Catalogs New Computer Old LR Classic

[chilvr2]

Lightroom Version Number

LRC 13

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma

Good morning all! My 14yr old MAC is dead, I did back up my LR Classic (LR5.7) to an external drive every time I used LR. Because the MAC was old I could not have upgraded my LR past that edition. Now we have a new Mac, running Sonoma 14.4.1 and I subscribe to the new LR cloud programs. My older LRC will not open but I see all the photos in a folder on my original external drive. I would like to make a copy of photos from my LR5.7 catalog onto a new external hard drive. It would be wonderful to add them to a current program so I can open them as well but I don't see how. Any advice would be appreciated

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Just to clarify - it's Lightroom Classic (13.x) you're trying to use, not the Cloud version (Lightroom Desktop)?

If so, you need to double-click the .lrcat file to open and convert it (your screenshot is showing the .lrcat-data file)

 

[chilvr2]

Just to clarify - it's Lightroom Classic (13.x) you're trying to use, not the Cloud version (Lightroom Desktop)?

If so, you need to double-click the .lrcat file to open and convert it (your screenshot is showing the .lrcat-data file)

Hello Paul,
Thank you for responding. Below is a screen shot of the folders that saved under what I titled Neff Lightroom. I do see the folders in blue and they have photos in them, not sure if all are there but it's something. I'm so computer and LR illiterate. I double clicked the gray folder that says Lightroom 5 Catalog DATA and my second screen shot shows all the folders I remember having but says no photos found. Please advise at your convenience. If there is longer but safer way to move my pictures I'm ok with that.

 

[Califdan]

You probably created an empty catalog when you installed LrC. As Paul instructed, you need to find a folder who's file name is "<yourcatalogname>.lrcat" These are usually in your "Pictures -> Lightroom" folder" but you may have moved it to someplace else at one time. Once you find it, with LrC (Lighroom Classic) closed, double click on that file.

If you can't find it, send a screen shot of all the files in your "pictures -> Lighroom" folder and we'll see if we can spot it there.

 

[chilvr2]

You probably created an empty catalog when you installed LrC. As Paul instructed, you need to find a folder who's file name is "<yourcatalogname>.lrcat" These are usually in your "Pictures -> Lightroom" folder" but you may have moved it to someplace else at one time. Once you find it, with LrC (Lighroom Classic) closed, double click on that file.

If you can't find it, send a screen shot of all the files in your "pictures -> Lighroom" folder and we'll see if we can spot it there.

Because our older MAC died the only pictures I have were saved on an external drive I called Neff Big 5, I was sure to always backup my LRC there but now I can not reopen it because I was never able to update it past LRC 5.7. I'm attaching the folder listing from the external drive. Thank you for trying to help!

 

[Califdan]

What's in these folders, They look like they might contain your old catalog. BTW, once we find your old catralog we will open it with the new LrC at which point it will make a copy of it that is compatible with the new version of LrC and open with that one.

If you can, in Finder, turn on the option to show file extensions as it makes it easier to find what we're looking for.

 

[chilvr2]

I am sorry for such a late reply. Going thru those folders I found that Neff Lightroom looks like backups, most of the dated files are empty. I opened the 2023-09-10 1627 and the last attachment shows the warning. So far I haven't found my most of my RAW files, only edited JPEGS.

 

[chilvr2]

Sorry here are the other screen shots

 

[Califdan]

There are 2 things you need to find. The frirst is the most recent good catalog. This is a file whose in is <YourCatalogName>.lrcat". That's what you need to find first. If you can't find this file in the folders I highlighted, then In Windows File Explorer use the search feature so search for "*.lrcat". Once we find the catalog, then we can work on finding the image files.

 

[chilvr2]

I'm totally lost, the folders on the external drive are empty, have random pictures or Ircat and when I click on it tries to open on the subscription LRC and won't open. The screen shot below seems to be the only Ircat that has all my folders/catalogs in it but then it says no photos found. I purchased a new hard drive and just want to make a new LRC folder and use it with this new program. n I had over 90,000 on my old LRC and will def pair it down by at least 90%. Is there a slower but maybe easier for me to understand way of doing this? I appreciate any advice.

 

[Califdan]

Sorry that you're lost. let me see if I can get you un-lost.

