# Lightroom Backups



## Glenn NK (May 13, 2013)

LR 4.4 wouldn't do a backup because there was no room on the HDD (drive C.

I checked the drive and it was 97% full.

Removed all the backups (they dated back to early January 2012).  Now the drive is 76% FREE.

How many backups does LR keep?  And why?

Is there a setting I've missed that would only keep the last one or two?


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## clee01l (May 13, 2013)

Backing up in LR is a "one way street"  Backups are not managed by LR. You need to do your own housekeeping.  You only need to keep backups sufficient to recover from a corrupt catalog or an accident on your part.


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## Glenn NK (May 13, 2013)

Thanks Cletus.

Seems like it's a setting in Win 7 then.


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## MarkNicholas (May 13, 2013)

Its not a settings issue. Every time you back-up LR creates a new back-up copy in the designated location. You have to physically remove the old back-ups otherwise your HD will soon fill up...as you have already found out.
I generally keep my last 2 back-ups. I suppose you could submit a feature request to LR to allow something in preferences that would allow you to set how many previous back-ups to retain.


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## Hal P Anderson (May 13, 2013)

Glenn,

If you have more than one hard drive, you should ensure that the backups are written to a different _physical_ drive than your catalogue resides on. If they were on the same drive, if the drive were to fail, you'd lose both the catalogue and its backups.

You can choose where the backups are written by pushing the "Choose..." button in the dialogue that comes up when LR is about to back up your catalogue:



Once you have set the backup location, LR will back up to that location on all future backups.

Hal


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## Glenn NK (May 13, 2013)

MarkNicholas said:


> Its not a settings issue. Every time you back-up LR creates a new back-up copy in the designated location. You have to physically remove the old back-ups otherwise your HD will soon fill up...as you have already found out.
> I generally keep my last 2 back-ups. I suppose you could submit a feature request to LR to allow something in preferences that would allow you to set how many previous back-ups to retain.



I will be keeping one backup only, and yes this would be a nice feature - not sure why it isn't already there.



Hal P Anderson said:


> Glenn,
> 
> If you have more than one hard drive, you should ensure that the backups are written to a different _physical_ drive than your catalogue resides on. If they were on the same drive, if the drive were to fail, you'd lose both the catalogue and its backups.
> 
> ...



At the beginning I had already chosen which drive to b/u on; unfortunately I wasn't aware it would keep on adding new b/u's.

Glenn


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## BobMc (May 13, 2013)

*BACKUP: Beyond just Catalog*

Catalog backup, as a subject, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Above:
*clee01l*   was correct saying : Backing up in LR is a "one way street" Backups are not managed by LR. You need to do your own housekeeping. You only need to keep backups sufficient to recover from a corrupt catalog or an accident on your part.
*Hal P Anderson*,  correctly pointed to where you control where the Catalog backup goes.

But the larger picture is the security of both your photo's and the work done on them.  You need multiple backups of both the original images and the catalog and its auxiliary parts.

The best write up on that, that I have seen can be found at this link:
http://lightroomsecrets.com/2012/08/but-i-backed-up-my-catalog/


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## clee01l (May 13, 2013)

Glenn NK said:


> I will be keeping one backup only...


About a year ago. I was sync'ing keywords on several images. instead of updating the several selected images that were visible on the screen, I accidentally replaced keywords on several thousand selected images that were not present on the visible screen.  It was two or three months before I recognized my error.  I had to go back several months to find a backup that did not contain the mistake.  One backup might not be enough.  That is why I said earlier





> You only need to keep backups sufficient to recover from a corrupt catalog or an accident on your part.


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## Bruce J (May 13, 2013)

LR backups also zip quite nicely to about 10% of the original size.  You can keep 8-10 backups in the space of one catalog file if you just add them to a zip file and then delete the original backups.  I've been doing this since LR1 and never had any trouble getting one back, if needed.


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## Victoria Bampton (May 13, 2013)

You might like this plug-in which can zip them automatically http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/


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## Glenn NK (May 14, 2013)

Don't know where to start offering thanks.

I've learned a lot from all of you.

I'll be more careful about deleting b/u's and will certainly explore Victoria's suggestion.

Thanks to all.


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## camner (May 19, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> You might like this plug-in which can zip them automatically http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/



I can echo the endorsement of this plugin.  I've used it for a while now, and by zipping up the backups they take much less room!


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## Skasol (May 19, 2013)

Does the back up keep catalog, setting and everything?


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## camner (May 19, 2013)

Skasol said:


> Does the back up keep catalog, setting and everything?



The LR Backup plugin backs up the LR settings.  While it can create a LR catalog backup through it's "manual" mode, the easier way to use it is to have LR make the backups on whatever schedule you wish.  then upon each LR startup, the plugin  simply looks for an existing catalog backup and zips it up and then deletes the "unzipped" version.


