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Participant
March 26, 2023
Question

failure in opening Lightroom classic catalog

  • March 26, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 554 views

I am unable to locate my catalog named Ircat-data folder on my MacBook Pro as I've looked several places and I'm not finding it.  I do not see a pictures folder. I've never had an issue before opening it and the last few times I've used lightroom.  It would not backup my files. 

3 replies

Known Participant
July 20, 2025

I too have this issue  I am on Windows 11 and shut down my desk top Saturday Night.  Sunday when I boot up and attempt to launch LRC I get the Failure message.. I followed the notes to delete the Current File.  But still get the error.  Somehow I see that my LRCAT infor might have been copied to Onedrive?  I hate One drive and had that turned off or so I thought.  What do I do?

Call on a LRCAT backup?

dj_paige
Legend
July 20, 2025

What is the exact word-for-word error message?

Theresa J
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 27, 2023

Follow @Rob_Cullen's advice.

Also, your MacBook most certainly has a Pictures folder unless you deleted for some reason. Most likely you will find a Lightroom folder with the catalog in the Pictures folder. If you google, how to find the Pictures folder on Mac, you will find lots of tutorials.

Try this, Double click on Mac HD > Users > your user name > Pictures folder should be there.

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 26, 2023

Catalogs have the file-type of .LRCAT  (Not .LRCAT-DATA)

Search for ???.LRCAT files to open.

Backups will compress the Catalog in a .ZIP file dated with the time of backup. They need to be extracted from the ZIP to allow opening when restoring from a backup catalog.

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .