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J
Jakub29653386mhgy
Participant
April 29, 2023
Question

Lost everything after trashing a plist file.

  • April 29, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 979 views

Hi all,

 

I am desparately looking for help. I have lost my folders and hashtags created over many years in Adobe Lightroom Classic and I would appreciate if someone could help me retrieve it.

 

Context:

I have recently returned from a Safari trip and have been working on editing hundreds of new photos that I synced from my camera. Then, a few days ago when I tried accessing Lightroom to continue editing the pics it just would not open. I would just see the rainbow-colored spinning wheel.

 

I was reading online what to do and came across this article (cannot open lightroom classic), which said I should delete the two plist files. I ended up trashing the plist file com.adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist, and while I was able to open LRC after I trashed that file, all of the folders on the left-hand-side, and all the hashtags on the right-hand-side are now gone. I got scared and immediately put the file from the trash back to where it was, but the effect remained.

 

I have no idea what to do. Could anyone please advise me how I can regain years of work? Did I just lose everything? What is the best way to go about this?

 

My Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic version is 12.2.1, on iMac running masOS Ventura 13.2.1.

 

Please help 😞

 

Best,

Jacob

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
April 29, 2023

You have opened the wrong catalog file (probably opened a new empty catalog). Please use your operating system's search feature to search for all files whose name ends with .LRCAT; the largest is probably the one you want to open by double-clicking on it.

 

PS: Don't you have backups of everything? It sounds like you don't, which is not a good situation to be in.

    J
    JACEK29653883rv5q
    Participant
    April 29, 2023

    I have all the photos saved on Google Cloud, which are there, however all of the named folders and hashtags I previously had within LRC are gone.

     

    It is years of work I am talking about, many folders and many hashtags that I created over the years.

     

    I am not sure I am following your advice on what to do. I would be eternally grateful if you could explain in layman terms what to do.

     

    The big question is - can I retrieve what I had or is it all gone? 

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    April 29, 2023

    What part of what I wrote is not clear or understandable?

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