Dates on Catalog between Mac OS and LR not consistent?

[media kat]

On my Mac I moved the Lightroom folder containing what I thought was my catalog into my Documents folder. My goal in doing this is to make it easy to backup just my Documents folder to get everything critical on my computer backedup.

Now that the Catalog was moved, when I open LR Classic it prompts me to open a Catalog or make a new one, so I point it towards the Lightroom folder in my documents though the date displaying in this window does not match the actual date of the file. I just wanted to make sure before moving forward that I am not missing anything. 

If you compare the two screenshots, you will see that the file Lightroom Catalog-v11.Ircat is dated Sep 23. 2022 at 1:08 PM on my Mac, which I believe is about the last time I used it, though through LR it shows Feb 18, 2022 at 9:39 AM? Is there an obvious reason for this?

Thanks in advance.

[Rob_Cullen]

It could be the difference between "Date Created" and "Date Modified". ie. Mac Finder and LrC showing the different dates.

[media kat]

While I am at it I would like to clean up this folder. After making sure that my main Catalog file works, can I delete everything else? The Previews file is over 9GB. Will deleting this just mean it will take more time to review old photos until it builds new previews OR should I just leave everything? Thanks

[Rob_Cullen]

In this screen-clip, the only files I believe you could delete are {Lightroom Catalog.LRCAT} and {Lightroom Catalog Helper.lrdata}. All the "-v11" files are part of the v11 catalog.

Two notes-

Yes you can delete the Previews file {Lightroom Catalog-v11 Previews.lrdata} and as you say it will slowly rebuild as you view the files in the Library. Personally I would not be too concerned about a 9GB Previews file (mine is 110GB.!).

I notice your Backups folder also has a recent date- If you are using this folder for catalog backups, you need to change that and use another physical disk-drive for backups.