# Unable to backup metadata automatically in CC?



## ducke49 (May 22, 2019)

My computer (Macbook Pro 2018) was stolen. I just tried to open up my catalog on my new Mac but the .lrcat file seems to only contain originals, but no edits... 

On my old computer I used Lightroom>Preferences>Local Storage and checked both boxes, but did not notice a Metadata option. Is there anyway to automatically save metadata information in the catalog on an external drive? I do not use the cloud based syncing because my workflow is too robust to continually sync (it slows everything WAY down too).

Looking to upload my photos from my external drive back to Lightroom with edits. Any hope for this??


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## Johan Elzenga (May 22, 2019)

I’m a bit puzzled. You filled in ‘Lightroom Creative Cloud version 2.3’, but then you talk about “my .lrcat file”. That is the extension of a Lightroom Classic catalog, not the extension of the Lightroom cloud library, which has a .lrlibrary extension. So which version are you using now and which version were you using? And if the laptop got stolen, where does that .lrcat file come from? A backup? Maybe that’s an old Lightroom Classic backup...


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## ducke49 (May 22, 2019)

Johan Elzenga said:


> I’m a bit puzzled. You filled in ‘Lightroom Creative Cloud version 2.3’, but then you talk about “my .lrcat file”. That is the extension of a Lightroom Classic catalog, not the extension of the Lightroom cloud library, which has a .lrlibrary extension. So which version are you using now and which version were you using? And if the laptop got stolen, where does that .lrcat file come from? A backup? Maybe that’s an old Lightroom Classic backup...


I am using Creative Cloud currently. Originally it was a Lightroom Classic catalog (started 3 years ago). I transitioned it and imported the catalog to Creative Cloud last year. I have paused syncing with the cloud library due to lag, so I have been backing up work in Lightroom Creative Cloud via the .lrcat to an external hard drive (like I did when I was using Lightroom Classic).


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## Johan Elzenga (May 22, 2019)

So if you currently use Lightroom (for the cloud), then you do not need that old catalog anymore. Just install Lightroom on your new computer, login to the cloud and let it sync.


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## Victoria Bampton (May 23, 2019)

ducke49 said:


> I have paused syncing with the cloud library due to lag, so I have been backing up work in Lightroom Creative Cloud via the .lrcat to an external hard drive (like I did when I was using Lightroom Classic).


As Johan says, LR Cloudy doesn't have an lrcat, so I'm not quite clear on what you're backing up.

Using CC without cloud sync is probably somewhat risky. If you're not going to sync to the cloud, I would think about transitioning back to Classic.

What do you have from your stolen computer? And when was the last time it synced with the cloud?


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## ducke49 (May 23, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> As Johan says, LR Cloudy doesn't have an lrcat, so I'm not quite clear on what you're backing up.
> 
> Using CC without cloud sync is probably somewhat risky. If you're not going to sync to the cloud, I would think about transitioning back to Classic.
> 
> What do you have from your stolen computer? And when was the last time it synced with the cloud?



I last synced with cloud in December 2018. I imported the .lrcat around the same time b/c I transitioned away from Classic. So I am thinking the .lrcat file is irrelevant at this point, because it only contains old files.  

Thing is, for the last 5 months I have been using Lightroom CC (without syncing to cloud) and  my edits were all being saved SOMEWHERE on my external drive because Lightroom CC only allowed me to handle my photos/edits when my external drive was connected. No external drive = no recent photos

If my 20k photos/edits from the last 5 months were not in the old .lrcat file, and they were not in the cloud, then where was LRCC pulling from? And how can I get them onto my new computer's LR? Any ideas are greatly appreciated!


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## Jim Wilde (May 23, 2019)

The edits will have been stored in the Local Library (Lightroom Library.lrlibrary), which would have been in the Users Pictures folder. So the first question is: do you have a backup of that library?


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## ducke49 (May 24, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> The edits will have been stored in the Local Library (Lightroom Library.lrlibrary), which would have been in the Users Pictures folder. So the first question is: do you have a backup of that library?


I do not have a back up of that library. Didn't even know it existed  :(I just searched ".lrlibrary" on my external drive and nothing comes up. Still confused though as to why photos/edits in LRCC would not work unless my external drive was connected.

Regardless, still trying to find a way to restore the edits. I have a file on my external drive called "Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata"... would that be useful?


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2019)

ducke49 said:


> I do not have a back up of that library. Didn't even know it existed  :(I just searched ".lrlibrary" on my external drive and nothing comes up. Still confused though as to why photos/edits in LRCC would not work unless my external drive was connected.



Because in order to render an up-to-date view of the image, it needs access to the original file. You had syncing disabled, so it couldn't get the original from the cloud, so the only other place it could get it from was the external drive where you had stored the local copy.



> Regardless, still trying to find a way to restore the edits. I have a file on my external drive called "Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata"... would that be useful?



Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are out of luck. With syncing disabled, the only place those edits existed was in that local library. As you have no backup of that, you have no edits, so you have lost all the work that you have done since you disabled syncing.

That "Previews.lrdata" file is the previews database associated with your Lightroom Classic catalog, it has no relevance to the cloud version of Lightroom.

Perhaps going back to use Classic instead of Lightroom as Victoria suggested would be the best option going forward. Using the cloud Lightroom with syncing disabled completely removes most of the benefits of the system.

EDIT: one thought....did you have Time Machine running on the laptop, and if so do you have access to those backups?


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## ducke49 (May 24, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Because in order to render an up-to-date view of the image, it needs access to the original file. You had syncing disabled, so it couldn't get the original from the cloud, so the only other place it could get it from was the external drive where you had stored the local copy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I really appreciate your insights on this. 

I do have all the originals stored on my external drive as I had the box checked (see screen shot attached) and routed to my external drive. When I look at these copies that were saved in the external drive, they show up in Lightroom CC without the edits. Only my laptop was stolen, not the external drive. 

My understanding is that you are saying the originals may be stored on the external drive but the edits are stored in the .lrlibrary file which was on my computers hard drive.

Did not run Time Machine on my old laptop. I keep everything on my external drive, so didn't think there was a need... apparently not :(


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2019)

ducke49 said:


> My understanding is that you are saying the originals may be stored on the external drive but the edits are stored in the .lrlibrary file which was on my computers hard drive.



Yes. Both versions of Lightroom (Classic and cloud) are "non-destructive" editors, meaning the original file remains untouched. The edits are basic parameter adjustments which are recorded in the catalogs and used to render the preview that you are shown when you edit a file. It is possible with Classic to optionally also write those parameter adjustments into the XMP fields in the original file's header (separate XMP sidecar file in the case of proprietary raw files), but that option is not easily available in the cloud version of Lightroom.

Because of the use of a catalog in this way, it is essential that the catalog is backed up regularly, and Classic has a catalog backup option built-in. Not so with the cloud version, as Adobe takes responsibility for the security of the master catalog held in the cloud.....if you had not disabled syncing, all that you would have needed to do is install and launch the Lightroom cloud app on a new system and the local library would have been automatically recreated from the master catalog in the cloud.



> Did not run Time Machine on my old laptop. I keep everything on my external drive, so didn't think there was a need... apparently not :(


Having your data on an external drive is still no form of backup. Hard drives fail, so your backup strategy has to take that probability into account. So I would suggest, once you get setup on a new system, that you carefully examine your backup strategy.....you need to consider all possible disaster scenarios and implement a scheme that protects you from them all.


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