# Delete old LR Catalog and backups?



## Gatorfellow (Mar 2, 2018)

Is there any reason to keep my old Lightroom catalog and/or the catalog backups after it was upgraded to the new Lightroom Classic CC version?  I have been using the classic cc version for 3-4 months now, and am now looking to clear some disk space.

Thank you.


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## Umberto Cocca (Mar 2, 2018)

It really depends on your work flow. I periodically delete older catalogs but I know people in this forum that have several copies included in their backup. 

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## Johan Elzenga (Mar 2, 2018)

I don't see a reason for keeping an older version catalog that long. Make regular backups of your current catalog (preferably on another disk), that makes more sense to me.


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## clee01l (Mar 2, 2018)

You only need to keep old catalogs and backups of old catalogs to be able to recover from  catalog corruption or what I call "stupid user mistakes"   How many is that?   It depends upon your level of risk taking comfort.  You only need review the issues posted by members of this forum to get an idea of how often this occurs and the user has no backup to be used to recover from.   You don't want to return here and be that user.

Using myself as an example, I have gone back as far as 6 months to recover keywords assigned to over 2000 images that were removed accidentally in a hasty mouse click.


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## Gatorfellow (Mar 2, 2018)

clee01l said:


> You only need to keep old catalogs and backups of old catalogs to be able to recover from  catalog corruption or what I call "stupid user mistakes"   How many is that?   It depends upon your level of risk taking comfort.  You only need review the issues posted by members of this forum to get an idea of how often this occurs and the user has no backup to be used to recover from.   You don't want to return here and be that user.
> 
> Using myself as an example, I have gone back as far as 6 months to recover keywords assigned to over 2000 images that were removed accidentally in a hasty mouse click.



Thank you for your replies. Can the old Lightroom catalog and its backups even be opened in LR Classic CC if I were need to repair metadata such as keywords? I do intend to keep backups of the new upgrades catalog.  Thanks again.


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## Johan Elzenga (Mar 2, 2018)

Gatorfellow said:


> Can the old Lightroom catalog and its backups even be opened in LR Classic CC if I were need to repair metadata such as keywords?


Yes, after being upgraded by Lightroom Classic they will open just fine.


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