Catalogues, two questions

[roelv55517707]

Hi, 

I have a lot of catalogues and they ocupy a lot of space. Whice ones can I delete:

Also, I have never really used the catalogues. Can anyone recommend a decent place where I can learn about them and how to, retroactively, implement them?

[AxelMatt]

You don't wrote about which version of Lightroom do you use.

As I see on your screenshot you can delete all except:

• all files and folders which name startet with Lightroom Caalog-v13-3 
• the folder Backups

BTW: I'll see an folder named Backups. It seems you make backup on the same drive as your catalog is stored. This is very risky. In case of a hard drive crash your backups are already gone. Backups should be stored on a seperate drive, better still on an external drive.

Here you'll find infos about managing LR catalogs:

How to create and manage catalogs in Photoshop Lightroom Classic

How Lightroom Classic catalogs work

Catalogs

On the web, for ex. in Youtube, you'll find a lot of tutorials about the handling of LR's catalogs.

[roelv55517707]

Hi AxelMatt,

Thanks for the assist.

I am using Lightroom Classic version 14.2.

[Steve Leonhard_Olsen8298]

Delete all.

Steve Olsen

[dj_paige]

Delete all.Steve Olsen
By @Steve Leonhard_Olsen8298

What a terrible piece of advice.

Do not delete all.

[dj_paige]

@roelv55517707 

Something is odd here. If you are running LrC 14.2, you should have a Lightroom Catalog v14 (unless you renamed it). The catalog named Lightroom Catalog-v13-3 cannot run in LrC 14.2 (unless you renamed it).

[Rob_Cullen]

@dj_paige  FYI an upgrade to LrC v14 does not change the catalog filename as happened in the past. Changing a catalog name is now a Menu item: File > Rename Catalog...  Many users with v14 now have catalogs named -v13-3 or similar.

See an explanation in this Lightroom Queen link "Catalog Upgrade (Classic)" (about halfway on the page)

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-2024-10/

@roelv55517707    "I have never really used the catalogues." You must use at least one catalog. Lr-Classic does not work without a catalog.

And good advice from @GoldingD -  Get your catalog out of one-drive!

And I agree with the 'deletion' suggestions by @AxelMatt 

[GoldingD]

B.T.W. you are auto syncing to OneDrive,(although apparently some sync has failed)  that is bad, I blame Microsoft fir that. Your catalog is probably in a user system library/folder (users, pictures, documents, music, videos) that gets automatically synced to OneDrive. This happens by default if you use a MS account to login to Windows. MS is very heavy handed in attempting to force MS accounts as opposed to local accounts.

Consider moving your catalog to a different folder, a root folder with a name you like, say MyPhotography, MyLightroom,Rumpelstiltskin,GrumpyOldFart, anything other than User, Pictures, Downloads, Documents, Videos, etc.

Why is this a problem? Because auto syncing to OneDrive means constant chit chat to/from the cloud, busy busy busy. With each edit, with each mid, with perhaps even just looking cross st LrC, a sync to OneDrive occurs. This will effect performance, and may eventually (rarely) lead to catalog corruption.

You will see in this community at least one discussion stating LrC and OneDrive are made in heaven (with reply's of, no, made in hell) And many discussions about avoiding it.