Lightroom Backup Files

FiestaRed

FiestaRed

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Mike
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Can anyone tell me the basics of Lightroom Backup files?

I have some on my Windows PC going back for roughly 15 months and just wondered if they get deleted automatically or do I as the user need to delete them myself every now and again? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I would delete them as space becomes a problem. I cannot see the point in deleting a file you may end up needing.
 
I only keep the latest one. Why keep old ones that are out of date, you wouldn't want to restore your catalogue as it was 15 months ago, there would be a hell of a lot missing that you would have to redo.
 
Thanks for the help, really appreciated.
 
Ploddles said:
I only keep the latest one. Why keep old ones that are out of date, you wouldn't want to restore your catalogue as it was 15 months ago, there would be a hell of a lot missing that you would have to redo.
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Why? Because you might find that important pictures are missing and were already missing when the later back-ups were done. In which case you can restore the old back-up, move the missing pictures somewhere secure, and then restore the latest back-up and then re-import the once-missing pictures.
 
john.margetts said:
Why? Because you might find that important pictures are missing and were already missing when the later back-ups were done. In which case you can restore the old back-up, move the missing pictures somewhere secure, and then restore the latest back-up and then re-import the once-missing pictures.
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Lightroom backups don’t include any actual images. Just the catalogue.
 
john.margetts said:
you might find that important pictures are missing and were already missing when the later back-ups were done. In which case you can restore the old back-up, move the missing pictures somewhere secure, and then restore the latest back-up and then re-import the once-missing pictures.
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As above, plus:-
Many people fail to understand that backing-up images is not done by Lightroom. The LR catalogue backup is as it says, a catalogue of the edits etc which have been done to the images. You need to back-up your images outside of LR using one of the many systems available for just such a purpose. I use Chronosync.
 
BrynBoru said:
As above, plus:-
Many people fail to understand that backing-up images is not done by Lightroom. The LR catalogue backup is as it says, a catalogue of the edits etc which have been done to the images. You need to back-up your images outside of LR using one of the many systems available for just such a purpose. I use Chronosync.
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My point is still valid - older back-ups are worth having.
 
john.margetts said:
My point is still valid - older back-ups are worth having.
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They are as they take up sod all space in the grand scheme of things, I've been rescued by an older backup when my systems went FUBAR.

Yes if you are seriously lacking in space you can delete them but I wouldn't do it routinely.
 
droj said:
That's only true if you know it's not corrupted in any way.
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You wouldn't know if any of the others are the same (ie corrupt) as well, unless you do test restores to check.

I just copy the catalogue to a dropbox folder every week or so. Dropbox automatically keeps a few iterations of deleted files in their cloud as well.

My Mac also keeps Timemachine backups to 2 seperate disk, so I can go back about a year or so to get a catalogue back if I wanted.
 
I tend to keep the last three backups.
 
BrynBoru said:
I'd be interested to know how you keep the image back-up file synchronized with the relevant LR catalogue. Maybe I'm missing something?
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Because when you back up the catalogue through LR it knows it's a back up and knows where your files are and links the two in the same way as it links the original catalogue.

I put my backups on a different drive to the main cat. If I go to the back up and open it it opens LR with all my files in it just as it would normally do.
 
Gaz J said:
Because when you back up the catalogue through LR it knows it's a back up and knows where your files are and links the two in the same way as it links the original catalogue.
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The question was about the value of keeping old catalog backups and therefore I think I am asking about something different, which is not covered by your response. My question(originally to #john.margetts ) is to do with the relevance of the old Catalogue backups to the Pictures folder. If you have a number of old Catalog backups ( e.g. several up to a year old), how do you relate the oldest Catalog file to the Pictures folder, when the Pictures folder will have had considerable additions to it, which are not in the older Catalog files. I keep a number of Catalog backups, but no more than 6 over the past say 6 weeks. Therefore I don't see the relevance of old Catalog backups if your Pictures folder has grown considerably in the meantime. I use Chronsync to backup my various folders, including the Pictures folder, where I have the option of archiving and synchronising deletions/additions. I just use the synchronizing option, as I'm not interested in keeping deleted images forever. Therefore my Pictures folder backups, (spread over a number of external drives) are more or less up-to-date with my main working Pictures folder.
Where the backups are kept is not important as LR will always know where all folders are, provided they are or have been imported to LR or set-up using LR.
In summary, there's not much point to Catalog backups once they have fallen behind the content of the Pictures folder, other than allowing for a few weeks lag.
 
BrynBoru said:
The question was about the value of keeping old catalog backups and therefore I think I am asking about something different, which is not covered by your response. My question(originally to #john.margetts ) is to do with the relevance of the old Catalogue backups to the Pictures folder. If you have a number of old Catalog backups ( e.g. several up to a year old), how do you relate the oldest Catalog file to the Pictures folder, when the Pictures folder will have had considerable additions to it, which are not in the older Catalog files. I keep a number of Catalog backups, but no more than 6 over the past say 6 weeks. Therefore I don't see the relevance of old Catalog backups if your Pictures folder has grown considerably in the meantime. I use Chronsync to backup my various folders, including the Pictures folder, where I have the option of archiving and synchronising deletions/additions. I just use the synchronizing option, as I'm not interested in keeping deleted images forever. Therefore my Pictures folder backups, (spread over a number of external drives) are more or less up-to-date with my main working Pictures folder.
Where the backups are kept is not important as LR will always know where all folders are, provided they are or have been imported to LR or set-up using LR.
In summary, there's not much point to Catalog backups once they have fallen behind the content of the Pictures folder, other than allowing for a few weeks lag.
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Well if your asking something different perhaps you need to be more precise with the question. You're original question was about back up cat files. Now you're asking about back up image files. My answer stands. If you back up through LR the image back up and cat back up are linked.
 
Gaz J said:
Well if your asking something different perhaps you need to be more precise with the question. You're original question was about back up cat files. Now you're asking about back up image files. My answer stands. If you back up through LR the image back up and cat back up are linked.
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I suggest you read my posts again. My original question was how to keep the image file synchronised with the relevant catalog file, not the current catalog file.
The question is clearly about the merits of keeping older catalog files as stated in the preceding posts. How you can interpret it as just askiing about catalog files is your failure perhaps to have fully understood the issues raised in the preceding posts. I suggest your answer therefore doesn't contribute anything to the issue of the value of keeping old catalog backups.
 
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j crossley said:
No they are not because they do not correlate with your current catalogue. Unless of course you don’t add to, change or alter anything within the current catalogue.
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If you need to restore an older catalogue back-up, change the name of the newer catalogue (you can have more than catalogue on the go at once). That way you can keep your work on older photos and your work on newer photos.

That is not ideal, but losing several years work because of a corrupted catalogue is not ideal either.
 
john.margetts said:
If you need to restore an older catalogue back-up, change the name of the newer catalogue (you can have more than catalogue on the go at once). That way you can keep your work on older photos and your work on newer photos.
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Apologies, John, but this baffles me. I'd be grateful if you would please clarify your logic for me.
When I make a catalog backup, it is of course referenced to the Pictures image folders. The catalog back-up contains only references of the edits to the related images, not the image files themselves.
As time passes, the Pictures folder acquires new images which when processed, are therefore missing from the older back-up catalogs. Therefore the older backed-up catalogs are becoming more and more out of date as time passes, with reference to the current Pictures (images) folder. (My Pictures folder contains all the images I have ever taken over the last 15 years or more)
Most people's systems have one Pictures (images) folder for which they make various identical back-ups in various remote drives. So over time there are not different versions of the back-up Pictures images folders. However by default every catalog folder backup is different and becomes out of date as soon as new images are imported and processed into the system. I keep about 6 or so (over about 6 to 8 weeks catalog backup folders and I will cull any older ones. These catalog backup folders are kept on 3 external drives, so there are not less than 18 catalog backups versions. Any time I backup a catalog, I tick the boxes to test integrity before backing up and to optimize the catalog after backing up. I believe therefore that the chances of all of these being corrupted at the same time is negligible. Should I ever have to go back to one of my oldest catalog folders, I of course would have to import and rework the new images imported since that folder was created, but hopefully that would not be too onerous.
If my current working catalog .lrcat file were to become corrupted, I would suggest that my most recent backup catalog (assuming it is not corrupted) would be all that is necessary to fall back on, as it would be the most up-to-date and is bound to have all the oldest images in it, since it is based on the unique Pictures folder.
Maybe my inability to understand what you are advocating, is something to do with how you do the maintenance of your Pictures folder, as opposed to the unique nature of my Pictures folder. My apologies for labouring these points and no doubt you can correct me where you think we differ.
 
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I'm glad I came across this thread. I just found my LR back-up folder and it takes up 500GB of space on my hard drive. That's over 25% of my hard drive space taken up with LR back-ups. I'll be deleting all but the most recent ones :thumbs:
 
BrynBoru said:
Apologies, John, but this baffles me. I'd be grateful if you would please clarify your logic for me.
<snip>
Any time I backup a catalog, I tick the boxes to test integrity before backing up and to optimize the catalog after backing up. I believe therefore that the chances of all of these being corrupted at the same time is negligible. Should I ever have to go back to one of my oldest catalog folders, I of course would have to import and rework the new images imported since that folder was created, but hopefully that would not be too onerous.
If my current working catalog .lrcat file were to become corrupted, I would suggest that my most recent backup catalog (assuming it is not corrupted) would be all that is necessary to fall back on, as it would be the most up-to-date and is bound to have all the oldest images in it, since it is based on the unique Pictures folder.
Maybe my inability to understand what you are advocating, is something to do with how you do the maintenance of your Pictures folder, as opposed to the unique nature of my Pictures folder. My apologies for labouring these points and no doubt you can correct me where you think we differ.
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Rename your current catalogue so the restore does not over-write it. Now restore the older catalogue. You now have two catalogues. The older one has the work you have done on the older pictures. The renamed one has the work you have done on the newer pictures. You do not have to import anything at all., you just have to use two catalogues. And, no, the is not a good way to work but it is better than losing a lot of historic editing.
 
j crossley said:
But why do you need two separate catalogues - one for old photos and one for new photos - and when does a new photo become an old photo?
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Because if you do not, the restored catalogue will overwrite the current catalogue and you lose all recent work. The new photo becomes an old photo at the time of the putative corruption of the catalogue.
 
ryanyboy said:
I'm glad I came across this thread. I just found my LR back-up folder and it takes up 500GB of space on my hard drive. That's over 25% of my hard drive space taken up with LR back-ups. I'll be deleting all but the most recent ones (y)
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I only found this out when my internal drive was full. There was over 600GB of LR backups.
 
john.margetts said:
Rename your current catalogue so the restore does not over-write it. Now restore the older catalogue. You now have two catalogues. The older one has the work you have done on the older pictures. The renamed one has the work you have done on the newer pictures. You do not have to import anything at all., you just have to use two catalogues. And, no, the is not a good way to work but it is better than losing a lot of historic editing.
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Thanks, John, for explaining your thinking again.
The point is that both my current and the older catalogs have the identical content regarding the "older" image files. All my backups contain the same history of image file as the current catalog. Both the current catalogue and the backup catalog contain the same "old" image files. There's no advantage to creating a folder for "old images".
What you advocate is the same as the procedure for restoring a corrupted current working catalogue, i.e. rename the current catalogue, copy and paste the last dated backup folder's .lrcat file, check it opens and works correctly. If all is well with the restored backup, then you may now delete the previous (renamed) suspect catalog file. The most recent photos' edits which will be missing will have to be referenced to the new current catalogue and reworked. Provided you perform backups at a frequency consistent with the rate at which you add new photo image files to the catalogue, this should require little effort.
Most amateur photographers can easily retain their work in one catalogue. I started using Lightroom 4 back around 2012 and have progressed through version 5 to now LR6. Any catalog should easily accommodate over 100,000 image files, provided the basic hardware has the necessary processor speeds, RAM etc.
I would suggest that creating 2 catalog files is a recipe for confusion. I cannot see the advantage, but I can see people getting confused. If you believe your method is right for you, that's fine. By far the most important lesson to bear in mind, that not only is it important to regularly backup the current catalog file, but it is just as important, if not more so, to backup the basic image files. Too many people think that backing up the catalog file, also backs up the associated images.
 
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BrynBoru said:
Thanks, John, for explaining your thinking again.
< snip>
What you advocate is the same as the procedure for restoring a corrupted current working catalogue, i.e. rename the current catalogue, copy and paste the last dated backup folder's .lrcat file, check it opens and works correctly. If all is well with the restored backup, then you may now delete the previous (renamed) suspect catalog file. The most recent photos' edits which will be missing will have to be referenced to the new current catalogue and reworked. Provided you perform backups at a frequency consistent with the rate at which you add new photo image files to the catalogue, this should require little effort.
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That is precisely the issue I was responding to - a corrupted recent catalogue. People were telling me keeping older back-ups was pointless as you would lose all your recent work if you used them. I was trying to get them to understand you can restore an old catalogue without losing recent work. I should know better than to try.
 
john.margetts said:
That is precisely the issue I was responding to - a corrupted recent catalogue. People were telling me keeping older back-ups was pointless as you would lose all your recent work if you used them. I was trying to get them to understand you can restore an old catalogue without losing recent work. I should know better than to try.
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Fear not, my career has been peppered with episodes of failing to get people to understand my point of view! :)
Unfortunately we still seem to be not quite on the same wavelength, but no matter.
 
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