Is there a way to save high-res previews in Lightroom, to another format?

[MikeJamesMedia]

Through an unknown disk error, (copying files from an old folder to a new drive) I've just discovered that I'm missing over 4200 photos (originally, Nikon RAW (NEF) files)  These are unrecoverable, since I didn't realize I was missing this segment of my catalog, until after I erased the old version.

But...

I still have high-res,quality preview images available in the catalog. So... Is there a way to convert these saved previews in some common image format? (i.e. TIFF would be best, but I'd settle for JPG.)

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!  (Using version 11.1 on a 27-inch iMac, running Mac OS version 11.8.2  "Big Sur")

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Adobe provides a script to do this:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/extract-previews-for-lost-images-lightroom.html 

If you want to save catalog metadata (capture dates, captions, etc.) in the extracted previews, see the Extract Cached Image Previews plugin.

[MikeJamesMedia]

Thank you, John.  (I just got off a live chat with an Adobe support person, who told me it couldn't be done...)

I will definitely try this tomorrow. Thanks again!

[johnrellis]

"I just got off a live chat with an Adobe support person, who told me it couldn't be done..."

For other than the most routine questions, Adobe Support is hit or miss (more miss than hit).