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A
Andrew C. Brinsmead
Inspiring
June 19, 2026
Question

why have my masks disappeared after LrC closed?

  • June 19, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

I added masks to about 140 photos yesterday, closed Lightroom Classic and when I reopened LrC, about 50 images had lost their masks; I can’t think of any steps that I had done to delete these masks, and I have .xmp files being created for all of my images, so I don’t understand how I lost the masks.

I do have a fairly large (probably around 50,000’ish, could be more) collection of images on my hard drives, and my LrC catalogue is getting quite large (it takes a while to save); I’m not sure if this has affected LrC saving my masks. 

I’m a reasonably advanced LrC user, and this is the first time that this has happened to me (I’ve been using LrC extensively for about 3-4 years).

Any reason why (like user error?) that I could have lost my masks?

    2 replies

    isoftmarts
    isoftmarts
    Participant
    June 19, 2026

    I’ve seen this happen a few times in Lightroom Classic. Usually, masks don’t actually disappear—they might not load properly due to catalog sync issues or a corrupted preview cache. First, try restarting LrC and checking if your catalog is up to date. You can also rebuild previews or check if the masks are still listed in the masking panel.

    Sometimes updates or crashes can cause temporary glitches, but the data is still there. It’s a bit frustrating, but manageable.

    It reminds me how important stable systems are—I’ve seen companies like Isoftmarts focus on building reliable solutions that prevent these kinds of issues.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 19, 2026

    Let’s get a few misunderstandings out of the wat first. A 50,000 images catalog is not large, you need to add another zero before the catalog is considered large, so that won’t have played any part. Saving to XMP also does not play any part. That’s an extra option that does not affect anything in the catalog (but you could use ‘read metadata from file’ on one of the images to see if the mask details are still in the XMP file). And finally, Lightroom Classic catalogs do not need to be ‘saved’. Changes are written to it instantaneously, so ‘saving’ a catalog (like you save an image in Photoshop) doesn’t really take place. You possibly mean that backing up the catalog takes a while.

     

    What kind of masks were these? Did you actually make edits in the masks before you went to work on the next image?

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
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