Lightroom Classic 15.5.1 keeps running in the background after closing

Sounds good, @JBedfordPhoto, thank you. We’ll look forward to your findings whenever you have a chance to do another longer editing session. No rush.

@gabyrusu, thanks for sharing your experience. When you say you turned off Background App Activity for Lightroom, did that actually resolve the issue for you?

Specifically, after disabling it, does Lightroom fully quit without remaining active in the background, or do you still see the Lightroom process continue running after closing the application?

Best,
Anshul Saini

Having the same problem on macOS. I turned off the Background App Activity for LR

I’ll report back when I’m back in the office and can dedicate some time to another editing session. Might be a couple of weeks. Cheers 

Thanks for helping me out with this one. So when I close LRC it sometimes - maybe half the time - stays running in the background. Usually, I think, this happens after a long editing session. Sometimes the program closes no problem and I can reopen another instance after 20 seconds or so. Sometimes, LRC remains running in Task Manager, eventually closing on its own after 30 seconds to one minute. Sometimes not at all. When it doesn’t die, it sits in Task Manager sometimes continually consuming more and more RAM. When this happens, I may have to restart the computer. When I attempt to reopen LRC during these fits, nothing happens. Two instances do not open. One remains chugging along in the background but the main window does not display. 

My X:\ drive is an internal local M.2 NVME that I use exclusively for my LRC catalogs. 

LRC becomes slower after long editing sessions. Maybe a few hours. Background preview generation is normally off. Generate previews while importing is set either to minimal or embedded. 

I’ll include a screenshot if / when the issues reappear. I’ve been using LRC since its inception in 2007. Ask me anything, I’m seasoned with its nuances.

Hi ​@JBedfordPhoto,

Thanks for the detailed report and for including your System Info. I’ve moved your comments into a separate thread so we can investigate this independently.

There appear to be two related symptoms here that I’d like to narrow down: the general slowdown during use, and Lightroom Classic remaining active in the background after you close it, sometimes preventing a normal relaunch.

For the shutdown/relaunch issue, could you please confirm what happens in Task Manager after you close Lightroom Classic?

• Does Lightroom Classic remain there indefinitely, or does it eventually disappear on its own?
• If you try to reopen Lightroom while that process is still present, does another Lightroom process appear in Task Manager without a Lightroom window ever opening?
• If you end the remaining Lightroom process in Task Manager, how long do you normally need to wait before Lightroom will launch successfully again?

I also noticed from your System Info that your catalog is located at:
X:\Catalogs\Catalogs\2026\Weddings 2026\Weddings 2026.lrcat
Could you let us know what the X: drive is? An internal/local drive, a directly connected external drive, or a mapped network/NAS location?

If it is a network/NAS or external location, one useful controlled test would be to copy the catalog to a local internal SSD and open that copy for a test session. If there is a corresponding .lrcat-data folder next to the catalog, copy it along with the catalog. You do not need to move your original photos. Then check whether Lightroom is still running after you exit.

Regarding the performance issue, could you also let us know whether Lightroom is already slow shortly after launch, or whether it becomes progressively slower over the course of a longer editing session? If it gets worse over time, approximately how long does that normally take? Are you doing anything in particular beforehand, such as masking, Denoise, exporting, or moving rapidly through images in Develop?

Finally, if Lightroom gets stuck again after closing, please don't immediately restart it if practical. Give it a minute or two, and note whether the process's Memory and CPU values in Task Manager remain stable, continue to increase, or eventually drop before the process exits. A screenshot of Task Manager at that point would also be useful.

There's no need to reinstall Lightroom or repeat general troubleshooting at this stage.

The information above should help us determine whether the shutdown/relaunch behavior and the performance degradation are part of the same problem or two separate issues.

Best,
Anshul Saini

I’m very unhappy with the latest release. 15.5.1 is dreadfully slow. Moreover, it tends to sit as a background activity for far too long - or permanently - after closing the program (Windows 11). Even when hard closing it via Task Manager, restarting the program doesn’t work, yet shows as a task in the Task Manager. 

When it works, it is still slow, even when previews aren’t being generated in the background. 

Lightroom Classic version: 15.5.1 [ 202608131348-cab7eed5 ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en
Operating system: Windows 11 - Home Premium Edition
Version: 11.0.26200
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Logical processor count: 24
Processor speed: 3.4GHz
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
Adobe GSDK Version: 1.4.0.213

CPU Utilisation: 5.0%
Power Source: Plugged In
Built-in memory: 65292.0 MB
Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 2102.4MB / 15995.0MB (13%)
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65292.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 3089.8 MB (4.7%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 5228.9 MB
GDI objects count: 776
USER objects count: 2984
Process handles count: 3219
Memory cache size: 356.7MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 18.5.1 [ 2687 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 341MB / 32646MB (1%)
Camera Raw real memory: 345MB / 65292MB (0%)

Cache1: 
Final1- RAM:427.0MB, VRAM:1086.0MB, CF054529.TIF
NT- RAM:427.0MB, VRAM:1086.0MB, Combined:1513.0MB

Cache2: 
m:356.7MB, n:175.4MB

U-main: 110.0MB

System DPI setting: 144 DPI (high DPI mode)
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Standard Preview Size: 3840 pixels
Displays: 1) 3840x2160
Input types: Multitouch: Yes, Integrated touch: Yes, Integrated pen: No, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: No

Graphics Processor Info: 
DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (32.0.16.1656)
Init State: GPU for Export supported by default
User Preference: GPU for Export enabled
Enable HDR in Library: OFF
GPU for Preview Generation: On (S5_15)

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic
Library Path: X:\Catalogs\Catalogs\2026\Weddings 2026\Weddings 2026.lrcat
Settings Folder: C:\Users\phono\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Installed Plugins: 

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