I'm totally lost, the folders on the external drive are empty, have random pictures or Ircat and when I click on it tries to open on the subscription LRC and won't open.

The screen shot in your most resent post does not match what your text says, LrC/13. 5 did open and the screen shot shows that it took you to the Import Dialog. LrC automatically sends you to the Import dialog when you open an empty catalog. This tells me that when you installed LrC/13.5, it could not find a catalog from a prior version of LrC so created a new empty catalog. This can be caused by one of two things.

First is that your prior catalog(s) were not copied from your old computer to the new one. Unless you deliberatly moved them, the LrC catalogs live in the "Pictures -> Lightroom" folder on your intrnal HD however many people move those folders to the saem external HD where they keep their images. If the old catalog is not on either the internal or external drives on your new computer, you will need to find them on the older computer and copy the entire folder cotaining the "<CatalogName>.lrcat" file to the new computer. Then double lick on the latest one. LrC will inofrm you that the catalog you are trying to open is from an older version of Lighroom Classic and do you want to update it. Click the button up upgrade the older catalog. This will create a copy of the one you originally clicked on and will upgrade that copy to be compatible with the version of LrC you are running.

The second is tha LrC just didn't look hard enough for your old LrC catalogs when you inatalled LrC on the new computer. This casued it to just assume that you were a completely new user and it created a new empty catalog which it opened. The solution to this is the same. You need to find the last catalog from your old system and open that catalog.

Actually, there's a third possibility that just came to mind as I was typing. When you installed LrC on the new computer it did find an older catalog and upgraded it. However, the one it found just happened to be some random empty catalog that had been left lying around - perhaps from years ago when you first installed LrC. But, once again the solution is to find and open the latest one you had been using in the past.

The screen shot below seems to be the only Ircat that has all my folders/catalogs in it but then it says no photos found. I purchased a new hard drive and just want to make a new LRC folder and use it with this new program. n I had over 90,000 on my old LRC and will def pair it down by at least 90%. Is there a slower but maybe easier for me to understand way of doing this? I appreciate any advice.

The folders being shown are all the folders on your disk drive(s). This is not a list of folders "in" or known to LrC. Rather it is a list of candidate folders for you to import into LrC if desired - which you can do if you don't mind starting over and losing EVERYTHING you'd done in LrC in the past. To prevent this loss is the reason why finding that last good catalog is so important.

 

[Califdan]

One more thing. In your screen shot, if you click the "Cancel" button at the bottom right, it will close the Import Dialog and take you back to the Library module. There you can verify if I'm correct that this is an empty catalog by looking at the "All Photographs" line in the "Catalog" panel. If it shows zero images then I'm right. But if it shows your 90,000+ count then I was mistaken and you got to the Import Dialog some way other than opening an empty catalog.

Once we get your good catalog opened, then we can work on hooking up missing images.

BTW - I'm perfectly happy to conitnue helping you for free in this forum, but in case you are interested, outside of The Lightroom Queen realm I do one-on-one private LrC help over Zoom as a paid service for an hourly fee. You can read about this service on my website here: https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/lightroom-help

 

[Paul McFarlane]

LrC automatically sends you to the Import dialog when you open an empty catalog.

Just in case this is relevant, it also takes you to the Import dialog if you double-click the .lrcat-data file in Finder (instead of the .lrcat file)

 

[chilvr2]

One more thing. In your screen shot, if you click the "Cancel" button at the bottom right, it will close the Import Dialog and take you back to the Library module. There you can verify if I'm correct that this is an empty catalog by looking at the "All Photographs" line in the "Catalog" panel. If it shows zero images then I'm right. But if it shows your 90,000+ count then I was mistaken and you got to the Import Dialog some way other than opening an empty catalog.

Once we get your good catalog opened, then we can work on hooking up missing images.

BTW - I'm perfectly happy to conitnue helping you for free in this forum, but in case you are interested, outside of The Lightroom Queen realm I do one-on-one private LrC help over Zoom as a paid service for an hourly fee. You can read about this service on my website here: https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/lightroom-help

Thank you so very much for your kind assistance, I have found over 80% of my files so far, but I have to leave town for a bit ( my mom is in hospice). I didn’t want you to think I did not appreciate all your help, my family is in Sarasota so our lives are a bit crazy right now. I will reach out when I’m home. Again thank you!