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lisas61306474
lisas61306474
Participant
August 1, 2020
Question

Adobe Lightroom Catalog file size went from 15mb to 500mb

  • August 1, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 757 views

My Lightroom catalogs used to be 15mb and just recently they are all 500mb. This us a problem when I have hundreds of catalogs!  Has anyone else experienced this huge increase? Even with catalogs with only 100 photos in it? What can I do??

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4 replies

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 3, 2020

Thanks for replies. Yes you are at Classic v9.3 the 'latest'.

Your screen-clips showing the 3.4MB catalog indicates to me that it is entirely empty. (Created 9.52 Modified 9.54) So it might be expected to be small.

I created a Catalog with two photos- it is 5.34 MB

Your other catalog (Created June15, Modified July31) is bound to be this large as you have possibly imported photos, developed those photos, added metadata, etc. All your work is recorded in the Catalog file- a database file. You cannot add data to a database without it getting larger.

My current Catalog (~70,000 photos) is 1.6GB.

 

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.3, Photoshop 27.5, ACR 18.3, Lightroom 9.3, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .
lisas61306474
lisas61306474Author
Participant
August 4, 2020

Thank you so much for your reply however, that's why I chose those catalogs they both have the same amount of photos - I edit weddings all the time and it's only until last month did I notice that the size has gone up. All my weddings PRE July are all about 16mb and all over 2 thousand images in them all edited etc. 

JP Hess
JP Hess
Inspiring
August 3, 2020

Lightroom 6 is not Classic. What is the exact version number you are using? And having "hundreds" of catalogs is really not a very efficient method of using Lightroom. Personally, I would recommend using keywords and simplifying your catalog system.

lisas61306474
lisas61306474Author
Participant
August 3, 2020

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 3, 2020

AFAIK, this is because of the new profiles. They make Lightroom store color lookup tables inside the catalog. Not much you can do about it, I'm afraid (except not using a new catalog for each client because there is no need to do that).

-- Johan W. Elzenga
John T Smith
Community Expert
John T SmithCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 1, 2020

Please post the exact name of the Adobe program you use so a Moderator may move this message to that forum

lisas61306474
lisas61306474Author
Participant
August 1, 2020

I edited my post to include Adobe Lightroom - thank you!

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2020

Is that-

Lightroom-Classic

Lightroom-Desktop

Lightroom-Mobile

Lightroom-Web

Lightroom for iOS/Android

They are all Adobe programs! A Version Number helps.

And what do you mean by "hundreds of catalogs!"?

15mb  Is miniscule! (smaller that one image file) Do you mean Gb?

And where are you seeing the 'size'?

 

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.3, Photoshop 27.5, ACR 18.3, Lightroom 9.3, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .
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