How many LR 6 Catalog backups should I keep

[gregp55305]

I have been using LR 6 for quite a while and I have accumulated many catalog backups that are starting to take up quite a bit of space. How many backups should I actually be keeping? Eventually I would like to upgrade to the latest version of LR but I want to do some housekeeping first.

Thanks!

[Jim Wilde · Accepted solution]

There's no perfect answer, it all depends on one's own attitude to risk. Some will keep just a few, others will keep many more. I'm quite a lazy guy when it comes to houskeeping, so at this moment in time I've probably still got every backup I've taken since the last time I did some houskeeping, probably a couple of years ago. However, whenever I go get around to it, I would always ensure that - at a minimum - I keep the last 10-12 backups, plus at least one per month for at least the past year (and I know some users who keep more). But as I said, there'll be plenty of users who keep considerably less.

[JP Hess]

Catalog backups are cumulative, so each successive backup will contain everything that was backed up in the previous backup as well as any subsequent work that may have been performed. In my opinion, it's always a good idea to retain maybe the last 10 or so backups just in case, but beyond that I think it's redundant and overkill. Just remember that the images  are not in the catalog, they must be backed up separately using other software of your choosing.