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BjoernHirsch
Known Participant
March 4, 2025
Answered

Huge sync.irdata file / folder with many subfolders

  • March 4, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 1004 views

Hello , 

 

I have a very big sync.irdata folder (13GB) with several subfolder which have each a managed catalog file . All my photos are synced from Lightroom classic to cloud, with all original living only in LR classic and each cloud imported file is moved into classic and delete in LR cloud after .

 

So why do I have several subfolders in sync.irdata with different dates ? Do I need them , can I delete all or all but not the latest in date ? Many thanks for your help as this eats up much storage on my laptop. Thanks 

 

[Moved from ‘Bugs’ to ‘Discussions’ by moderator, according to forum rules. A ‘bug’ is not simply another word for any software problem!]

Correct answer Rikk Flohr_Photography

Here you can see the sync.LRdata package content (and yes it is LR classic) with 10 subfolders and each has a significant size .MCAT file , making the package 13GB for 34K photos synced with no originals in the cloud, all original files are local . 


My recommendation is to: 

 

  1.  Close Lightroom Classic
  2.  Locate your yourcatalog sync.lrdata
  3.  Rename to yourcatalog sync.old
  4.  Restart Lightroom
  5.  Allow to sync (can take a while depending upon the number of files)
  6.  Verify the new file is appropriately sized and sync is working ok.
  7.  Delete the .old file at your leisure. 

 

As always, a backup is prudent before any process like this. 

1 reply

JohanElzenga
JohanElzenga
Community Expert
March 4, 2025

Can you post a screenshot? Embed it in your message using this button, do not attach it please.


On a Mac, 'Sync.lrdata' shouldn't be a folder but a package. That is a folder that looks like a file, so you can't see any subfolders inside it unless you use a special right-click menu to show its contents. What you describe sounds like this may be a folder with catalog backups for some strange reason. How many images have you synced? The more images, the larger this package obviously is.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
B
BjoernHirschAuthor
Known Participant
March 4, 2025

hello , yes it is a package , but inside the package are multiple folders with different dates and each one with a specific managed catalog MCAT  file ... so my question is why there are these different folders inside the package and can I delete the older ones ,? Thanks for any help 

 

JohanElzenga
JohanElzenga
Community Expert
March 4, 2025

I don't know if you can delete older ones, but the size definitely seems excessive. I have synced 2000 images and the size of my sync.lrdata is only about 45 MB (yes MB!). I also do not see multiple subfolders at the first level. I only have one subfolder (with a long name of random letters) with a 'managed catalog'. In principle Lightroom Classic should simply rebuild that package if you delete it, but it could mean it will resync all the synced images.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
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