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Participant
June 4, 2024
Question

Lightroom catalogue disappeared after uninstalling light Lightroom Cloud based app

  • June 4, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 328 views

I was originally using the Lightroom Cloudbased app on PC. 
I switched to LRc about 6 months ago. 

I uninstalled the cloudbased app today cleaning up update notifications.
But When I opened LRc, a catalogue couldn't be found. 

I searched all drives and only LRCAT file found was in users\pictures, but it was created today and no photos show up etc. 

There's nothing in the recyle bin and no recent files.

Would it have been saving to cloudbased catalogue the whole time and is there a way to find that? 


Thanks for help

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1 reply

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 4, 2024

No, those two are different and do not interact in any way. Lightroom cloud does not have a catalog, it has a local 'library' which is basically a cache to speed things up. If you cleaned out stuff and now Lightroom Classic can't find its catalog anymore, then you must have deleted that catalog by mistake, thinking it was a part of Lightroom desktop. Restore it from a backup.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
MJAAAuthor
Participant
June 4, 2024

Thanks John. 
I used Creative Cloud Desktop to remove Lightroom cloud and some other apps I don't use/need installed. 
I don't know where LRc backed up to. I didn't change defaults. But searching all drives only found one LRCAT file.
I'll try reinstalling Light Room Cloud and see what happens.

dj_paige
Legend
June 4, 2024

I don't know where LRc backed up to

 

Use your operating system's search feature to search for all files whose name ends with .zip. Some of these found will not be LrC catalogs, but some might be. Often the default name Lightroom 13.zip (or something like that) will make it obvious.

 

Regarding the fact that you don't know where your backups are stored. ADVICE: you should never be in the position where you don't know where the backups are. From now on, you should know, no excuses. ADVICE: store them in locations that are easy to remember, and make use of the fact that you can make folder names descriptive and meaningful. My Lightroom Backups are on my external drive, in a folder at the root level, named Lightroom Backups. Now there is never any doubt in my mind where my backups are, they are easy to find, I don't have to remember a default location, I don't have to remember some folder location that is four folders deep. By being intentional and obvious about the use of folder names and the location of the folder, you won't have this problem in the future. Use folder names and locations to your advantage!