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RobbmiRMC
RobbmiRMC
Participant
July 22, 2025
Answered

“Unknown Error” When Importing Mac Catalog into Lightroom Classic on PC

  • July 22, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 345 views

I run Lightroom Classic on my desktop (pc) and a laptop (mac air). My primary catalog is on my desktop and the catalog for my laptop is in OneDrive. Previously I had a windows laptop with the catalog in OneDrive and was able to import the laptop catalog, from OneDrive, into the primary instance on my desktop. Now when I try to import from the laptop catalog (from mac) in OneDrive into my primary desktop (pc), I get an error that says 'Lightroom could not import this catalog because of an unknown error.' Previously when I was using a windows laptop, it worked great but now it is erroring out. Catalog runs great on the laptop, just the import is struggling. 
Any ideass and/or suggestions welcome.

Correct answer RobbmiRMC

As a check, can you copy the catalog to another (non-OneDrive) location and import it from there? You should only need the .lrcat file.


Thank you! I actually created a new catalog on OneDrive with my MacBook (named 'Mac-Catalog') and imported a bunch of photos. Switched over to me desktop and it imported fine. I believe the problem was that I created the original catalog on OneDrive from a Surface (Windows) laptop and for whatever reason, accessing/writing to it with my Mac caused the problem. So now have 2 seperate  catalogs on OneDrive....one for the Mac and one for the Surface. 

2 replies

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Ian LyonsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 23, 2025

Placing the catalog on OneDrive or any other cloud service is not recommended. There are lots of post on this forum from folk like yourself who experience errors, loss of data, etc when using catalog on Onedrive.

RobbmiRMC
RobbmiRMCAuthor
Participant
July 30, 2025

My main catalog is on a drive on my desktop system. OneDrive is where my 'mobile catalog' lives when I am away from home shooting and editing. Once home, I import everything from the OneDrive, ot 'mobile catalog', into my main system. This way i can edit on my laptop and all of the edits are imported to my desktop.

Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Michael J. HoffmanCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 22, 2025

Make sure that the laptop is not running Lightroom while you're trying to import, as it will have the files open and may be locking out the desktop. Also, make sure that if you have OneDrive set to "Files on Demand" (this is now the default) that you navigate to the catalog on the dekstop, right click your catalog file, and choose "Always keep on this device." If you don't, OneDrive may make this an "online" file (with a cloud icon as shown below) and will not download a local copy until you try to access it (which could cause an error trying to access it).

 

RobbmiRMC
RobbmiRMCAuthor
Participant
July 22, 2025

Just checked and it was not set to "Always keep on this device." Set that and let it sync but still no bueno.

Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Michael J. HoffmanCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 23, 2025

As a check, can you copy the catalog to another (non-OneDrive) location and import it from there? You should only need the .lrcat file.

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