Edits missing after Macbook recovery

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 4, 2023
3 replies
1108 views

Hello all,

Recently my macbook pro was crashing so I had to wipe the hard drive clean and install a fresh operating system. After installation I downloaded Lightroom Classic, opened my catalog and all of the edits from my most recent job (wedding of 600+ images) were missing. All of the images are still culled and even flaggd by color correctly. The strangest part is that all other jobs in that catalog (over 50 jobs) are totally fine and have the edits saved. However, the most recent one I was working on just days before I installed the new OS is missing all of its edits. Additionally, all of my presets are missing.

I keep all my catalogs and image files located on an external SSD which had absolutely nothing to do with installing a new OS. Before installation I did make a time machine backup. However, when I installed the new OS I did not use the "recover from backup" option. If I restore from my time machine backup, could that fix the problem?

macOS

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Ian Lyons

Community Expert

If you're Time Machine backup included the full 'Users' folder, then the presets should be recoverable.

The location of presets, etc used by Lightroom Classsic is provided in this Adobe document https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/lightroom-classic/kb/preference-file-and-other-file-locations.html

Since you're using a Mac, then the following applies:

Presets and templates

(.lrtemplate) Presets or templates in the .lrtemplate format are stored at: /Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/[preset or template folder]/[preset or template filename.lrtemplate]
(XMP) Beginning with Lightroom Classic, the existing presets in the.lrtemplate format are automatically converted to a new XMP preset format. After conversion, the new XMP presets are saved at: /Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings
(Presets stored with the catalog): If you've enabled the Store Presets With This Catalog option in the Lightroom Classic preferences, the presets and templates files are saved at: MacHD/[catalog location]/[catalog folder name]/Lightroom Settings/Settings

natec15071345Author

Inspiring

I tried all three of these options and all of them lead to my user preset folder. However, all the folders are empty.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Did you check the Time Machine backup? Assuming you're backup strategy included the 'Users' folder, then that's where presets be.

GoldingD

Legend

Presets were on that hard drive you wiped clean, that is unless you altered the settings as to store them with catalog. They do not get backed up with a normal LrC backup. They might have been backed up via Time Machine. Are these your own user built presets, or third party presets, if the later, perhaps reinstall them. (might be easier than spelunking in time machine)

As for the edits that have gone missing, very odd. Double check against available catalogs.

returning to presets, and recovering from time machine, following is very old, but might be workable. Fairly sure path to presets may have changed since this post:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/can-i-retrieve-user-presets-develop-presets-from-a-mac-timemachine-backup/td-p/8627740