When you opened Lightroom the very first time, Lightroom created a catalog to store the information about your photos. Whether you’re tidying up, moving to a new hard drive, or even just checking your backups, you’ll need to know where to find it.
To find the catalog:
If you’re not sure of your current catalog’s name or location, open Lightroom and go to Edit menu (Windows) / Lightroom menu (Mac) > Catalog Settings. The name and location of your open catalog are displayed on the General tab of the Catalog Settings dialog. Press the Show button to open an Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) window at that location.
Next to the catalog file (*.lrcat), there may be additional files/folders associated with the catalog that share the same name. These include:
*.lrcat-shm and *.lrcat-wal (data not yet written to the catalog)
*.lrcat-data (Select Subject/Sky data and LUT’s)
* Helper.lrdata (temporary cache to improve performance)
* Sync.lrdata (local cache of cloud sync data)
* Previews.lrdata folder/file (Library module previews)
* Smart Previews.lrdata folder/file (Develop module previews)
There may also be a Lightroom Settings folder, which may contain some of your presets (if you selected to store presets with the catalog) and a Backups folder containing your catalog backups.
To rename the catalog:
- Quit Lightroom.
- Use Windows Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) to rename the catalog file, just as you would rename any other file.
- Rename the other folders/files to match. For example:
- Lightroom Catalog.lrcat > New Name.lrcat
- Lightroom Catalog.lrcat-data > New Name.lrcat-data (only exists for Classic 11.0 on, and only after Select has been used for the first time in Masking)
- Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata > New Name Previews.lrdata
- Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata > New Name Smart Previews.lrdata
- (If you don’t rename the previews correctly, don’t panic, as Lightroom simply recreates them when you next browse those photos. As long as you have the original photos, there’s no harm done other than the time involved.)
- When you next come to reopen Lightroom, hold down Ctrl (Windows) / Opt (Mac) to navigate to the renamed catalog, or just double-click on the catalog file (*.lrcat). You may need to change the default catalog (in Preferences > General tab) so it opens the correct catalog automatically in future.
To move the catalog:
- Quit Lightroom.
- Use Windows Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) to move the catalog file, just as you would move any other file.
- Move the other files at the same time, keeping them next to the catalog file, but don’t move the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file if it exists.
- When you next come to reopen Lightroom, hold down Ctrl (Windows) / Opt (Mac) to navigate to the catalog, or just double-click on the catalog file (*.lrcat). You may need to change the default catalog (in Preferences > General tab) so it opens the correct catalog automatically in future.
- The next time the backup runs, double check that you’re still happy with the backup location, or update it if needed.
If you’re moving the catalog as part of moving to a new computer, be sure to download the FREE eBook Moving Lightroom to a New Computer. This step-by-step guide takes you through not just moving your catalog and photos but all the preparation work, pitfalls to avoid, and any clean-up needed afterwards.
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
Originally posted 26 April 2016, updated for Lightroom Classic and earlier versions in 2022.
Do I need to do anything different if I rename a Lightroom Classic catalog I have synced with Lightroom CC Mobile? Like, do I need to also change the name of the Sync.lrcat file?
My goal is to avoid having to resync everything. It takes ages.
Thanks!
Just rename all of the files that start with the catalog name, as noted above. That includes the Sync.lrdata file.
Thank you for all the useful information. Question…When I installed the latest version of Lightroom Classic I do not see….
* Smart Previews.lrdata folder/file (Develop module previews).
I see all the others below. Did I install incorrectly?
*.lrcat-shm and *.lrcat-wal (data not yet written to the catalog)
*.lrcat-data (Select Subject/Sky data and LUT’s)
* Helper.lrdata (temporary cache to improve performance)
* Sync.lrdata (local cache of cloud sync data)
* Previews.lrdata folder/file (Library module previews)
* Smart Previews.lrdata folder/file (Develop module previews)
Yes that sounds fine, smart previews data file wouldn’t be built until you create some smart previews (if you do).
Hi and thanks for updates on 05/24/2022.
Thank you for this info. I moved my photos and LR catalog files to an external drive as detailed above but panicked when I restarted LRC and my total of photos was ……. Zero !
