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El Flickó
Participant
September 17, 2023
Question

I Lost 10,000+ Photos, due to my Catalog being corrupt. I can't open my cataloge

  • September 17, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 195 views

It's saying it can be repaired, I tried contacting an employee but had no luck. I edit my photos on a Macbook Air M1(MAC OS VENTURA 13.0.1), and every tutorial I've seen is for Windows or years old. I have a backup but they are 2 months old and I've done a lot of work since then. If anyone knows how to repair it, I'll send you the file and pay you if prompted

 

Any solution is helpful thank you.

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2 replies

Sean McCormack
Community Expert
Sean McCormackCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 18, 2023

If a catalog is corrupt, you can't open it. Lightroom will try to run the internal repair tools to fix it. 

 

You're sure that this isn't another catalog that's been updated again? 

What's in the File>Open Recent list? 

Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.
dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
September 17, 2023

Why do you think the catalog file is corrupted? What is your evidence?

 

You didn't lose any photos, because those are not stored in the catalog. Photos are stored on your hard disk somewhere, wherever you put them or wherever you told Lightroom Classic to put them.

 

Catalogs should be backed up daily or weekly (your choice), and catalogs should be automatically backed up; so that you never are in the situation where you most recent backup is two months old.

 

You may have lost the editing you have done if you don't have recent backups of the catalog file. Or, if you are saving the edits to XMP, then the edits are not only in the catalog, but also in the photo files or sidecar files. However, this option is turned off by default, and unless you turned it on, this will not help you retrieve your edits.

 

In general, corrupted catalogs cannot be repaired (although there are exceptions).

E
El FlickóAuthor
Participant
September 17, 2023

Yes, i have my photos backed up to my external SSD, but all the work I've done on them. Presets, collections everything under the catalog is gone. What are some of the exceptions.

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
September 17, 2023

Why do you think the catalog file is corrupted? What is your evidence? Also, I'm not talking about photo backups at all. Photos are not in the catalog, your original photo files are still wherever you put them or told LrC to put them.

 

Exceptions are due to random luck where the corruption is minor enough that somehow LrC or an engineer at Adobe (who is kind enough to look at your catalog) can make the repairs.

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