Can you recover an lrcat from a Lightroom cc lrlibrary

[RubyRedRick]

It's been a while since I've used either version of Lightroom. 

I recently opened up Lightroom cc on my Mac and realized it wasn't classic.

when I opened classic, it had no photos. Cc seems to have them.  Is there a way to recover an lrcat from the lrlibrary?  I do have the original photo files on my NAS.

[GoldingD]

Lightroom cc 

please clarify, by cc are you referring to a very old copy of Lr, like v6.14, or are you referring to the cloud based app

[RubyRedRick]

The cloud based app.

[JohanElzenga]

Lightroom cloud isn't going to steal photos from Lightroom Classic, so what you think happened is very unlikely. What is much more likely is that Lightroom Classic lost the connection to the existing catalog, and created a brand new one (which obviously does not contain any photos). Search your hard disk for .lrcat files to find the correct catalog and open it from Lightroom Classic.

[RubyRedRick]

That’s my problem. I can’t find any lrcat files.

I never used Lightroom cc on the Mac as far as I can recall, and only used the iPad app very sparingly.

I’ve used Lightroom since before Creative Cloud, and moved to CC when it became available.

On my Mac The Lightroom app is showing over 4000 photos, going back to 2000. So this has to have originally come from Lightroom classic
Lightroom Classic is showing 0.

——
Rick DeNatale

[GoldingD]

Using Finder, search for 

.lrcat

[GoldingD]

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@RubyRedRick wrote:

On my Mac The Lightroom app is showing over 4000 photos, going back to 2000. So this has to have originally come from Lightroom classic
Lightroom Classic is showing 0.

——
Rick DeNatale

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20 years ago on this computer? On the hard drives currently in use?

[JohanElzenga]

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@RubyRedRick wrote:
That’s my problem. I can’t find any lrcat files.

I never used Lightroom cc on the Mac as far as I can recall, and only used the iPad app. On my Mac The Lightroom app is showing over 4000 photos, going back to 2000. So this has to have originally come from Lightroom classic
Lightroom Classic is showing 0.

——
Rick DeNatale

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No, it does not have to be and isn't. Lightroom shows you the images that are in the cloud. Those will be the images you put there with the iPad app! If you start using Lightroom Classic on the Mac, then Lightroom Classic will create a new catalog with zero images in it. Lightroom Classic is not a browser, it is a catalog application that must first import images before it shows them. What you need to do a read some basic documentation about how Lightroom Classic works. You can't install Lightroom Classic, start it and expect your images to be there. That is simply not how Lightroom Classic works.

[RubyRedRick]

I know very well how Lightroom classic works, or at least used to. I used it before CC ever existed, when what is now called Lightroom Classic was called just Lightroom. I know that the photo files aren't inside the lrcat which points to them and contains meta information.

In my case my photo files are safely held on a NAS.  I'm trying to reconnect Lightroom Classic to them. I'm guessing that if I reimport them the meta information won't be there.

[dj_paige]

In my case my photo files are safely held on a NAS.  I'm trying to reconnect Lightroom Classic to them. I'm guessing that if I reimport them the meta information won't be there.

By @RubyRedRick

Correct. Do not import. Follow these instructions: https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[RubyRedRick]

I know how to do that, but that requires an lrcat which used to know about those files. In this case the lrcat was lost, so Lightroom Classic created a new empty catalog.

[dj_paige]

I know how to do that, but that requires an lrcat which used to know about those files. In this case the lrcat was lost, so Lightroom Classic created a new empty catalog.

By @RubyRedRick

Use your operating system's search feature to search all folders on all disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT. Possibly the one with the most recent date (other than the new one that got created) is the one you want. But anyway, double-click on all files found to open them in LrC and you can see if it is the catalog you want.

[JohanElzenga]

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@RubyRedRick wrote:

I know very well how Lightroom classic works, or at least used to. I used it before CC ever existed, when what is now called Lightroom Classic was called just Lightroom. I know that the photo files aren't inside the lrcat which points to them and contains meta information.

In my case my photo files are safely held on a NAS.  I'm trying to reconnect Lightroom Classic to them. I'm guessing that if I reimport them the meta information won't be there.

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If you use Lightroom Classic after all, then why did you answer "the cloud based app" when you were asked which version of Lightroom you use? Lightroom Classic is not 'the cloud based app', Lightroom (desktop) is. 

If you use Lightroom Classic, then you'll have to find the old catalog if you want to retrieve the edit information. If you can't because you did not make proper backups, then I am afraid that this information is lost. You can import the photos from the NAS again in the new catalog, but that means starting from scratch.

[JohanElzenga]

By the way, please note this: Since the new AI masking, Lightroom Classic now backups two files, the catalogname.lrcat file and a catalogname.lrcat-data file that contains the masks. As a result, the catalog backup is no longer called 'catalogname.lrcat.zip'. Lightroom will first create a folder called 'catalogname' and because that folder is then zipped, the name of the backup is now simply 'catalogname.zip'. That could explain why some people can't find their latest catalog backup. If you search for "lrcat' or 'lrcat.zip', then you won't find your newer backups.

[GoldingD]

Please post your System Information as Lightroom Classic (LrC) reports it. In LrC click on Help, then System Info, then Copy. Paste that information into a reply. Please present all information from first line down to and including Plug-in Info. Info after Plug-in info can be cut as that is just so much dead space to us non-Techs.