Download all content of Lightroom from web to my computer

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 4, 2020
2 replies
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My Lightroom Classic catalog file is corrupt and cannot be recovered (I have tried all Adobe aids). That’s why I’d like to download all the Lightroom content from the web to my PC and create a new catalog, but I can’t figure out how to do it. Can anyone help me?

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Jim Wilde

Community Expert

It's easy enough to do (simply create a new empty catalog and enable it to sync). That will indeed download all content from your cloud to the new catalog. However, if all that content was synced from Classic, likely it will only be in the smart preview format (2560px on the long edge), not the full-resolution originals that you had stored in Classic. Of course, any originals in the cloud that you might have added via a phone or tablet will be downloaded in the original format.

What folder structure were you using in the corrupt Classic catalog: one of Classic's own date-based folder structure, or your own hand-crafted folder scheme? If the former, it might be possible to relink the downloaded smart previews to the original files that were cataloged in the corrupt Classic catalog.

Don't start doing anything yet until you get back with the answers.

X

XavierQuerAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you Jim for your interesting answer.

In relation to your query, I inform you that I use my own folder structure. I make a new one for each session or subject of photographs.

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

What about the other point.....are the files in the cloud smart previews or originals? If they are only smart previews, having your own folder structure, rather than one of the Classic date-based schemes, makes it very difficult to relink your local originals to the smart previews if you try to download the cloud content into a new catalog in order to preserve all the edits you may have made in the original corrupt Classic catalog.