But then I saw your note: “You may need to change the default catalog (in Preferences > General tab) so it opens the correct catalog automatically in future.”
So I did, and it worked ! Thanks again !
One question, when I connect my external drive to my other computer (which I have not done yet), will I need to go through the same process again of changing Preferences on that computer too ?
Hi Bill
Yes, unless you share them using Dropbox (or similar) Preferences are specific to a computer.
If the drive name (or letter) is different between the two you may need to repoint the photos too – here’s the blog that explains that in case you need it:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/
Can I move lightroom classic catalog to an external hard drive? I have the original images on the external hard drive already.
Do I just follow the instructions under “To move the catalog”?
Hi Jody
Yes, just follow the instructions to move the catalog. Lots put the catalog on a separate drive for space reasons. Make sure it’s a relatively fast drive to assist performance.
Victoria,
Thanks for being such a great resource. I will be using Lightroom Classic on both my desktop and my new laptop. I intend to keep my catalog, photos, presets, etc on a 1T solid-state disk. In preparing to backup and copy my files I noticed that Adobe has created several catalogs one is named Lightroom Catalog-2.Ircat, another is Lightroom Catalog-2.2.Ircat the Irdata files have similar names. Am I safe in assuming that Adobe has simply created a second version and if so that it is OK to simply deleted the older file?
It sounds like you recently upgraded your catalog, so the -2-2 version is the latest. To be on the safe side, I’d zip up the -2.lrcat file and stick it with your backups, but you’d be fine to get rid of the -2 Previews.lrdata file.
Thank you very much for the quick reply and the very useful information. I’ll follow your guidance. I hadn’t realized that Adobe would automatically give new names to upgraded catalogs. ..Rich
They do that so there’s a way back in event of issues. The blog we did recently explains more:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-upgrade-catalog/
Victoria! I’m so glad I’ve come across your website it’s an absolute treasure to Lightroom Users far and wide.
I love your suggestion of using Dropbox for your Lightroom catalogs, thus allowing access from anywhere where there is a network connection available.
My situation is this, I currently have just 500mb of space left on my 256G internal SSD, this is due mainly to my Lightroom catalog which has been built up across the past 4 years. I have only just recently discovered that I should be making new catalogs for different jobs/styles so I’ve started doing that.
I need to move my entire catalog to either Dropbox (which is located on a 4TB internal HDD) or to that same drive but just in a seperate folder. It’s not 100% necessary for me to have access to my catalog whilst I’m mobile so Dropbox doesn’t have to be the option.
So what is the easiest way to go about this to free my SSD up?
Hi Mike
We’re pleased you like our site!
Moving catalog(s) is as simple as the steps in the blog post above, just follow then through. One word of caution with using Dropbox, always ensure the catalog has fully written up to the cloud before closing the computer you used it on and give the next computer time to download the new version before opening.
Hi,
Thanks for the amazing website! I am bit confused as the items along my catalog are not the same as the ones you mention… I don’t have SmartPreviews.lrdata but I have Catalog Helper.lrdata and Catalog Sync.lrdata instead… Should I move/rename it along Catalog and Preview? What are those 2 files about? Many thanks!
SmartPreviews.lrdata will only exist if you’ve told Lr to generate them (Library > Build Smart Previews) so it’s fine that it’s not there. The Helper file is newer and helps Lr with folder organization. If it isn’t there then Lr will build it again. Sync.lrdata moved to the same location as the catalog in 9.0 and is the sync file to the Cloud. So, yes, rename / move them!
Thanks!
Why “but don’t move the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file if it exists.” ???
Most of my files were uploaded using Lightroom CC and that file contains all my photos, over 700gb!
The Mobile Downloads.lrdata file needs to stay in its standard location, otherwise the photos will get marked as missing.
However, you can move the files out of the Mobile Downloads folder into a normal folder structure on another drive. You just have to do it by dragging/dropping the photos from Lightroom’s Grid view into a folder in the Folders panel. That should reduce the size of the Mobile Downloads file.
And then in LR’s Preferences > Sync tab, you can set a normal folder for any future downloads, so it doesn’t get big again.
