can I restore only part of the middle era of a library?

[inkfountain]

I just  realized that part of my LR library went missing on February of 2019. About 7 months of cataloguing disappeared. I have the backups for the missing period, in this case, from June 2017-Dec 2017. However, the backup catalogues don't have any of my work AFTER Feb 7, 2019. Thus, if I restore from a backup, all of my edits & catalog work for the past year an a half will disappear.

Is there any way to restore PART of a Lightroom catalogue that went missing over a year ago without losing current data?

Please let me know!

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Open the backup, select the desired photos, use File->Export as Catalog. Then, open the current LR catalog, and File->Import from Another Catalog, and point to the catalog you just created from the backup.

Why does this happen? Usually because at some point you started using (perhaps without realizing it) a backup, and so nothing new gets added to your original catalog.

[inkfountain]

There is plenty newer stuff in the original catalogue, after the missing items. The missing material is between the months of June and December of 2017. It went missing in March of 2019. The last time it was in the catalogue was in february of 2019. But if I restore from the February 2019 catalogue, then everything between March 2019 & the present will be missing. That's my dilemma. I have tried everything I can think of, going through all the old catalogues to pin-point the error, (& then of course restarted with the current catalogue again), but I cannot figure out how to restore only those few months.

[inkfountain]

Do you have any other ideas? 😐

The error is somehow linked to the fact that I got a new computer in March of 2019.

[inkfountain]

Wait! After reading your answer about 10 times, you may have answered my question! LOL. Let me try and see if that works...

[inkfountain]

It worked it worked it worked! Thank you. 🙂

Now I can get back to the project I started a few days ago when I discovered the library was missing.

[Just Shoot Me]

Then more than likely, for some unknown reason, you have opened an older catalog.

You need to find out how many catalogs there are on your system and open the newest one.

[inkfountain]

No, that's not true. I had to go through all the backups to find when the files went missing, opening & closing them one at a time. My current catalogue is missing a part of 2017.

[gary_sc]

Great detective work Inkfountain,

Since you've done that, if you can narrow it down to an even tighter, (say) between March and August, then in the catalog that has those images, do a search for that range. Then, as DJ, said, "export as catalog" then you can import that catalog in the last step.

Good luck!

[inkfountain]

I did that right away, but I thought that exact dates would just make the OP more confusing. The last decent catalog for the year 2017 was on February 2, 2019. I'm certain it's because I got a new computer in March & something happened during the migration. One additional problem is that I have to migrate photos all over the place now to try to fix the catalog & then I have to migrate them all back the way they were once the catalog is updated. Thousands of photos. Hopefully it works...

[gary_sc]

When you export the Catalog, it should have the images as well, not just the catalog. When you import from Catalog, you'll be importing the images into the new catalog.

As far as where the images go, that's not fully a problem. LR doesn't care where the images are as long as it knows where they are. You can import them all into a new folder called "missing photos" and then later, within LR-C move them into better named folders or just leave them where they are. LR will not care.

Personally I keep all of my images within one folder, it makes mangement of the images easier for me. I also, have many sub-folders because that's the way my brain works but that's not necessary with LR-C.

[inkfountain]

Unfortunately, it does not contain the images if the images have been moved since the catalog was created. I found this out by trial and error. So I'm in the process of moving the images back & then trying the catalog export again. It's slow, but not as slow as re-linking every (group of) photograph(s) later. I'll exclaim loudly with joy on this thread when everything finally works. It must work, it must!

[gary_sc]

Good Luck!!

[Rob_Cullen]

FYI The correct answer given by dj-Paige is also explained in this link from the Lightroom Queen-

RESTORE PARTIAL from backup catalog?