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## Skasol (May 19, 2013)

Thank u


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## kcgrace (May 21, 2013)

I too am confused with Backups and I am ready to set up a good backup system with two external drives. Lots of questions come up but in looking at my file sizes, the first one is what is the difference between download backups and backups. Also should I be able to go into finder on my mac and open the preview file and if so how? My download backup file has almost 63G and my regular backup about 28G. I know I need to do some deleting but want to understand the difference first.


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## clee01l (May 21, 2013)

kcgrace said:


> I too am confused with Backups and I am ready to set up a good backup system with two external drives. Lots of questions come up but in looking at my file sizes, the first one is what is the difference between download backups and backups. Also should I be able to go into finder on my mac and open the preview file and if so how? My download backup file has almost 63G and my regular backup about 28G. I know I need to do some deleting but want to understand the difference first.


I'm unclear what you mean by "download backup" and "regular backup".  Are you referring to import "make a second copy" and "catalog backup"? 

As for a good backup system, Time Machine  is the only local backup that you need.


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## kcgrace (May 21, 2013)

Additionally, I am trying to decide if I need backup software to go with my external drives. I have read that Time Machine is not the way to go which is what I was relying on before because it can copy a corrupt file over a good one. Other software recommendations seem to mimic this. IS it not possible to have the catalog backed up by lightroom to the external drive and then also drag my picture folder to the drive every so often? It would be nice to do this automatically but I don't want to do so with the catalog. Patience please with this newbie that is technologically challenged. I've learned lots but so much further to go. Also as a final question, should I have started a new thread for the last two postings or is adding it to a similar one sufficient?


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## kcgrace (May 21, 2013)

I have two files on my computer in lightroom labeled backup. One is labeled backup files; the other is labeled download backups. I did not do this to my knowledge so I assume lightroom created the files but don't understand the distinction. Also, several books say do not let Time machine run and have access to your catalogs because you could end up with a corrupt backup and not be able to restore with a clean copy. I would think this isn't an issue with image files.


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## clee01l (May 21, 2013)

kcgrace said:


> Additionally, I am trying to decide if I need backup software to go with my external drives. I have read that Time Machine is not the way to go which is what I was relying on before because it can copy a corrupt file over a good one. Other software recommendations seem to mimic this. IS it not possible to have the catalog backed up by lightroom to the external drive and then also drag my picture folder to the drive every so often? It would be nice to do this automatically but I don't want to do so with the catalog. Patience please with this newbie that is technologically challenged. I've learned lots but so much further to go. Also as a final question, should I have started a new thread for the last two postings or is adding it to a similar one sufficient?


You have a misunderstanding about Time Machine. Time machine makes hourly backups of every changed file for 24hours then keeps daily backups for a month, and then weekly backups for all previous months.  It will do this until the target drive filles up then it will drop off the oldest backups to make space for the newer ones. I can recover the first copy of every file than I've backed up on Time Machine and any changed files since then.  Once I needed to retrieve a LR catalog backup copy that was 4 months old. 

If you use Time Machine, you still need to make LR catalog snapshot backups and TM will back up those.   The TM target drive needs to be much larger than the source drive(s) since it keeps multiple copies of changed files and deleted files. 

What you are asking about is a system backup of all of your critical files not the Catalog backups which are just snapshot copies of a catalog at certain points in time. Your question is not directly related to LR but is critical to maintaining the integrity of all of your critical files not just cataloga and image files. It could have been a new topis but here is fine too.


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## clee01l (May 21, 2013)

kcgrace said:


> I have two files on my computer in lightroom labeled backup. One is labeled backup files; the other is labeled download backups. I did not do this to my knowledge so I assume lightroom created the files but don't understand the distinction. Also, several books say do not let Time machine run and have access to your catalogs because you could end up with a corrupt backup and not be able to restore with a clean copy. I would think this isn't an issue with image files.


I have no idea what process might have labeled these files as such.  It certainly was not LR.  LR makes a second copy of what is on you camera card in import is you check the box on the import dialog. These are stored in folders labeled "Imported on Mmm dd, yyyy"
The catalog backup is actually a copy of your catalog taken on your schedule when your catalog is closed and stable.  These are the files that your system backup should be managing. Backup apps like Time Machine may not back up a catalog that is open anyhow and the risk of getting a corrupt catalog in the backup area is slim if it exists at all. In TM you can exclude selected files and folders. I exclude the LR previews and the current catalog file. I let TM backup all of my catalog backup copies.


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## kcgrace (May 21, 2013)

This is one of the places I read about Time Machine.http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1116225. Also in Victoria Bamptons book she states that trying to back up the catalog file while its open could cause corruption so you need to exclude lightroom catalogs from the the backups or do it when the catalog is closed.She said Previews should also be excluded but only due to space cpnsiderations.


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## clee01l (May 21, 2013)

kcgrace said:


> This is one of the places I read about Time Machine.http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1116225. Also in Victoria Bamptons book she states that trying to back up the catalog file while its open could cause corruption so you need to exclude lightroom catalogs from the the backups or do it when the catalog is closed.She said Previews should also be excluded but only due to space cpnsiderations.


