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hmcheatham
Participating Frequently
August 17, 2019
Question

Lrcat file size increased significantly

  • August 17, 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 1154 views

Hello all -

The size of my lrcat file when exporting a catalog appears to have drastically increased almost overnight.  I have been exporting catalogs to my clients for years averaging 25-50MB in size but I have noticed this week they are 400-500MB and I haven't made any changes at all?! I have searched the forums and only found one thread but it didn't help me with the issue.  Please advise.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    6 replies

    H
    hmcheathamAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    August 19, 2019

    I'm trying to get help from Adobe support.  I spent two hours with support walking through all the steps on my computer.  I see this issue mentioned several times on forums.  It doesn't make sense why a program or set of profiles I do not have (3D LUT) are being copied into every catalog.  They are coming from the Tables folder (.dat files).  And, no matter if you delete them or not they are regenerating every time Lightroom is opening.  No matter if I export a catalog of 800 files or export a catalog of 1 file - the catalog size is including an extra 450GB of these entries.

    D
    defaultguqsgrf3rxi6
    Participant
    October 30, 2020

    Did you managed to solve this issue? I've just updated my LR to V10 and I'm finding the same issue now. 

    H
    hmcheathamAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    August 18, 2019

    I followed the first step of the instructions in the last response here Lightroom Classic CC 8.0 large sized backups and LRCAT file and once I deleted the files in the Table folder they literally regenerated themselves as soon as I reopened Lightroom.

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2019

    It seems the bug hasn’t been fixed yet. You should look at

    feedback.photoshop.com and see if somebody else reported this issue or

    generate a new thread there. Unfortunately no Lightroom engineers frequent

    this forum but the feedback one is specifically meant to report bugs

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 17, 2019

    Lightroom Classic CC 8.0 large sized backups and LRCAT file

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 17, 2019

    Are you on the latest Classic version (8.4) ? There was a bug that sounds extremely similar to what you are describing a short while back where a single camera profile would cause exported catalogs to balloon like crazy. It almost behaved like a virus in that as soon as you had this all exported catalogs would be gigantic. I am pretty sure that got fixed in the interim.

      H
      hmcheathamAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      August 18, 2019

      I had high hopes this would resolve the issue but it did not Jao VdL - I did read that thread and details.

      I was running v8.2 but I upgraded to the newest v8.4 and exported the 17 image catalog again and it was still 461MB.

      Help.

      R
      Community Expert
      richardplondonCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 17, 2019

      There is an option "export negative files" when you Export as Catalog. Could that have been turned on?

      This option includes copies of all the original photos involved, and a partial folder arrangement to contain these, along with the new exported Catalog into the chosen destination. It's these new copies of the photos which are imported to the new Catalog.

      So, using this option makes a self-contained independent setup that does not rely on, or share, the same images as the main Catalog.

      H
      hmcheathamAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      August 17, 2019

      Not exporting negative files either richardplondon - I've been editing for clients for three years now and literally nothing changed :-/  I've been exporting Smart Previews & Catalogs back to my clients with normal sized catalogs (.lrcat files specifically) between 25-50MB for years.  I receive and edit about 5-10 catalogs weekly.  I looked back in my folders to clients and It looks like about a week or so ago something changed and now they are all huge.  Even small catalogs with 125 images are all 500MB!

      I'm really confused on this one...

      dj_paige
      dj_paige
      Legend
      August 17, 2019

      You could investigate by actually looking inside the exported catalog and seeing if somehow a huge number of photos is in there.

      H
      hmcheathamAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      August 17, 2019

      The most recent catalog I exported included 806 images and was 477MB.

      Another example - A different client sent me a wedding gallery via Lightroom catalog to edit last week.  It included over 3400 images and was only 41MB.  After rating and editing about 1100 of them I sent the catalog back and it was 503MB.  Same client sends me a smaller gallery this week of only 162 images and it was 462MB.  Normally, when she sent me catalogs with similar quantities of images it was only 20-25MB. 

      It's like something happened which now increased the exported catalog significantly.

      dj_paige
      dj_paige
      Legend
      August 17, 2019

      Has anything changed recently on your computer, or in Lightroom?

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