Lightroom Backups

[Grace231876259guu]

If I keep all the Lr backups, do I also need to keep all download backups or is it a duplication? It all takes a lot of space.

[CMass]

Hey @Grace231876259guu,

This is a bit of a complicated question, and I think we need a little more clarification before we can provide direction. When you're talking about backups, are you referring to catalog backups? You mentioned there being duplicates, but I don’t want to assume you're talking about the catalog when you might actually mean images, especially since you mentioned, "It all takes a lot of space."

Could you provide more details about your situation?

1. How big is your catalog?
2. Are you storing images on your local drive or an external drive?

Anything you can share will help us better understand your situation. Right now, we can’t provide any help without more information. 🙂

^CM

[Grace231876259guu]

Hi,

Many thanks for coming back to me. Yes, backups are catalogue backups but there are also download backups, which are batches of images downloaded to Lightroom. I store more recent files and images I'm currently editing on my PC but my archives are on the external NAS unit. The actual catalogue on Lightroom holds over 52,000 photos but the size of the backed-up catalogue is only about 1.3 GB. The Helper data file is 205 MB and the Previews data is 15.4 GB. I would like to understand better how it all works, e.g. do I need to keep copies of old catalogues or would a couple of the more recent ones be sufficient?

Thank you in advance, Grace

AM

[Ian Lyons]

> I need to keep copies of old catalogues or would a couple of the more recent ones be sufficient?

The more recent catalog backups are sufficient. 

The backup strategy for your images  (local and downloaded) is a different discusion.  I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds of videos on Youtube providing guidance/solutions.

[richardplondon]

just to add, when you create a LrC Catalog backup (on exiting the program) this includes only the Catalog database itself: a specially packaged, cleanly closed copy of that. Recommended: to a physically separate destination that will not also get swept up, in whatever disaster may afflict your working setup.

Conventional backup and later restoring is appropriate (and recommended, to separate destination) for the imported images. Unlike the Catalog and its accompanying stuff, these are just 'normal files and folders'. 

After Something Bad has Happened, on opening a restored Catalog backup into your new setup - which just means extracting a copy of that from its ZIP and putting it where you want - it will arrive with no previews etc initially. Those folders will get made, and progressively re-populated, as you then proceed. You may need to (bulk) re-link the images if the addressing of those has changed meanwhile.

Images that previously relied on AI-generated masking of (say) Subject or Sky will have since lost that info, so that will now need to get re-generated and again saved, before the masking will again display as before.

[Grace231876259guu]

Thank you for confirming it