Lightroom where is the catalog

When you try to open a catalog from a new version into an older Lightroom Classic version, you get a dialog displaying: The Lightroom catalog named [Your Catalog Name] cannot be opened because it is too new to be used by this version of Lightroom.

To work in the older versions, import the required photos into Lightroom Classic and create another catalog from that version. If you rename a catalog, make sure you rename its corresponding. They should be in the same folder. Make sure to retain ' Previews' in the preview cache files.

For example, for 'Lightroom 5 Catalog Previews. After you rename your catalog, you may need to help Lightroom Classic find it. See Lightroom Classic can't find my catalog. How do I find it? From the context menu, select Export this Folder as a Catalog. You can back up your catalog automatically when you quit Lightroom Classic or back up manually. To plan your backup strategy to manage storage and back up your catalog, see Plan your backup strategy.

Backing up your catalog does not back up the photos it references. To understand what a catalog is, see What is a catalog? No, but you can sync smart previews of your photos from Lightroom Classic to the Lightroom ecosystem. To know more, see Sync Lightroom Classic with Lightroom ecosystem.

To learn how to delete a catalog, see Delete a catalog. When you delete a catalog, you're not deleting any photos nor are you removing the Lightroom Classic app itself. For more information, see Uninstall or remove Creative Cloud apps , Uninstall Lightroom manually , and Remove photos from catalogs.

No, you can't store catalogs on a network but you can store or share your photos on a network. Smart Previews let you edit your photos in Lightroom Classic even when you are disconnected from the network or when your computer is disconnected from the drive that has your photos. If you move or rename your catalog and then try to open Lightroom Classic, you could encounter an error such as Lightroom catalog was not found.

In the Select Catalog dialog box, your renamed catalog is probably the first catalog in the list. Select it and click Open. To avoid missing photos, always move them from within Lightroom Classic than in the operating system.

To know more, see Move photos to a different folder and Locate missing photos. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Find quick answers to frequently asked questions about catalogs in Lightroom Classic. What is a catalog? Featured Lightroom Only Preferences. Rob Sylvan. August 23, You can click the Show button in the Catalog Settings dialog before closing Lightroom to open your file browser to that folder.

Copy the folder containing the catalog to your desired location. When the copy operation is complete, double-click the catalog file. Take a look around and make sure all is well and it should be. Set that catalog in its new location as the Default Catalog. Obviously if you wish, you can have as many different catalogs as you want if that works best for your workflow.

For example, you could have a different catalog for different projects or even different clients. You just need Lightroom installed on the computer you are using. To keep your Lightroom Catalog running smoothly, every once in a while you may want to optimize it. It is easy to do. I typically only remember to do this every 6 months or so and Lightroom still runs fine for me.

Lightroom gives you options for backing up your catalog. As a good practice, I also recommend backing it up to an alternate drive than where your main Lightroom catalog is located! So if you are backing up everyday, you will soon have many gigabytes of backups just hanging out on your hard drive, so if you do this you will want to clean up and delete these old catalog backups regularly too.

To find your catalog backups, look on the back-up reminder screen that pops up when you close Lightroom. Listed there will be the location where your backups are stored. Follow that directory and delete any old backups. This makes sure that any changes you make to your photos are automatically saved. Just follow these tips you should be well on your way to Mastering the Lightroom Catalog! Make sure to read the rest of our series to help you Master Lightroom. Think of a Lightroom catalog as the storage space for image information.

Each catalog you create will store all the information regarding location info, ratings, keywords, image adjustment, and more! Any information about your photo besides the actual image file is stored within your Lightroom Catalog. Catalogs are a great way to organize your photos based on location or project. For example, you could make a catalog for a big wedding or event you just photographed. You could make another catalog for all your vacation pictures from Europe and another for your portfolio images.

It may be time to move your Lightroom Catalog for a couple of different reasons. The main reason being that you are running into storage issues. If your computer is running on low memory, moving your Lightroom catalog to an external hard drive could help to solve this problem.

The second reason why you should move your Lightroom Catalog is when you want to edit from another computer. A lot of people work from both their desktop and laptop computers. Rather than having to start over with file organizing and image adjustments, you could copy your Lightroom catalog over. This way, you could seamlessly work from another computer.