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gkm420
New Participant
May 21, 2019
Answered

"Lightroom cannot start because it cannot create files in the temporary file location"

  • May 21, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 25883 views

Just took my computer home from work this evening, as I do often. Never had any issues with opening up Lightroom but this is the message I received:

Lightroom cannot start because it cannot create files in the temporary file location “/var/folders/fy/10cdg0nj7_370vvhpt6cwk5h0000gn/T”.

Lightroom needs to be able create temporary files in order to operate correctly.

Won't open. Any insight anyone? Can't seem to find the question answered in any of the forums. Not very techy so I'm hoping there's a simple solution for this. Please advise. Thank you!

    Correct answer Theresa J

    Are you using Lightroom or Lightroom Classic? Do you have plenty of space on your hard drive? Any chance your permissions changed? Maybe you logged in with a different user credentials. Did you update your system recently? What operating system do you have?

    Provide as much information as you can. That will help us help you.

    4 replies

    D
    dostaldigital
    New Participant
    May 16, 2025

    Same thing happened to me when I removing some items from my computer. I restarted my Mac and re-opened LR and works just fine! 🎉 

    B
    Bangera Studio
    New Participant
    October 6, 2020

    Hello! 
    all of a sudden even I am facing the same error. Lightroom refuses to open, how do i solve it? I work on a mac based system and the error clocked towards the lightroom classic application. 

      M
      Mark Farrelly
      New Participant
      September 7, 2021

      Did you find an answer to this [roblem as I have the same issue

       

      M
      mbumpusphotography
      New Participant
      December 13, 2021

      I am also having this exact issue. mac user. I will be mid-edit, and the app crashes. I am receiving this error message and it will not open LR, even after trying to restart. I am at a loss. 

      S
      shaunc20741692
      New Participant
      July 19, 2019

      Having the same problem:

      Lightroom cannot start because it cannot create files in the temporary file location

      C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp

      "[username]" being the name of my Windows user.

      I have plenty of hard drive space.

      I checked the folder and parents and made sure there were read/write permissions.

      I am using Windows 10 64 bit.

      I am logged in as an Admin.

      Attempting to use "Lightroom the cloud-based photo service".

      Check Preferences in CC, but I don't have an option to change or specify which folders Lightroom uses to create files - this is by default, immediately after installing.

      I also ensured that I selected "run as an administraotr" when launching CC.

      I would post as a new question, but I cannot find a link to let me do so.

      Theresa J
      Theresa J
      Community Expert
      July 19, 2019

      Use this link Lightroom — The cloud-based photo service and click the start discussion button on the left side.

      S
      shaunc20741692
      New Participant
      July 20, 2019

      Will do, thanks.

      Theresa J
      Theresa JCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      May 21, 2019

      Are you using Lightroom or Lightroom Classic? Do you have plenty of space on your hard drive? Any chance your permissions changed? Maybe you logged in with a different user credentials. Did you update your system recently? What operating system do you have?

      Provide as much information as you can. That will help us help you.

      G
      gkm420Author
      New Participant
      May 21, 2019

      The second question. Too much on the hard drive. Deleted old photos, restarted it, and boom. All good. Thank you for the fast response.

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