Backup Lightroom Folder

Started using LR6 standalone.

Want to start backing up my LR folder to an external hard drive.

Do I just drag the complete folder to external drive ?

Can someone explain what these files are ?

When you say 'Lightroom folder' do you mean only the catalog backup? You can change the default backup location to your external drive in Lightroom. Or did I not understand your question?

lacogada wrote in post #18590371
Started using LR6 standalone.

Want to start backing up my LR folder to an external hard drive.

Do I just drag the complete folder to external drive ?

Can someone explain what these files are ?

Hosted photo: posted by lacogada in
./showthread.php?p=185​90371&i=i98983323
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

You know it doesn't backup the photos, right?

nqjudo wrote in post #18590377
When you say 'Lightroom folder' do you mean only the catalog backup? You can change the default backup location to your external drive in Lightroom. Or did I not understand your question?

Yes referring to catalog only.

There is a Lightroom folder within my "pictures" folder that has the five files in screen shot above.

Do I just drag that Lightroom folder to the external drive ?

driving35mm wrote in post #18590446
You know it doesn't backup the photos, right?

Yes ... photos are already backed up to external drive.

Thanks

Your Lightroom Catalog.lrcat is your catalog. The lock and journal file appear when you are using Lightroom. The journal contains information yet to be written to the catalog and the lock file is there prevent corruption by locking out access to other users while the database is open. You don't need to back up the lock and journal files. They should disappear when you close Lightroom but copies can remain there in some cases. Usually after crashes. If you want to backup the catalog file to an external drive you can use whatever method you want to copy and paste it to the other drive. If you are performing regular catalog backups (which you should) you can just copy the folder named 'backups' as that is where they're written by default. Keep in mind that you are doing somethign manually that can easily be automated. If your drive is permanently attached an easier solution would be to configure Lightroom to make the catalog backup directly on your external drive.

nqjudo wrote in post #18590495
If your drive is permanently attached an easier solution would be to configure Lightroom to make the catalog backup directly on your external drive.

Even if it is not permanently attached I would still configure LR to back up to the external drive (and just plug the drive in before LR runs it's backup).

And in answer to the original question - you just need to copy the Lightroom.lrcat file. The others are unimportant and LR will automatically recreate them when it runs.

Note: You should also backup any user created development/import/exp​ort presets as these are not included in the catalog backup. You can find the location for them at...
Edit > Preferences [Presets tab]
Show Lightroom Presets folder.

Out of the box, off the disk, or from the download, at installation the Backup folder is inside C:/..../Pictures/LR for one simple reason; there is no way that Adobe can know each particular buyer's (or renter's) gear setup. The C: drive is the one constant. But common sense should indicate that a backup that sits next to the original is no backup and the first step after installation should be choosing a new location.

A couple months ago, I and others found that catalog backups made by LR Classic 7.0 and 7.1 were corrupt and unusable. The bug was apparently in the Zip compression LR was using, because Zips of the catalog .lrcat file made using the Windows 10 system tool were OK. The bug has apparently been fixed in 7.2, but I still do regular tests of backups (once bitten, twice shy).

@nqjudo
Thanks for the different files explanations.
My external drive is not always connected.


@Dan Marchant
Thanks ... thats what I was looking for me thinks (just the Lightroom.lrcat file)
....and the presets tip.


@tzalman
Thanks for your input.

At one point I had my catalogue on my external drive with the files. I decided to put it back on the HD so I believe I just copied and pasted it. After I pointed LR there and checked that all was well I deleted it.

If you detach your external drive Smart Previews may help you. Not sure if you already use that.

I know others have mentioned only backing up the .lrcat file, which is important. You really should most definitely not try to back up the Previews.lrdata folder tree. This is the folder tree that holds all of Lr's previews, and in my case where I have some 55000 images in my catalogue it occupies some 77GB of data (I do have a 5K monitor, so my standard previews are 5120px wide, so generally larger than 100%). It is also constantly being updated by Lr every time you make an edit to an image. As well as the space it occupies for manual backing up it can be a problem for those with automatic backup systems since it's lots of very quickly changing data.

Losing the previews is not a problem though, since Lr will regenerate them for you if they go missing. In fact one of Lr's more common occasional errors involves corruption of the previews, which prevents the program from loading. The answer is to delete the previews from the disk. I had it happen to me about three times with Lr4 over about a four year period, touch wood not had it happen since getting my new system and moving to CC in 2016. You will go back to initially seeing the original files previews until the new ones have been generated though. So don't worry that you have lost all of your edits.

Alan

Thanks for the extra info "digital paradise" and "BigAl007".