Very big Lightroom catalogue since spring update

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Hello everyone.

Sometimes i'm exporting pictures as a new LR catalogue, for example to edit smart previews on my MacBook. Normally a LR catalogue with 200 pictures was around 100 MB, but since an LR update in spring 2021 (can't name the exact date / update), my small catalogues (200 pictures) are 1 GB or more. I haven't changed any settings. I'm exporting the files as catalogue with smart previews but without negative-files and without the the big rendered previews.

The folder with the new catalogue has two files: A folder named "Smart Previews.lrdata" and the catalogue-file itself. The size of the previews folder is as big as always (depends on the number of pictures), but the catalogue itself is more than 10x bigger as normal.

Does someone have an idea what could be wrong? I've already unistalled LR and did a full reset of all settings but the problem still occours, also on my MacBook. 

Thanks for your help in advance!

[GoldingD]

Have you tried optimizing the catalog?

see "Optimize the catalog" in:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

[Abambo]

My small travel LrC Catalogue has less than 40 Mb for 3079 pictures. All data included, but without my source files, I'm on 717 Mb.