Skip to main content
L
LBVandal1
Participant
March 6, 2026
Answered

Lightroom Previews Taking up 500GB

  • March 6, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 155 views

I see my biggest space suck of almost 500GB are these LR_Master Catalog-v3-……. Previews.lrdata

Can I safely get rid of the older ones, say 2024 and older?  

 

    Correct answer Conrad_C

    At any time, you can safely delete any file with a name that ends in …Previews.lrdata .

     

    Those are preview caches, built to let you browse folders and collections more quickly, but because they’re just cached previews of your rendered edits, they are completely expendable. The only penalty is that the next time you browse a recently viewed folder or collection, those previews will need to be built again instead of instantly grabbed from the previews cache. But if you have a good recent Mac, preview building should be faster than in the past because that is now GPU-accelerated.

     

    I used to throw them out when they reached around 30GB, but Lightroom Classic recently added a new option in Catalog Settings to limit the size of the previews cache, and I have set that limit. 

    2 replies

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Conrad_CCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2026

    At any time, you can safely delete any file with a name that ends in …Previews.lrdata .

     

    Those are preview caches, built to let you browse folders and collections more quickly, but because they’re just cached previews of your rendered edits, they are completely expendable. The only penalty is that the next time you browse a recently viewed folder or collection, those previews will need to be built again instead of instantly grabbed from the previews cache. But if you have a good recent Mac, preview building should be faster than in the past because that is now GPU-accelerated.

     

    I used to throw them out when they reached around 30GB, but Lightroom Classic recently added a new option in Catalog Settings to limit the size of the previews cache, and I have set that limit. 

      L
      LBVandal1Author
      Participant
      March 8, 2026

      Thanks, I got rid of the files that end in previews.lrdata and all seems good, thanks much for your clarity and succinct answer. 

      Claire H.
      Community Manager
      Claire H.Community Manager
      Community Manager
      March 18, 2026

      ​@LBVandal1 Glad to hear that ​@Conrad_C’s suggestion worked for you! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you run into any other issues. Happy editing! ^CH

      Rob_Cullen
      Community Expert
      Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 6, 2026

      So how many catalogs do you regularly use? 

      If there is only one you use regularly- what is the name of that catalog?

      Your screen clip does not show the entire filenames with filetype-suffix included so it is difficult to comment.

      -V13-4.LRCAT looks like it might be your current catalog (in 2026) but other previews from other catalogs are larger in size, and date of a preview file is not a good indication of use.

      Preview caches  (eg. Catalog Name Previews.LRCAT ) are generally safe to delete as LrC will rebuild (slowly) previews for the open catalog.  (Do NOT delete your catalog file eg. Catalog Name.LRCAT)

      But maybe ‘archive’ files to another location until certain you have not deleted anything related to your working catalog/s.

       

      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 .
        Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
        Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices