# How often should I delete my LR CC backups?



## hassiman (Jun 26, 2016)

i have a lot of them....
How many do I need?


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## wianb (Jun 26, 2016)

I keep the latest 4 on a separate HD & on a USB stick.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 26, 2016)

I'm quite lazy when it comes to deleting old catalog backups, so I always tend to have more than my target.....and that target is to keep the last dozen or so, plus at least one a month for the last 12 months.


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## clee01l (Jun 26, 2016)

Jim Wilde said:


> I'm quite lazy when it comes to deleting old catalog backups, so I always tend to have more than my target.....and that target is to keep the last dozen or so, plus at least one a month for the last 12 months.


I fall into the same lazy category. When I do clean up Catalog backups, I follow Jim's regimen.  You only need backups to go far enough back to recover your last user screwup. 
I store my catalog backups on an old spare EHD.  The disk in the EHD is over 6 years old.  So it could fail at some point.  I'm not concerned if it should fail. It is remote possibility that it would fail just when I need to recover from a backup LR catalog.  So I tend to let catalog backup accumulate on that disk for ever.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 27, 2016)

I use a System Preference called 'Hazel'. It's a very powerful utility that can watch folders and automatically perform all kinds of actions on them. For example, you can tell Hazel that it should trash the oldest items in a folder, keeping a certain minimum of items.


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## rob211 (Jun 27, 2016)

Hazel is great. Should have thought of that. I tend to toss backups as I add new ones. I get prompted to backup at every exit from Lr, but generally only backup if I've done work as opposed to say just finding something. I then about every week go in and toss some. But a Hazel rule would be more efficient, and handier on my laptop to free up some space. I've got TM backups of the saved catalogs anyway.


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## PhilBurton (Jun 27, 2016)

I would like to suggest that you place your catalog in the same file structure or disk volume as all your other data, and that you back up all your data on a regular basis, preferably daily.  Then the question in this thread becomes, "How long do I keep my data backups?" 

You DO back up all your data, don't you?  

Phil


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## Agnus (Jun 28, 2016)

Hazel had me interested. Then I found it is a Mac only program. Bummer.


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## clee01l (Jun 28, 2016)

Agnus said:


> Hazel had me interested. Then I found it is a Mac only program. Bummer.


Not to worry.  I tried Hazel.  I found it intrusive and consumed too many resources.  It runs all the time in background.  It would be better if it ran on startup did its job and then quit freeing up CPU cycles.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 28, 2016)

clee01l said:


> Not to worry.  I tried Hazel.  I found it intrusive and consumed too many resources.  It runs all the time in background.  It would be better if it ran on startup did its job and then quit freeing up CPU cycles.



I don't know what you did, but that is not normal. Hazel is running on my system right now. According to ActivityMonitor, it takes 0.0% CPU and 1.15 CPU time*.

*That is seconds for the total time the computer was on, which was about seven hours at that moment.


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## clee01l (Jun 28, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> I don't know what you did, but that is not normal. Hazel is running on my system right now. According to ActivityMonitor, it takes 0.0% CPU and 1.15 CPU time*.
> 
> *That is seconds for the total time the computer was on, which was about seven hours at that moment.


Maybe I was running a older version. It might be worth another look.  Letting Hazel do my housekeeping would be useful.  I have manual processed that I need a reminder to do.   I also let my "Make a Second Copy" image files accumulate on a non critical drive.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 28, 2016)

You should definitely give it another look. It's a great utility with very neat options. For example, many people complain that 'Make second copy' in Lightroom places the copies in dated folders. That makes restoring images more time consuming, because you first have to find them among all these unnecessary folders. I let Hazel automatically move all the second copies to a single backup folder, and delete the empty dated folders in the original backup folder the next day. When I'm on the road, and make a panorama dng, an hdr dng or a photoshop tiff, Hazel will immediately make a copy of these images to that backup folder too.


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## snapper (Jun 29, 2016)

Thanks Johan, I've never used Hazel with lightroom. I use it extensively to manage my accounts, renaming and filing documents in the right place as I download or scan them. But as I'm in the process of moving to a new iMac, I'll also be looking at how I can use hazel in my photo workflow.


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