mini, the mini isn't highlighted while my external HD and Macintosh HD are. Is this at all meaningful?

A screen shot would be clearer than trying to convert your words into a mental image.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

Sorry for the confusing replies, but I momentarily left the reply I was writing to Camner and now don't know how to get in and finish it. What I was about to add to previous answer is that

I think I'm close to seeing my problem: When I look at my Finder, there are three names: Mac mini, my external HD, and Macintosh HD. The Macintosh HD appears to have all the correct files, as does the external HD. But under Mac mini, the entire Macintosh HD appears as does the contents of my external hard drive (3.89 TB). The external HD would seem to be the reason there's not storage on the mini.

So I should be able to remove it from the Mac mini and empty Trash to free computer up, correct?

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

A screen shot would be clearer than trying to convert your words into a mental image.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I agree. Until a few minutes ago, I was unable to make a screenshot that persisted long enough to attach it. I got rid of some files that were not pertinent to this effort and now have the available space. but the system says it's too large to attach. Not sure that' s a problem on my end or something with your software. Any advice here? I'm searching on my end. Thank you!

 

[JEASTWOOD75]

Finally, got a screenshot. Here are three views of Finder: Upper left is my external hard drive; lower right is the Macintosh hard drive; upper right is the Mac mini. Note the gold hard drive showing on the Mac mini; it's duplicating what's on my external hard drive. That's what I'm suggesting I delete.

 

[camner]

Thank you for the screenshot. Unfortunately, that screenshot is so small and of such low resolution that it is very difficult to to read. I must admit that I have never had a PNG screenshot be too big for the forum here.