LR Classic catalog backup file huge

[NCG_CH]

Hi there!

I once had a big issue with the catalog file on my external drive and have on my laptops internal drive since then. I have actually about 151'000 fotos in lightroom and the backup folder is about 248GB. That's just blocking quite a bit of my harddrive... So I wondered, what exactly would happen, if I delete some old folders in that backup folder? The previews I don't mind (they only make up a minimal amount of GB as I have set Lightroom to delete them after a week automatically), but I don't want to lose my edits or the atributes, tags and so on... I guess that would happen, right? How can I handle this? Is this why people sometimes create several catalogs and have them on different external drives? I really want to avoid this, as it can create loss of data when the external drive goes bunkers while transmitting something... What happens if I transfer the older backups to an external drive and just kind of "reload" them when needed? I feel like this is setting me up for failure... 😄

Would be really grateful to get some help or thoughts on this. 🙂

[NCG_CH]

for example I see that since 2023-10-16 the file seems to be a different version (v13, I guess there was some update). What happens if I delete the ones before (version 12 and so on)?

[JohanElzenga]

for example I see that since 2023-10-16 the file seems to be a different version (v13, I guess there was some update). What happens if I delete the ones before (version 12 and so on)?

By @NCG_CH

Nothing happens, and that kind of house keeping is something you should do regularly. Having a 248 GB backup folder does not make any sense. For a catalog of 150,000 images, a single backup will be around 5 GB or so, meaning that backup folder contains a huge number of backups that you will never ever use. Keep one or two old backups, just in case, and keep perhaps the 5 most recent backups, that will be plenty. And I agree with @dj_paige that you should keep these on another drive, not the same drive as your working catalog. Right now, if that drive fails, you will lose both your working catalog as well as all your backups... In the backup dialog, you can click the 'Choose' button and choose a different location for your backups. Move the existing backups that you want to keep to this folder manually.

[NCG_CH]

oh man, you two made my day! huge thanks!

[dj_paige]

Is this why people sometimes create several catalogs

absolutely not. Don't even think of creating several catalogs, there are many drawbacks.

Moving backups off the internal drive to somewhere else is mandatory in my opinion. All backups should never be on the same drive as the working catalog.

[NCG_CH]

ok, thank you! that's helpful! 🙂 so I just can transfer the folder backup to an external drive and leave the .lrcat- file itself on my internal drive? this would be way easier for me.. and do I really need to keep all of them (separate folders that are generated in the backup folder)? They seem to be incremental. But I still don't really understand what happens exactly, when I just delete the old ones... sorry, as you certainly have realized I really don't understand much of all of this.. I'm really just a "user".. 😄

[dj_paige]

so I just can transfer the folder backup to an external drive and leave the .lrcat- file itself on my internal drive? this would be way easier for me

Yes (move, not copy)

and do I really need to keep all of them (separate folders that are generated in the backup folder)

That's entirely up to you how many backups you need. It's all a matter of what risk you are comfortable. I have several months of backups on an external disk, but I don't care because there's plenty of space on the external disk.

They seem to be incremental.

They are not incemental, these are full complete backups of your catalog file and lrcat-data folder.

But I still don't really understand what happens exactly, when I just delete the old ones...

The file is gone when you delete it. LrC does not care what backups are existing or not existing on one of your disks, it never checks to see if a specific backup is there, it runs independently of the presence or absence of backups.

[NCG_CH]

thank you @dj_paige , now I start to understand... 🙂 this helped a lot, thank you!