What will happen when I loose my photos and have to restore them?

[Wurstkrapfen]

I use LR Classic, have the setting to save edits as separate xmp file and I have most of the stuff synced as smartpreview to the cloud.

1) So lets say worst case, I only have my RAW files backed up, what will happen?

Will LR recognize them, relink them to the smartpreviews in the cloud and redownload/recreate the xmp settings file with the most current data from the cloud? Or will it sync the unedited state from the "newly" recovered raw files and lose my settings in the cloud?

2) I have my files and my catalogue backed up. Are my RAW edits also stored in the catalogue even if I have the "write xmp" setting active?

3) I'm restoring my RAW files with xmp, but there are newer edits in the cloud? Will I be able to mass update to the newest edits from the cloud, or is LR going to think the "newly" imported files are newer and upload old edits to the cloud?

[Per Berntsen]

1. If your raw files are lost, and you restore them from a backup, they will connect to the catalog, just like before. Edits and other metadata will be there, and they will also be connected with the smart previews. There will be no XMP files, unless you backed up and restored these as well. But you can recreate them by selecting all the files in Library, and going to Metadata > Save metadata to file.
   
   
2. Edits are always saved to the catalog, also when you use XMP files
   
   
3.  I don't use smart previews and do not do any syncing tho the cloud so somebody else has to answer this.

You have posted in the Lightoom Cloud forum, so I'll get a moderator to move this thread to the correct forum.

Note to moderator: Please move to Lightroom Classic

[Wurstkrapfen]

1. As I said all is lost, that includes the catalog, only the raw files and edits stored in the smartpreviews are there.

2. What has priority, old catalog data or newer cloud data?

But ok, one question is answered: XMP data is also still in the catalog

What if I loose my folder structure? Is there a "go look for files you know" function? I'm not going to manually tell LR where each of 100k photos is located.

[dj_paige]

You should not rely on XMP as a backup. You need backups of your original photos and your catalog file to restore everything.

XMP data is also still in the catalog

Well, yes, but some catalog data is not in XMP, and so again I say: you should not rely on XMP as a backup.

What has priority, old catalog data or newer cloud data?

Cloud data is not used by Lightroom Classic.

What if I loose my folder structure? Is there a "go look for files you know" fucntion?

Sort of, there is such a function where you tell Lightroom Classic where your photos are (it's not really a function where you ask Lightroom Classic to "go look for files", that doesn't exist), but this should never happen. Even if your hard disk where the photos are stored dies and has to be replaced, your backups of the photos should be in the exact same folder structure as the originals.

The most secure and dependable backups are when you make automated and regular (every day or every week, its up to you) backups of catalog file, photos and custom presets if you have any of those. In my opinion, backups MUST be (it is not optional) automated — why? Because humans forget, humans get lazy, humans are too busy, but if the computer does it, you always have a recent backup.

[Wurstkrapfen]

Sure cloud data is used, it even asks if I want to keep local or cloud edited settings occasioally.

[dj_paige]

Cloud data is not used in a backup situation, where you have lost your originals. Good backup methodology, having regular and automated backups of your photos and catalog, should mean you don't need cloud data anyway.

[Wurstkrapfen]

Still knowing what would work as a last resort is good.
I actually mostly did not include the catalog in my backups, at least not in the same frequency as photos with xmp. Guess I will put the catalog in everytime from now on.

[Wurstkrapfen]

So far no clear answer on all those questions.