Excellent. Thanks very much.
I followed your instructions and moved the files out of the folders in Mobile Download into folders on my external hard drive WITHIN the LR Classic environment. It went fine. Everything synced and the total number of files in the environment did not change.
But when I checked the folders in Mobile Downloads.irdata there are still some files in the folders. The size of the files imported with LR mobile app are small (smart previews?).
I assumed when I dragged all the photos into folders and none remained in the folders they were in, that there would be no files left in Mobile Downloads.irdata.
How do I delete these files, safely?
I should add, the old folders are empty in the LR Classic environment, but are NOT empty when I look in the folders in Finder.
I would look and see what the photos are in the Mobile Downloads folders, and I’d also run Library menu > Find All Missing Photos to ensure that they’re not files that should be in the catalog somewhere. They’re most likely just orphans, but it’s worth double checking before you delete.
Good afternoon, thank goodness for the support in these forums.
So, I travel away from home a lot for my work. I have a macbook pro that I was keeping my lightroom catalogue on with my photos on an external drive. Things were working pretty well until middle of this year when I noticed that lightroom appeared to be slowing down (I thought that perhaps my computer needed updating). Being away from home in a very remote area I tried to make a few changes. Not realising that I had some critical issues.
1. It was actually the externally hard drive (EHD) that was on the way out. (I Now have an EHD that is full of my folders but no photos)…. all of this years photographs have disappeared into the ether
2. My backup EHD is in my home town and I was not able to access it for some time
3. Limited internet access 50GB/month
4. Thought it might be a good idea to store my catalogue on the cloud/drop box so that I could use my catalogue on other devices and in case it was the computer that was at fault. (Did not realise the catalogue was 136GB in size …. oops).
5. Popped it to iCloud only to run out of data and was then unable to end the transfer process. The computer was jammed and it was costing me $10.00/GB in excess data charges. At that point i foolishly just dragged my lightroom folder to the desktop and crashed the computer
So now I am trying to undo all the damage and set up my catalogue of computer and some sort of storage for my photographs thats safe, portable and lightweight but reliable.
A friend mentioned a solid state drive?
Where would you start?
Some much needed support is appreciated
Sorry to hear about your disasters. Yeah, for a portable drive, a rugged SSD would be ideal for travel. They’re a little more expensive than standard external drives, but a lot more reliable. Sandisk do one that’s worth a look.
Hi Victoria First of all, without you, so many times I would have been absolutly lost!!! Thanks a million for all your work and help!!
I ones renamed my external hd in Lightroom. After closing LR and shutting down computer, the HD still had the old name. When I renamed the HD than to the name given in LR it did neither found the HD nor any of the pictures on it. It is all sorted now but i found this strange!
Ones again, thanks a mill and hope you having a fantastic day
Hi Victoria
I am interested in having a catalogue available to multiple users (yes I understand this risk). I work in a Charity and we have 6 people all sharing the same photos. We have 3 people licences which we share across computers. Only one person is on lightroom at a time.
I want to tag all our photos and have all those photos and tags available to a user no mater what computer they are on. I am thinking of having a network drive set up that all computers can access the files and catelog on that drive. Will that work?
Nope, sorry, the catalog can’t be on a network drive. What you could do is put the catalog and photos on an external drive and just plug that into the computer that needs to be used at the time.
I am trying to set up a system for traveling. I will be gone several months. I will not have my desktop computer on which LR resides. I created a new catalog for this trip and loaded it onto a Passport external drive with a few tester photos. When I try to open the catalog on my laptop I get a dialog box telling me there is no application with which to open it. How do I get the application onto the laptop? Can I just copy it?
You’ll need to install the Lightroom software on your laptop. How you do that will depend on which version you’re using.
Hi Victoria!
I recently migrated everything from an imac to a new Macbook Pro. Lr and all related files transferred fine. The problem occurred when I wanted to change my working external drive. I believe this is what I did; copied everything from ED 1 to ED 2. At some point I imported new files onto the new ED using my old computer bc the new one wasn’t quite set up yet. When I was ready to start editing the files on my new Macbook using the new ED, I was confused at first about how to get to the files bc the drive was not showing up on the left side of the Library module. After doing some research and asking questions, I imported just a couple folders from the new drive. I noticed the file structure wasn’t what it should be. Luckily these are photos I haven’t edited yet.
