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KIANBERREMAN
KIANBERREMAN
Participant
May 25, 2025
Question

Catalog Images Disappeared / Catalog Sizing

  • May 25, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 427 views

I recently went to remove a group of images from my lr classic catalog, as I've done thousands of times before, and nearly all my images were seemingly removed from the catalog. Not just missing with an exclamation point, fully gone with most all my collections saying 0 images.

 

First assumption was I messed up "somehow" in selecting images, but after investigation I found that the catalog size is still larger than my most recent backup. The .lrcat file size of the backup is 2gbs, whereas my current catalog experiencing this issue is 2.2gbs, despite nearly all the images being seemingly removed. I would assume the catalog size would decrease drastically if all the images were truly removed. Additionally, not all the images were removed, there are still ~200 images remaining from across the years.


I can restore my most recent backup, but it was from a couple months back as I have a bad habit of skipping until next time while closing LR classic. Due to the mentioned catalog size and the randomness of the remaining images, seems there might be a bug at play here.

 

Any insight into this would be a great help. Some way to correct the "possible" corruption? Or at very least, and explanation of why the catalog is still larger than my backup, with about 0.1% of the total images as in the backup.

 

No idea how I could've accidentally selected my entire catalog for removal. If I did, seems all the images would've been removed, not just 99.9% of them.

2 replies

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 25, 2025

Well, of course it is possible that you had 99.9% of the images selected and then inadvertently removed them, but I agree this is unlikely. Lightroom asks you if you only want to remove them from the catalog, or also from disk, so it is nearly impossible to do this by mistake and not noticing anything. And indeed, this should have shrunk your catalog file.

 

Try this. Open your catalog folder and remove the 'Catalogname Helper.lrdata'. Now launch Lightroom Classic again. Did that solve it?

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
KIANBERREMAN
KIANBERREMANAuthor
Participant
May 25, 2025
Thanks for the response! Unfortunately deleting the helper file and
restarting did not solve it. I also tried making a copy of the catalog and
opening that - the same issue exists. So, if it is truly a bug it seems to
be located within the main catalog file.

Do you have any knowledge if the file size of the catalog is an indication
that all the images still “exist” within the file? Looking back at past
backups, the file size of the main catalog has gradually increased over
time as I’ve added images, as expected. The large file size is the main
thing keeping me from accepting defeat and losing the last month of work.
dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
May 25, 2025

Do a search for a particular photo.

 

Here are the steps, please follow ALL four steps:

 

  1. Click on All Photographs
  2. Make sure all filters are off (Ctrl-L once or twice)
  3. Unstack all photos (Photo->Stacking->Unstack all photos)
  4. Use the LrC Filter bar, search for a photo that should be in the catalog by file name (click on text, then type the file name like DSC_0231) and see if the photo is found
kglad
Community Expert
kgladCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 25, 2025

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.



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