# Reverting to yesterday's version - is it possible?



## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Hi, 

I'm not sure how this happened but I have a few thousand pictures where the dates actually changed to the wrong date, so my whole catalog is messed up.
Is there any way to revert to the way I had it 24 hours ago?

Sylvie


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 17, 2020)

No, sorry!


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## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Wow. I don't even know how this could have happened!


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## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Can the program make backups in the future so I can prevent a disaster like this from happening again? I thought there were backups on my computer.


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 17, 2020)

No, the cloud version doesn't do that kind of backup at this point in time. The photos are safely stored in the cloud, but it doesn't keep previous metadata.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 17, 2020)

And have you figured out what change you might have made to cause all the dates to change to the wrong date? Lightroom can't do that unless the user explicitly requests it by using the "Edit Date & Time" option, but that's not something that can happen accidently. If you didn't use that function, tell us a bit more about why you think dates have been changed, specifically what dates are you referring to?


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## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> And have you figured out what change you might have made to cause all the dates to change to the wrong date? Lightroom can't do that unless the user explicitly requests it by using the "Edit Date & Time" option, but that's not something that can happen accidently. If you didn't use that function, tell us a bit more about why you think dates have been changed, specifically what dates are you referring to?



Unfortunately, no. I just know that the dates have changed for ALL 7,860 of my photos and I don't know how it happened.  I spent the entire day retagging, but it's going to take me several weeks to get this fixed.   There should be a way to recover a backup, it it's not from the cloud, then from my own computer.


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## Hal P Anderson (Apr 17, 2020)

As Jim asked, _which dates are you referring to? _ There are several dates that it could be. Are you seeing different dates in LIghtroom or in Windows Explorer?


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## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Edit date and time - Lightroom.


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## Hal P Anderson (Apr 18, 2020)

Are the incorrect dates all the same, or are they different? How about the times? Are they correct, or are they wrong, too?


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## sylvie27 (Apr 18, 2020)

It's like everything shifted 6 or 7 years but the dates changed as well.
I don't pay attention at the time at this point.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 18, 2020)

I'm trying to find a system now to backup the entire catalogue with foto's file structure and tags on a portable hard drive so in case something goes wrong again, I can easily retrieve a backup.
Can anyone direct me to the correct tutorial. I'm getting lost with all the info on the different lightroom systems.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 18, 2020)

Can you post some screenshots showing the problem? 

The cloudy catalogue and information in it cannot be backed up by the user.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 18, 2020)

Can you post some screenshots showing the problem? 

The cloudy catalogue and information in it cannot be backed up by the user.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 18, 2020)

Here is a screen shot of the file structure. 
On the second one, you see a date : July 17, 2019.
Those are the dates that changed yesterday. 
I am now revisiting every folder and change the dates again. Fortunately, I include the date in the folder name, but I want them to show up in the timeline correctly as well. 
There should be a way to back up my work.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 18, 2020)

So July 17, 2019 . Assuming you shot the photo, was that not the date when you took it?


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## sylvie27 (Apr 18, 2020)

For the recent ones, yes.
Most of it are old pictures though, coming from different places with wrong date stamps on them. I had to fix them all.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 18, 2020)

I think this is what I need to do: create catalog backups. That would include all metatags including capture dates. 
If I had one, I would not have to retag my 7877 pictures.  
I'm trying to prevent such a disaster to happen in the future now.
In order to do that, apparently, I need to go to Edit > catalog settings. 
I don't have that though. Is this for another version of Lightroom. It's so discouraging to have all these different versions....
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/back-catalog.html


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 19, 2020)

You are not using Lightroom Classic, your screenshots show that you are using Lightroom desktop (often referred to as Lightroom cloud). Lightroom desktop does not have a local catalog (it has a local folder called ‘library’, but that is mainly a cache). It stores everything in the cloud, and there is no option to make a local backup of that. Making a local backup of the cache is useless, because you cannot use an old cache as a means to restore the online system.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 19, 2020)

Is there any way for me to migrate to Classic and have a cloud backup?


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## clee01l (Apr 19, 2020)

sylvie27 said:


> Is there any way for me to migrate to Classic and have a cloud backup?


If you have a 1TB plan that includes Lightroom (cloud), Lightroom Classic and Photoshop,   You can use both Classic and cloud together.  This is not as Adobe intended but some of us have a workflow that uses both.    AFAIK, there is no migration tool that will  migrate your images and changes from the cloud to a Classic catalog.   You can create a new empty Classic catalog and turn on syncing and as time permits, all of your originals in the cloud version will be sync'd to the Classic Catalog and stored locally. 
At that point Classic would be your primary catalog and the Lightroom (cloudy) version on your computer can be ignored. You can still access all of the images data stored in the cloud and sync'd back to your classic catalog using Lightroom on mobile devices. 

Having said all of this, I don't think you yet understand the date issue or what needs to be done to resolve it.   Lightroom (cloudy) did not change the dates,  either you did or out of the 4-6 dates fields in the images metadata header you are confused about which is the Creation Date.    Windows Explorer generally does not show the Creation Date unless you expressly include this in the columnar view.   Let's get a full understanding of the date problem before you go off and switch your workflow.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 19, 2020)

clee01l said:


> If you have a 1TB plan that includes Lightroom (cloud), Lightroom Classic and Photoshop,   You can use both Classic and cloud together.  This is not as Adobe intended but some of us have a workflow that uses both.    AFAIK, there is no migration tool that will  migrate your images and changes from the cloud to a Classic catalog.   You can create a new empty Classic catalog and turn on syncing and as time permits, all of your originals in the cloud version will be sync'd to the Classic Catalog and stored locally.
> At that point Classic would be your primary catalog and the Lightroom (cloudy) version on your computer can be ignored. You can still access all of the images data stored in the cloud and sync'd back to your classic catalog using Lightroom on mobile devices.
> 
> Having said all of this, I don't think you yet understand the date issue or what needs to be done to resolve it.   Lightroom (cloudy) did not change the dates,  either you did or out of the 4-6 dates fields in the images metadata header you are confused about which is the Creation Date.    Windows Explorer generally does not show the Creation Date unless you expressly include this in the columnar view.   Let's get a full understanding of the date problem before you go off and switch your workflow.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 19, 2020)

Thank you all for your feedback!
I read somewhere about the importance of catalog backup because it does happen that the user inadvertently changes the dates in the meta tags. I think that's what happened to me.  It makes me very nervous. 
I do have the 1TB plan so I would be interested in having the Lightroom classic on my computer. 
I guess I would need a portable hard drive to store the photos.
Now, when the originals from the cloud will sync to lightroom classic, will I have to recreate the file structure or will the file structure and meta tags transfer over as well?


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## clee01l (Apr 19, 2020)

sylvie27 said:


> I do have the 1TB plan so I would be interested in having the Lightroom classic on my computer.


There are two 1TB plans.  One is Lightroom (cloudy) only at ~$10/mo the other includes  Lightroom (cloud), Lightroom Classic and Photoshop at ~$20/mo.    You need the latter plan if you want to "soar with the eagles".


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## sylvie27 (Apr 19, 2020)

Ok. I can upgrade if necessary, but will my folder structure and metatags sync to my computer?


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## sylvie27 (Apr 17, 2020)

Hi, 

I'm not sure how this happened but I have a few thousand pictures where the dates actually changed to the wrong date, so my whole catalog is messed up.
Is there any way to revert to the way I had it 24 hours ago?

Sylvie


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 19, 2020)

You *albums* will sync to Lightroom Classic as *collections*. Folders used to organise albums do not sync. Some metadata do sync, but not all. All metadata that were added by the camera will sync, but keywords you added yourself do not sync.


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## sylvie27 (Apr 19, 2020)

Is there any system that would allow me to back up my photos using the existing folder and album structure?


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 19, 2020)

sylvie27 said:


> Is there any system that would allow me to back up my photos using the existing folder and album structure?


I don’t think so.


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## clee01l (Apr 19, 2020)

sylvie27 said:


> Ok. I can upgrade if necessary, but will my folder structure and metatags sync to my computer?


First of all, you don't have a folder structure (visible) on Lightroom (cloudy) you have "Albums" that are the equivalent of Lightroom Classic Collections.  You also have groups of images organized by capture date.  This can be drilled down to the day level.  This is I believe what you are calling "folders". The folder structure in the cloud is irrelevant to your use Lightroom (cloudy) and is hidden from the user.  You also have special groups of "recently added",  "People and "Deleted".  Lightroom Cloudy does not give you a choice on organization except for the ability to group images into named albums.
In Lightroom Classic, you will need to set up the Sync in preferences and choose one of the date named folder schemes that will  match what you want to see in the Classic Folder panel. 

I don't think you paid attention to my earlier comment: "Having said all of this, I don't think you yet understand the date issue or what needs to be done to resolve it. Lightroom (cloudy) did not change the dates, either you did or out of the 4-6 dates fields in the images metadata header you are confused about which is the Creation Date. Windows Explorer generally does not show the Creation Date unless you expressly include this in the columnar view. Let's get a full understanding of the date problem before you go off and switch your workflow."

In moving all of your images into a Classic workflow, you will face some inconsistencies between the metadata as handled by (cloudy) and as handled by Classic Not everything transfers and some things only transfer one way but not the other.   I'm not up to date on what are the exceptions between Classic and (cloudy)  But some others here can probably list the inconsistencies.


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 19, 2020)

clee01l said:


> First of all, you don't have a folder structure (visible) on Lightroom (cloudy) you have "Albums" that are the equivalent of Lightroom Classic Collections.


Yes, it does have folders, but these are different than the real folders in Lightroom Classic. Lightroom desktop has folders to hierarchically organise its albums. These are the same as *collection sets* in Lightroom Classic. They just don't sync, however.


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## clee01l (Apr 20, 2020)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Yes, it does have folders, but these are different than the real folders in Lightroom Classic. Lightroom desktop has folders to hierarchically organise its albums. These are the same as *collection sets* in Lightroom Classic. They just don't sync, however.
> 
> View attachment 14374


What I mean is the image files are stored in "real" folders not visible to the user.  The containers that you point out and that Adobe labels "folders" are not file folders but virtual containers of other containers called "albums".   Adobe has a unique way of creating names for this that are confusing.    (e.g. LightroomCC)

I still think the OP need to understand this issue before moving forward:
""Having said all of this, I don't think you yet understand the date issue or what needs to be done to resolve it. Lightroom (cloudy) did not change the dates,..."


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