I then realized I needed to point LR away from the old ED and to the master folder on the new ED. I did that and almost everything looks great except for the folder I imported. And I also noticed that there are a couple folders on my old ED that are not showing up on my new one, and vice versa. I’m wondering if I can fix this by replacing the catalog on my Macbook with the catalog on my old computer and then relinking the files on my new ED. Any help would be much appreciated!
Hi Jessica
Without knowing which of the folders are showing up where, it’s difficult to say… screenshots are usually the easiest way of seeing exactly what’s going on. Here’s the cleanest way of moving the photos to a new drive: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/
If you haven’t edited anything yet, so yes, you could replace the catalog with the one from your old computer, but that might not be necessary. Quickest way to find out – take screenshots of the Folders panel, and post them on http://www.lightroomforums.net and we’ll help you figure out the next steps.
Hi Victoria.
Can i leave my main catalog on my desk top, copy the folders and then paste them onto an external hard drive to use lightroom on my laptop ?
If you copy the catalog to the external hard drive to use on the laptop as well as the photos, it would work (but could get a bit complicated working out which version of the catalog you used last). Try the instructions here instead: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-to-lightroom-catalog-multiple-computers/
Thanks Victoria.
Hope your fit and well.
Cheers. Lloyd.
Hi Victoria! I wish I could take you home with me. What I lack in LR skills I more than make up for in cooking. Can I bribe you with some coq au vin or cheesy lasagna? ;).
I’ve managed to make a bit of a mess with my catalog system. In spite of the fact that I only have one ‘working’ catalog, several show up in my Finder. I posted in the LR forum but haven’t gotten a response so I thought I’d try you. I posted a screen shot over there (not sure how to do it here), but while waiting I *think* I may have figured out the issue, or at least part of it.
I have some catalogs that are empty. Don’t ask how they got there because I don’t have a clue. If I click on a catalog that’s empty, then the catalog in my dock is defaulted to that empty catalog. I think it’s because my settings is telling LR to open the latest catalog, yes? So if I rename the correct catalog (currently it has the term ‘backups’ in the path), and change the settings to default to that,I should be able to trash the other catalogs without any issues?
While I have your ear, another unrelated issue I’m having is sometimes when I connect my camera for importing, the photos don’t show up in the order they were taken. You can imagine the extra time this would take to find the ones I want to import from a specific shoot. If I then turn off my camera and restart, it usually works fine. What’s up with that??!
Thank you so much!
Oh that was good timing, I’d just come to your thread so I’ve replied on there. http://www.lightroomforums.net/threads/help-with-backups-everything-is-a-mess.28180/
And yes, you’re right, Lightroom’s defaulting to your last opened catalog, even if that’s an empty one.
Regarding renaming your correct catalog – drop that back on the thread so we can confirm it’s definitely the right one and then yes, rename and probably move it out of the backups folder too. Once you’re happy you know which catalog you’re keeping, you can delete the others.
In the Import dialog, try selecting Capture Time at the bottom of the Import Grid to get them in the right order the first time.
Hello Victoria,
I recently installed LR6 to replace my “older” copy of LR5. How can I migrate all the contents (presets, collections, web templates…) from my LR5 to my LR6?
If you open the LR5 catalog into LR6, it’ll ask for permission to upgrade. That’ll transfer your photos and collections. Presets and templates should appear in LR6 automatically, as LR5 and LR6 share them.
I’m curious about the location of your catalog in a Dropbox folder. Is this location for demonstration purposes only, or is there some practical reason for this location? Inquiring minds want to know.
Great question Albert. I work between 2 computers, so I keep my catalog on Dropbox so it’s automatically copied to both computers. You have to be careful to make sure it’s fully synced before switching computers, but it works pretty well.
Hi Victoria
So, do you edit on the second computer using smart previews, or are the raws up on Dropbox too?
The images are on a NAS (network storage) that I can access from either computer, but I do use smart previews because it can be quite slow to access the images over the network.