{"id":53512,"date":"2022-05-31T18:46:26","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T18:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/faq\/popular-question-how-to-backup-lightroom-photos\/"},"modified":"2022-05-31T18:46:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T18:46:26","slug":"popular-question-how-to-backup-lightroom-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/faq\/popular-question-how-to-backup-lightroom-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular question: How to backup lightroom photos?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Step 1: Within <strong>Lightroom<\/strong>, locate your Catalog Settings menu. Step 2: From this menu, find the <strong>Backup<\/strong>-Catalog option in the General Catalog Settings menu. Step 3: Choose \u201cWhen <strong>Lightroom<\/strong> Next Exits\u201d as the frequency. Step 4: Exit <strong>Lightroom<\/strong> and wait for the Backup pop up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p> Best answer for this question, how do I back up all my Lightroom <strong>photos<\/strong>? <\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Choose Edit > Catalog Settings (Windows) or Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings (Mac OS).<\/li>\n<li>Choose Back Up Catalog > When Lightroom Next Exits.<\/li>\n<li>Close the window and then quit Lightroom Classic.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As many you asked, how do I save my Lightroom photos to an external hard drive? <\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Step 1: <strong>Backup<\/strong> Your <strong>Lightroom<\/strong> Catalogue and Images.  <\/li>\n<li>Locate your catalog and images.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 3: Plug in your external drive.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 4: Copy\/Move Your Catalog and Images.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 5: Copy your images (Optional)  <\/li>\n<li>Step 6: Open the new catalog in Lightroom.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>You asked, can I <strong>backup<\/strong> my Lightroom onto a hard drive? <iframe style=\"margin-top:25px;width:100%;height:420px;\" width=\"auto\" height=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qLSzncSkvB4\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Additionally, how do I backup photos from Lightroom to the cloud? <iframe style=\"margin-top:25px;width:100%;height:420px;\" width=\"auto\" height=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qa3ShPAUyg0\"><\/iframe>The first step is to restore the Lightroom catalog (. lrlibrary) file, from Time Machine (on a Mac) or another backup. By default it&#8217;s located in the Pictures folder in your home folder. As a precaution, copy the current (goofed) file to an external drive or elsewhere, just in case, and then restore the backup.<\/p>\n<h2>Do I need to backup Lightroom catalog?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lightroom simply stores information about your photographs in a catalog. So even though your images aren&#8217;t technically \u201cinside\u201d Lightroom, you still need to backup your Lightroom catalogs. This will ensure that any edits you&#8217;ve made to your images are not lost.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I move my Lightroom library to an external drive?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Folders panel, click on a folder that you want to put on the external drive and drag it from your internal drive to the new folder you just created. Click the Move button and Lightroom transfers everything over to the external drive, with no extra effort required on your part.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Should Lightroom catalog be on external drive?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>More Detail: The Lightroom Classic catalog can be stored on an external hard drive, as long as that drive has excellent performance. If the external hard drive isn&#8217;t fast, overall performance within Lightroom can suffer significantly when the catalog is on an external drive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I transfer photos from Lightroom to a flash drive?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:100%;height:420px;\" width=\"auto\" height=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Okwpj-0b5eg\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How many Lightroom backups should I keep?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>However, you only need a few catalog backups to have peace of mind, and if you haven&#8217;t configured Lightroom settings effectively, you might end up with a hundred of them. So, to answer the question, you don&#8217;t need to keep all your Lightroom Catalog backups; only the most recent 2-3 should be good enough.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Where are Lightroom photos stored?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Your Device. Lightroom offers the option of storing your edited photos on your device (i.e., your digital or DSLR camera).  <\/li>\n<li>Your USB. You can also choose to save your files to a USB drive instead of your device.  <\/li>\n<li>Your Hard Drive.  <\/li>\n<li>Your Cloud Drive.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I save my Lightroom catalog?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Export a catalog Choose File > Export As Catalog. Specify the name and location of the catalog. Indicate whether you want to export the negative files and previews, and then click Save (Windows) or Export Catalog (Mac OS). &#8220;Negative files&#8221; refers to the original files that were imported into Lightroom Classic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Can you backup Lightroom Classic to the cloud?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>The only thing Lightroom Classic CC can do is synchronize smart previews with the cloud. The ONLY way you can upload full-sized raw files to the cloud is to do so using Lightroom CC (the cloud-based version).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Which Lightroom files do I need to back up?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The Catalog.<\/li>\n<li>The Previews.<\/li>\n<li>The Catalog Backups.<\/li>\n<li>The Photos.<\/li>\n<li>Your Presets &#038; Templates.<\/li>\n<li>Settings shared with Camera Raw.<\/li>\n<li>Plug-ins you&#8217;ve installed.<\/li>\n<li>Your Lightroom Serial Number.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Does Lightroom Classic have cloud storage?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>The difference between Lightroom and Lightroom Classic Lightroom is a cloud-based app that stores your images in the cloud. The main benefit to Lightroom is that because your images are stored in the cloud, they will appear on any device where you have Lightroom downloaded.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Where are Lightroom catalogs stored?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Your Lightroom Classic catalogs are located in the following folders, by default: Windows: Users[user name]PicturesLightroom. macOS: \/Users\/[user name]\/Pictures\/Lightroom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How does Lightroom cloud storage work?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lightroom is the cloud-based version that works across desktop, mobile, and web. Lightroom automatically stores full-resolution photos to the cloud when you import them from desktop, mobile, or the web. Edits are automatically reflected on all your devices.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I change where Lightroom is backed up?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:100%;height:420px;\" width=\"auto\" height=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jFoNELE10gI\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I free up space in Lightroom?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In Lightroom, go to Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Lightroom > Preferences (Mac).<\/li>\n<li>Choose the Local Storage panel. Now, click Change Location to select a drive with at least the amount of free space recommended in the above error message.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n<h2>What is a backup catalog?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Backup Catalog is a representation of the results of performing a backup of servers on a network. Backup software such as the Microsoft Windows NT administrative tool Windows NT Backup and Backup in Windows 2000 create catalogs so that backed up files are documented and can be found when performing a restore.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Can I run Lightroom from an external SSD?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lightroom Guru Running Lightroom with its catalog on an external SSD is fine, and 500 GB should give you enough room for now. But 1 TB means you&#8217;ll never have to worry about the size of the catalog folder. A bus powered SSD should be fine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I get Lightroom to recognize my external hard drive?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lightroom is a catalog app, not a browser. It will not show any drives that do not contain any photos that are imported. So in order to let Lightroom &#8216;recognise&#8217; a drive, you simply need to import at least one photo from that drive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How do I move my Lightroom classic library?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Step 1: Locate And Access Your Lightroom Catalog. Before you can move a Lightroom catalog, you need to find it.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 2: Select Your Catalog And Move It To A New Location.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 3: Open The Catalog From It&#8217;s New Location.  <\/li>\n<li>Step 4: Confirm It&#8217;s New Location.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How should I export my photos from Lightroom?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Under File Settings, set the Image Format to JPEG and put the Quality Slider at 100 to maintain the highest quality. The Color Space Lightroom export setting for print should be sRGB, and \u201cLimit File Size\u201d should not be checked.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Why won&#8217;t Lightroom export my photos?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Try resetting your preferences Resetting the lightroom preferences file &#8211; updated and see if that will let you open the Export dialog.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Step 1: Within Lightroom, locate your Catalog Settings menu. Step 2: From this menu, find the Backup-Catalog option in the General Catalog Settings menu. Step 3: Choose \u201cWhen Lightroom Next Exits\u201d as the frequency. Step 4: Exit Lightroom and wait for the Backup pop up. Best answer for this question, how do I back up &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}