Skip to main content
K
Katerina Duda Klimova
Participating Frequently
May 12, 2021
Question

multiple files "Lightroom Catalog-v10 Previews.lrdata" on Mac take too much space

  • May 12, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 934 views

I am desperate, never was good at these things (handling data files) and perhaps doing something wrong...

My Mac has only 500GB and Lightroom data files take 74 GB

Can something be done to reduce teh size ?

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
May 13, 2021

Where are your photos stored? These take up much more space than the previews. If the photos are stored on the internal drive, you need to move them to an external drive (see "Part 2 — Updating Photo Location" of this document for instructions)

    K
    Katerina Duda KlimovaAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 13, 2021

    I keep the pictures on an external drive, due to space limitations on my Macs

    SSD is so expensive when you go above 500 GB on Mac 😞

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    May 13, 2021

    No need for photos to be on a SSD.

      Abambo
      Community Expert
      AbamboCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 12, 2021

      Besides the tips to reduce disk space: major versions of LrC tend to create new catalog files. The old ones can be deleted after you decided that the version is stable. It's however always wise to make a backup before deleting.

      ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
        Rob_Cullen
        Community Expert
        Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 12, 2021

        If I understand from your post header that you have multiple  catalognamePreviews.LRDATA files, then-

        If you only use ONE catalog then there is only a need for its ONE associated  ...Previews.LRDATA file. Any others can be deleted.

        Deleting the ...Preview.LRDATA files is not really a problem, as LrC will re-build these if and when needed.

        What is a Lightroom catalog? | The Lightroom Queen

         

        Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
          TheDigitalDog
          TheDigitalDog
          Inspiring
          May 12, 2021

          You can place this on another drive, you can change your pref's for previews (for example, Automatically delete 1:1 previews after....), let's see your Catalog Settings>File Handling dialog. 

          Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
          K
          Katerina Duda KlimovaAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          May 13, 2021

          Thank You !!!

          I am trying that today. I will now move the Lightroom data from Pictures to an external drive, delete it on my Mac and see if Lightroom works 🙂 

          Actually I realised, when prompted today by Lightroom to create a catalogue, and I chose a different path to the previous version. So I ended up with catalogues in 3 places.

          I have already deleted the entire iCloud Archive (googled it that it is OK to do) and it had no negative impact on Lightroom.

             

          Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
          Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices