It’s been a loooong time since my Lightroom catalog has corrupted. But for some reason, soon after upgrading to Lightroom 10, it did! Maybe it had something to do with a bug in the update? Regardless of what caused it, the fact of the matter is . . . it corrupted. So I’m glad I had a backup, and that that backup was only just a day or two old!
So, just a reminder to keep your Lightroom catalog backed up. I remember thinking not too long ago, “I can’t remember the last time my LR catalog corrupted. I wonder if it actually ever will.”
I only lost one evening’s worth of work. And even then, since I had the “Automatically write changes into XMP” option checked in the Catalog Settings, it was mainly just how things were organized in the catalog that was lost, and not so much actual edits.
With spring now blooming around us, and as we find ourselves spending more time taking and editing pictures, let us remember to take a little extra time to keep things backed up too. Lenspiration Members can learn more about how I keep my stuff backed up in the video, How I Back Up My Photos.
Hope of Summer
Countryside near Cheshire, Connecticut
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I have my catalog stored on my laptop, would that be a problem if something happened to my laptop? I like it that I don’t have to plug in my hard-drive whenever I want to use Lightroom. (I already write to XMP)
I have my LR catalog stored on my laptop too. It’s a good place to store it. I would just make sure the catalog (and your pictures) are backed up to an external drive. That way, if your laptop crashes, you’ll have the external drive as a backup. It’s a bit inconvenient to have to backup everything to an external drive every week (or after each time you use LR, if you want to be that on top of things), but it’s totally worth the inconvenience.
Thanks! In this video (https://www.lenspiration.com/video/move-lr-catalog/) you talk about deleting extra backups in the backup folder. Are you talking about the folder that says “backups”? My folder has 62 items in it.
Yes! The folder I was referring to is located here on my computer: C:\Users\James\Pictures\Lightroom\[name of my catalog]\Backups. The backups are in folders named on my computer like “2021-03-10 1136”