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A
alistairw72100433
Inspiring
January 24, 2026
Question

Catalog not found

  • January 24, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 72 views

When I opened LR Classic the catalog used couldnt be found. I have searched on hard drive of my Imac and on the external drive where I store photos and catalogs. I cant find that catalog that LR is looking for.

What are my options as I dont want to open a catalog and lose the last changes I made with deleting unwanted photos and adding new folders?

 

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Alistair

2 replies

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
January 25, 2026

How did you do the search? Did you use your operating system's search feature to search all folders on all disks? If you didn't do it that way, please do the operating system search of all folders on all disks for all files whose name ends with .LRCAT and then open in LrC each one found to see if it is the catalog you want.

 

If you can't find it that way, then your only choice is to restore a backup (and in the future make more timely backups).

A
alistairw72100433Author
Inspiring
January 26, 2026

Hi DJ 

thanks for your reply. I have attached the photo I took of the Catalog when it was last upgraded. I have searched in the folders and cant find it. Nor can I find a catalog with a date last year as I added photos and folders to LR. I assume that would create a new catalog? Are there any other things I can try. For example can I search for photos that I know I transferred and then follow these back to the correct catalog? Not sure how to do that but is that an option?

Many thanks again

Alistair

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
January 26, 2026

Because of a forum bug, no one can view your file attachment. Please use the "Insert Photos" icon to include the screen capture in your reply.

dj_paige_0-1768733657119.jpeg

KR Seals
Community Expert
KR SealsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 25, 2026

Did you do anything to delete or move it? Some kind of disk cleanup program?

It's a good practice to have LrC backup your catalog after every program exit.

Search all the drives on your system for ".lrcat" files. The one with the latest date should be the one you are looking for.

 

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.
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