Unable to locate Catalog and backups after Lightroom crashed

[n_9773]

Hi there

I am on OSX MOnterey and use Lightroom Classic.

Yesterday I was closing Lightroom and while save the catalog, Lightroom crashed.

Unfortunately, the catalog is not there anymore. After re-opening Lightroom is says:

"Cannot find catalog at /Users/myuser/Pictures/Lightroom/mycatalog.lrcat"

The folder "/Users/myuser/Pictures/Lightroom/Backups" does not contain any data.

Somehow everything seems to be deleted (I did not delete anything).

I tried to recover the missing ".lrcat" file using data recovery tools such as "Wondershare", "EaseUs", "Disk Drill" but none of these can find my catalog.

Any idea what happened and how I can recover my catalog?

[JohanElzenga]

Do you use Time Machine to regularly backup your Mac?

[n_9773]

Unfortunately, no.
The last backup of this Macbook is from 2022.

[JohanElzenga]

H'm. That makes me believe that the 'Backups' folder inside your catalog folder is empty for the same reasons: you never made catalog backups in the first place. I'm afraid you've learned the hard way why you should make regular backups. I don't think there is anything you can do to retrieve the disappeared catalog.

[dj_paige]

/Users/myuser/Pictures/Lightroom/Backups

This is a backup folder, yet your explanation above seems to indicate you are looking for the non-backup of your catalog file. What do you find if you look at /Users/myuser/Pictures/Lightroom?

Also, use your operating system's search feature to search in ALL folders on ALL disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT

[n_9773]

A finders' search for "*.lrcat" does not bring any results.

Neither a search on the command line using "find" with unix search syntax does not find any *.lrcat files.

[n_9773]

In directory "/Users/myuser/Pictures/Lightroom" there is just nothing.

I used data recovery tools to may find some files, but nothing has been found.

[dj_paige]

And what did you find using Time Machine? Are you making other (non-Time Machine) backups?

[n_9773]

Nothing, as the TimeMachine Backup was not running during the last 3 years.

[dj_paige]

well that's very unfortunate

[davidminehart]

Is your catalog backup still available, created expressly for use in
situations such as this?

[JohanElzenga]

Is your catalog backup still available, created expressly for use insituations such as this?
By @davidminehart

I don't understand your question. What have my catalog backups to do with your problem?

[dj_paige]

I personally have several backups, just in case I need it. I created them expressly for a situation like this.

Why do you even ask? This is a common practice recommended by almost every computer expert, I have never seen anyone ever say "don't make backups".