Participating Frequently

Question

Organizer 2025 full backup is not really full

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
June 17, 2025
5 replies
1389 views

Hello Community,

I 'm working with Elements organizer 2025.

I have a catalog sized 1.84 gb. The photos's folder of the catalog is 39.4 gb. I choose to do a FULL backup, and the final backup folder is 1.24 gb. It is something like a catalog only backup, assuming from its size.

I need to move my entire collection. What am I doing wrong?

Thank you very much in advance,

George

Greg_S.

Community Expert

Whatever you are describing as the known black folder signal on every item is not known by me.

I suggest you contact Adobe Support. With your permission, they can take control of your computer and figure out the problem. You can start a chat session by going to the Contact Adobe Support page. (https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen) Make sure you are signed into your Adobe account and try typing Agent when the chat window opens. (If you use my link, the chat window should open automatically.)

Greg_S.

Community Expert

What happens when you open the restored Catalog? Are all the files there? (You can locate the catalog.pse25db in the restored catalog folder location and simply double-click on it to open it in the Organizer.)

MrNeverFadeAuthor

Participating Frequently

No, they are not. I get the known black folder signal on every item.

Strangely, if I insert the usb stick to the pc and restart elements, files are back.

So (as far as I understand), the backup catalog still points to the usb stick instead of the external hard drive? Why it's not backing up the files?

Greg_S.

Community Expert

How many media files are reported in the lower left corner of the Organizer's screen?

Is your USB stick set to compress the files on it?

Do you have anything besides the catalog folder and photos or videos on the E drive?

Have you tried to Restore the backup to your external drive? What happens when you open that catalog?

MrNeverFadeAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you again for your time Greg.

You can see my item's number in the attached screenshots.

No, the usb is not set to compress, it's xfat.

I have 2 other folders in the E drive, which are photos, pdfs and words not included in the catalog.

I have done another try for backup and restore in order you to check all the details. Please see attached screenshots.

In my way of thinking, organizer seems to make just a catalog backup and not a full backup.

What do you think? What else may I try?

Is it a software issue?

Greg_S.

Community Expert

Do you have more than one catalog?

Go to Help>System Info . . . (It may take several seconds for a dialog to appear.) Does the Current Catalog location match the location of your USB stick?

MrNeverFadeAuthor

Participating Frequently

I do not.

Yes, the location is right.

I paste the info below for any additional thoughts

Elements Organizer 25.0.0.0
Core Version: 25.0 (20250402.EO.8affb1f0)
Language Version: 25.0 (20250402.EO.8affb1f0)

Current Catalog:
Catalog Name: Syn_Database
Catalog Location: E:\Syn_Database\
Catalog Size: 138MB
Catalog Cache Size: 1.8GB

System:
Operating System Name: Windows 10
Operating System Version: 10.0
System Architecture: AMD CPU Family:15 Model:8 Stepping:1 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Built-in Memory: 7.8GB
Free Memory: 1.6GB

Thank you in advance for your time,

I 'm really stuck,

MrNeverFadeAuthor

Participating Frequently

The properties tab of Syn_Database in file explorer attached. It do not match for sure.

Greg_S.

Community Expert

You are probably backing up only the catalog structure and database, not doing a full backup of the catalog and media files:

MrNeverFadeAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your reply Greg.

No, as I already wrote, I chose FULL backup.

I tried it several times.

Is there anything else I can check?

In order to be more specific, I need to move my catalog and my photos from a USB stick to an external hard disk.

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