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Ken Nielsen
Ken Nielsen
Legend
May 1, 2024
해결됨

I'm afraid to delete any of these files collected over 10 years. Is there any way to know?

  • May 1, 2024
  • 1 답변
  • 778 조회

Files collect with Lightroom over the years. I don't know why Lightroom doesn't clean up after itself but I tried deleting once and wound up with an awful mess. What do the experts recommend? Just leave them? Seems to be the safest. This screen shot is only a small fraction of all of the lightroom files that have collected through the years. I only have one catalog of files over several disks. I don't want to destroy my catalog which is working beautifully now. Any recommendations?

 

이 주제는 답변이 닫혔습니다.
최고의 답변: D Fosse

Here's the set of files belonging to one LrC catalog.

 

 

The essential one is the catalog file itself, obviously. The others are there just to speed things up. You can delete them, they will get rebuilt as needed - but it will take some time and things will move a bit slower until they're completely recreated.

 

And then there's the backups (zip). They should be stored elsewhere, having backups in the same place as the original sort of defeats the purpose. You only need to keep one backup as long as you know it's good.

 

Look at the version numbers on your files. Anything v12 is no longer needed.

1 답변

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 1, 2024

    Ken Nielsen
    Ken Nielsen작성자
    Legend
    May 1, 2024

    I've deleted all I felt safe in deleting but stopped when it said 'helper' files. Please check the remaining files that are Lightroom files as I now know the top three are keepers. What else can I safely delete if any?



    Thank you!

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 1, 2024

    Incredibly helpful D fosse, While we're on the subject 1.) Does Lightroom offer a way to keep a backup of these essential files only in another location on another hard drive? and 2.) Is it normal for Lightroom to 'make a mess' or keep old unneded files for years on end? - or is that just my updating to newer versions that leaves older files behind? I love lightroom but this is one are that is a puzzle to me.

     


    They're not automatically deleted. It could be that you needed to roll back a version if the new one doesn't work properly, and then you need them.

     

    The backups can be directed anywhere you want. The preview cache/helper files aren't necessary to back up.

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