Another LR question

tiler65

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Tom (I think)
Edit My Images
Yes
Can I delete all the LR backups apart from the last one?

If yes why doesn't LR auto delete old back ups?
 
Personal preference, if you make weekly backups you may only realize you have deleted some needed files one month later. Therefore to get them back you would need to backup from the fourth oldest backup file.

It's perfectly okay to keep only one backup, having more just gives you more security and accuracy in backups.
 
Personal preference, if you make weekly backups you may only realize you have deleted some needed files one month later. Therefore to get them back you would need to backup from the fourth oldest backup file.

It's perfectly okay to keep only one backup, having more just gives you more security and accuracy in backups.


But I am only deleting imported photos?

So if I upload all my photos to wherever i want; disk/external HDD/My Computer etc and only import the photos I want, by deleting old backups is Ok because if I want to get them back I still have my RAW files and can re import them.

Does that make sense?
 
As I understand it, since you have an independant backup of all raw files, you will not lose any pictures if lightroom fails. However if you have not backed up post-edit image files or XMP sidecar files then if you lose these you will lose all work you have done to your images. Essentially your photo archive backup will consist of stock unedited photos only.

Since lightroom is non-destructive I would have just the one backup archive, rather than a 'imported but not touched by lightroom' backup AND a 'touched by lightroom' backup.

Sorry if i'm not explaining this well.

In my case I have a root folder 'photography'. Images are imported to dated folders inside this folder and within those I have 'processed' and 'stock' folders. So if I backup this entire photography folder then If anything goes wrong I can not only replace the actual image files but also the edits applied to them, exported files and folder structure.
 
Unless I'm understanding things wrong... Lightroom backups are copies of the lightroom database of stuff like exif info and lists of edit instructions to be applied to shots. No pictures are backed up by the Lightroom program (except maybe some previews?). You need to do your own backup of the actual picture files.
 
Thanks for the responses but my problem, if it is one, is that I have a folder on my HDD named Lightroom and in it contains only backups. Each one is dated as LR backs up the catalog once a week. I have at least 50 of these folders each one roughly 100mb in size.

So I just want to delete the outdated backup folders.

I know my photos are elsewhere.
 
Every so often I go to where my backups are saved and delete all but the last 3 backups and the first back up of each month for each catalog.
 
50 weekly backups are pretty much a year, i'm sure if you needed something replaced you would notice it within a month... so there isn't much reason for keeping the oldest 46. You could always put them on dvd if you feel you need them but I doubt you will.
 
I usually keep 4 databases. Just in case. I can't see any reason for keeping more as the data would be over 5 weeks old. If a database fails usually the last saved one is good to restart the system.
 
IMPORTANT

Robert is absolutely right here folks. When you do a LR backup, it DOES NOT back up the RAW image files, only the processed data. You MUST make arrangements to back up your images separately from the LR backup.
 
The OP and others may find microsoft synctoy a useful application.
It's free and lightweight, simply a means for you to set a folder on one hard drive to be automatically copied to, and updated, a folder on another hard disk.

It's as simple as choosing the folder to be backed up, and the backup folder destination and then it will automatically and regularly sync the two.

Quite an intuitive piece of software although not as diverse as others.
It's free so just google it if it sounds helpful to you.
 
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