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Firislander
Known Participant
May 5, 2024
Question

LRC Backups.

  • May 5, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 1078 views

I am using LrC 13.2 with Mac OS Sonoma 14.4.1

My backup folder for LrC is 541 GB. Can you tell me what I can remove from this folder to reduce it's size in order to free up space on my hard drive?

As you can see there are some 1,215 backups.

I'm trying to learn about how Backups of the Catalog work and I would appreciate some help in determing what can be gotten rid of.

Thank you in advance for any help with this.

Firislander.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

KR Seals
KR Seals
Brainiac
May 5, 2024

Every so often, I will delete the zipped backups in the backup folder except for the last three or four. The way do determing this is to sort the backups by date, newest first.

It looks to me like your backup folder is in the same master folder with your other Lightroom Classic files, including the catalog. This is a very risky situation. If that drive fails, you will loose your catalog and all the backups. To avoid that, get an external drive or two for the backups and your photo files. If you already have external drive(s), when you quit Lightroom Classic, there is a place to designate one of the external drives as the location for the backups.

 

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.
F
FirislanderAuthor
Known Participant
May 5, 2024

I do have my backup folder in the same master folder with my other LrC files, including the catalog on my internal drive. I guess this is the way it was set up when I started using Lr almost a couple of decades ago. As I stated I am trying to free up space on my internal drive. Your concern about a failed drive is one of the reasons I have moved most of my photo files to an external drive (with backup copies on 2 separate external drives) and use Backblaze to backup my photo files on my internal drive as well as the 3 external drives. As well my catalog and other LrC files are backed up to Backblaze as well.

So, and this is what I was wondering about, you're saying that I can remove all but the 3 or 4 most recent backups and I will be good to go, yes?

 

F
FirislanderAuthor
Known Participant
May 6, 2024

Just find the current catalog file (.lrcat) in Explorer/Finder, wherever it is.

 

Double-click to open it.

 

Once Lightroom is open, set the default in catalog settings to "use this catalog". 

 

Then LrC will continue to open this catalog when you launch it.


Hi. I went to the current catalog which you suggested I put in "LrC Zipped Backups" folder the external drive T7 S...

I double clicked it to unzip it...

Here I am confused as to what I am to do next. When I double click on '.lrcat' I get this message...

So I cannot open the "current catalog file (.lrcat)" as I thought you suggested.

You then suggest, "Once Lightroom is open, set the default in catalog settings to "use this catalog". " My problem is that I cannot open Lightroom. When I attempt to open it I get this same message I've been getting ever since I moved the catalog to drive Andy T7...

When I choose "Use Default Catalog" I get this message...

I am hesitant to click "Upgrade" because the current catalog is on drive T7 where when I last closed Lightroom I had it back up to the folder "LrC Zipped Backups" on that drive. I have tried to have Lightroom use this most recent backup by clicking on "Choose a Different Catalog" in the screen shot above the one seen right here and I could navigate to the folder located on drive T7 but the content of the folder is grayed out and could not be selected.

I apologize if this is all so elemental and I am just not able to understand what is going on.

My question now is, looking at this last screen shot above should I click "Ugrade" and have it create 'Lightroom Catalog-v13.lrcat'? One of things I don't understand is that I have existing on drive T7 a catalog thus named. As well, this 'upgraded' catalog that is going to be created is apparently going to be saved to my internal drive which means my catalog is back to being on my internal drive. This whole business started when I attempted to move my catalog to an external drive. 

I know I am missing something here but I don't know what it is.

 

Once again, I appreciate your time and your help.

 

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