P: Renaming Catalog for Upgrade

[gegjr]

Please change catalog upgrade to rename current catalog with prefix "old" and allow the new catalog to keep the original name. Instead of creating a new catalog and adding a version prefix, ex: changing photography catalog v13 to photography catalog v13-3. Rename current catalog to "photography catalog v13-old and keep original name photography catalog v13.

[GoldingD]

My reply deleaed, it was just so wrong.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

@GoldingD you were right, it does let you rename, just not to the old catalog name. FWIW, I've voted on @gegjr 's request because I think it would be useful to retain the current catalog name and rename/move the old ones that confuse people so much.

[JohanElzenga]

I understand the idea, but I am not sure that it would create fewer problems. It may in fact create more problems. If the upgraded catalog does not get renamed, then it will be impossible to see if that catalog was already upgraded or if this is an old copy without opening it in Lightroom Classic. There will also be a potential mismatch with backups. You will have backups with the same name, but those backups will be older version backups.

[Califdan2]

I'm pretty happy with it the way it is.   

At some point (not sure with which release) they started updating the "When Startting up use this catalog....."  prefernce to the new catalog name when upgrading an older catalog that name a spefic catalog.

However, if folks like the idea of maintaining a consistant catalog name,  I think then that the old catalog should be renamed with text that includes info about it's lineage.  For example, let's say the current catalog is
"Lightroom Catalog.lrcat" 
and the user is running LrC/12.3,   If they then upgrade to LrC/13.3, that old catalog wouold be renamed
"Lightroom Catalog (v12 superceded 2024-05-21).lrcat"    

[Jeremyau]

The general idea is good and was a commonly advised approach for decades for several reasons to do with how some system and app functions may have recorded pointers to a key file, e.g. like 'recent used' lists etc. 

However it probbaly won't help with the possibly bigger problem of IT nervous photographers not comfortable dealing with any of the database files directly. Perhaps LrC could add some sort of function to manage the obsolete database file sets.