This is exactly what I do and am recommending.


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## camner (May 21, 2013)

@kcgrace:

One could (and some people probably have) written books  about backups (their importance, how to do them, etc).  To a relative  newcomer, it can rather overwhelming.

My attitude toward backups  comes from something that was on the wall of my dentist's office when I  was a teenager (I'm 60 now, so it was a while ago!):  "You don't have to  floss all of your teeth--just the one's you want to keep."  The  computer version of that is "You don't have to backup all of your  files--just the ones you want to keep."  

It is almost inevitable  that if you use a computer long enough, SOMETHING will happen that will  lead you to wish you had a backup (or lead you to pat yourself on the  back because you DID have a backup!!).  This could be a computer problem  (failed hard drive, stolen laptop, etc.) or "human error" (you did  something that caused a problem).

And, backup strategies are not  entirely simple, nor necessarily cheap, and you'll just have to spend  some time learning about them so you can do something that makes sense  for you.

There are really several kinds of backups you should think about:

1.   System backup: This backs up your hard drive so that you can recover  from something going wrong with your system (hardware failure, system  file corruption, loss of computer, destruction, etc.)

2.  Data  files backup: This can (and usually will) happen at the same time as a  system backup, but many people back up important data files (such as  photos) more often than they back up their system

3.  Offsite  backup: Many people use the cloud for this...this protects against  things such as theft, fire, etc. (E.g. you have a great backup of your  entire hard drive, but your house burns down...the backup won't help  you!)

4.  Lightroom catalog backups: protects against corruption  of the catalog (or user error...you just accidentally did something in  LR that you can't undo and wish you hadn't done)

5.  Lightroom presets and configuration file backups: This will happen automatically when you do a whole hard drive backup.

What do I do?  This:

1.   Every week I make a clone (identical copy) of my system hard drive and  my data hard drive (the latter is where my photos live).  I take the  extra step of having 4 different target backup drives, one for each of  the 4 weeks in the month.  I use SuperDuper! for this.  Others like  Carbon Copy Cloner.  

2.  Once a month I make a system and data drive backup to an external drive I store off site (not at my house)

3.  I use a cloud service to back up my data files (including photos)

4.   I have a Time Machine drive that I let work silently on a continuous  basis--but, as mentioned elsewhere, TM is not a great backup for the LR  catalog

5.  I use the TPG LR Backup plugin (talked about elsewhere in this thread) to make archive (zip) files from LR catalog backups  (it also backs up LR configuration files).  I also manually backup my  LR catalog whenever I do a lot of LR work or when I'm about to do  something I'm not sure I understand the implications of (which happens a  lot right now because I'm relatively new to LR)

[I also floss my teeth every day ]


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## kcgrace (May 22, 2013)

Thank you. I have determined that the download backups are from when I transferred all my photos in 2011. I haven't yet determined that they are all located elsewhere so until I do, I will not delete them. I will use the cloud as well but I want to clean up the files first so that I am not paying for storage I don't need.Thank you for outlining your entire procedure.


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## Glenn NK (May 13, 2013)

LR 4.4 wouldn't do a backup because there was no room on the HDD (drive C.

I checked the drive and it was 97% full.

Removed all the backups (they dated back to early January 2012).  Now the drive is 76% FREE.

How many backups does LR keep?  And why?

Is there a setting I've missed that would only keep the last one or two?


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## camner (May 22, 2013)

kcgrace said:


> Thank you. I have determined that the download backups are from when I transferred all my photos in 2011. I haven't yet determined that they are all located elsewhere so until I do, I will not delete them. I will use the cloud as well but I want to clean up the files first so that I am not paying for storage I don't need.Thank you for outlining your entire procedure.



You might consider a service such as Crashplan (there are others) that offer "unlimited" storage for a fixed monthly fee.


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## kcgrace (May 22, 2013)

I have looked at crash plan , spider oak and sos. I'm just trying to decide if I want this for only this Mac or others in the household..If so, then the plans get expensive for over 50 Gb.


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## Victoria Bampton (May 22, 2013)

FWIW, I'm running Crashplan here on a single machine - and I have Chronosync set up on the other machines to automatically back up to that single machine.  That way everything ends up at Crashplan for a single fee.


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## camner (May 22, 2013)

My own feeling is that in order to be really useful (i.e. will be consistently used) a backup system has to be as much "set and forget" as possible.  That's what I like about the cloud services and about Time Machine....once set up, they require virtually no maintenance.

Crashplan has unlimited data plans.  SpiderOak is $10/month for 100GB (but that's 100GB of "deduplicated" space...which typically translates into much more than 100GB of stuff on your hard drive backed up to the 100GB in the cloud).  I've used both, and both work nicely, though Crashplan is easier to set up, in my experience.  I have no experience with SOS.


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## kcgrace (May 23, 2013)

Seems like a great solution!


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