Catalog on LR... find?

[maury71]

Hi!

I have made some mistakes at first creating catalogs incorrectly.

I would like to know if there is the possibility to find all the catalogs scattered on the PC and delete them in order to create new catalogs positioned in a single position and better structured.

If it is possible, how to delete catalogs?

Thanks!

[Rob_Cullen]

Do not create 'new' Catalogs! Read on ***-

Catalogs are database files with the file-type suffix of  {.LRCAT}

Use a file browser to search all drives for {?.LRCAT} files.

If you hold down the [Ctrl] key before, and all the time that LrC is starting up, it will start with a screen that shows all the catalogs that LrC knows about.

Or- If you have one catalog open and working- the MENU: File > Open Recent,  will also give you a list of Catalogs available.

***If you do have several Catalogs- you would do better to 'Merge' them into one catalog with all photos referenced by this one 'master' catalog. 'Merging' is done by a process called "Import from another Catalog"  See- Merging Catalogs - The Overview | The Lightroom Queen 

By merging Catalogs you will not lose any of your work ever done- All Editing, Keywords, Collections, Print Templates, Slideshows, Books, etc, etc. AND, importantly- your restructuring will be done in the ONE master catalog.

[maury71]

Thanks a lot!

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

If you are a beginner to Lightroom Classic — use one catalog. This makes everything so much simpler — and even if you are not a beginner, there really are very very few reasons to have multiple catalogs anyway. Do as suggested by WobertC and merge your catalogs into one.

[maury71]

Thanks! 

I read that creating a single catalog would lead to having LRC slowed down in the presence of many photos.

So I wanted to make a "2020" catalog where to insert sub-catalogs by topic (eg Macro, Landscape, Fauna .... etc ...) to keep LRC fast.
You tell me that instead it is better to make a single generic catalog and then create collections by topic (eg Macro, Landscape, Fauna .... etc ...)? 
Thanks so much!

[Rob_Cullen]

Here is something else to read-

"You can put an insane amount of images in your catalog. In fact, Adobe knows of users that have single Lightroom catalogs with literally millions of images, including one that has over six million images and it still runs like a champ, so I guess at this point nobody knows exactly what the limit is (or if there even is one), but we know this — the roof isn’t six million."  CATALOG LIMITS (S Kelby)

And from a Lightroom Guru-  CATALOG LIMITS (J Beardy) 

A 'large' catalog may slow down LrC when opening and Backing up, but its more likely the computer system, esp the hard-drive & ram, that can have an effect on speed of developing.

This link is a couple of years 'old' but still relevant today- Lightroom Performance -Optimizing Speed 

[Conrad C]

Here is some additional info from one of the most definitive sources on the web on this subject:

Should you have one catalog or multiple catalogs?

One of the reasons I use one catalog is that you can’t search across multiple catalogs.

[dj_paige]

"I read that creating a single catalog would lead to having LRC slowed down in the presence of many photos."

I consider this false. There are many reasons why a catalog would slow down; having too many photos is not even in the Top 100 reasons.

[maury71]

Hi, so a only one Catalog is better than more from what I have read from the various articles, with some exceptions.
To create folders of topics, or create for example photos divided by year and topic, better to use the Collections in a single catalog? Example: LRC Catalog, then Collection "Year 2020" and in it other Collections such as "macro", "landscapes", "Fauna" etc ...?

If I decide to do the 2021 collection with the same sub-collections, I will be able to do it in the same catalog, right?

thanks for the help

[dj_paige]

Every photo taken by a digital camera has a date attached to it. So you do not need to organize specifically by year. In fact, I think adding a year to your keywords or collections is a pointless waste of time that has more negatives than positives, because any time you want to search for photos from 2020, you can use the Filter Bar.

You could set up a keyword "landscapes" without any year, assign these to all of your landscapes, and then if you only want the 2020 landscapes, you could then use the Filter bar to get just the 2020 photos of landscapes. And you could easily create a sub-keyword called "waterfalls" and another sub-keyword called "rivers" and so on. And then you could do the same filtering by year on "waterfalls" or "rivers" as needed. (I advise against using collections as your primary organizing tool, use keywords as your primary organizing tool and leave collections for special purposes such as creating photo books or slideshows, etc.)

So one catalog contains photos from all years and all subjects.

[maury71]

Thanks!