jedcardio

When I exit LR I'm asked if I want to backup that session. If I choose backup, where does it go and how can I retrieve it?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The files go into a 'Backup' folder in the same place as your LRCAT catalog file. Depending on the software version, they may also be compressed / zipped. They are only the catalog edit instructions and image characteristics, not the actual images. If you backup on every exit, they can quickly take up a lot of space. There's no automated way to delete them. You have to do it manually. You can point to one uncompressed file from within LR and import missing images. You can also rename an existing LRCAT and replace with one of these backups in certain recovery scenarios.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

As Paul explains, Lightroom Classic is making copies of your current catalog that contains your work. That's a bit short of being safely "backed up". The usual routine is to keep backups of ALL working data somewhere, including photos, documents, spreadsheets and your Lightroom Classic catalog.

It might be a good idea to have Lightroom Classic store it's backups in a folder or subfolder with your image files that you backup to external drives. You can see where it sends them in Catalog Settings > General. You also have choices about how often it asks to backup the catalog files. When you exit Lightroom Classic is where you can change the location of the backup files.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Hi. LR is an application that contains a catalog database that stores all of the processing instructions that you do on each image in your catalog. When you open the application the catalog automatically opens with it. You work on an image and the application writes the edits to the catalog folder. No edits are ever written directly on your images and none of the edits are ever applied until you export a specific image in some manner. You do not "retrieve" the edits or the edit session. When you open the application all of the images you edited will show up and appear to be edited. When you backup upon quitting the application backs up the edit file, the catalog itself, and this is good practice in case the catalog becomes corrupted in some way, you will have a backup to go to and to reinstall. The backup has nothing to do with your actual RAW or JPEG images that are linked to the application. Any time you import into LR you can, at that time, create a backup of the imported images on any disk you want: this, too, is good practice. Go the Help section at the top of the program and click on the online help to find the LR manual. Read anything having to do with the Library Module so that you understand how the application works. This will help you avoid future problems. The standard place that LR puts catalogs is in the Pictures folder, although this is not where they have to be filed, just where the program is written to put them if you do not instruct it otherwise.

bleirer

So old backups of the catalog are kept until you go in through windows to delete them, or are they overridden and managed by Lightroom?

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

All of the back up catalogs are kept intact where they were backed up. I use a Mac but the application works the same for both. You can go in and delete the backups, leaving what you want in case you need to use it. Ideally, something hard to find, we would backup after each processing section and then we would only need that one backup in case of catalog failure. And, in fact, most likely we would still only need that last backup as it would be the most recent one. So, keeping a bunch of them really does us no good, although I do the same thing! Each catalog backup is a full catalog, not a partial catalog.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

If you’re not yet up to speed on how your computer system manages files, then study up on that. Then learn where The default location is for LR backups and how to change that. You should be able to direct LR to put its backups on an external drive.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I keep the oldest b/u and 3 of the newest ones. I delete once a month. My b/u are kept within the image folder

RGG

To be clear: LR does not back up the image files. The LR backup is for the catalog. The catalog is information about the image files, but not the actual files.

To back up the image files, back up the whole computer - which should be done regularly anyway. When you back up the computer, you also make a backup copy of the catalog which is very good thing.

bleirer

So when you export a catalog, and it asks if you want to export the images, is that a way to backup the images and catalog all at once?

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Not really. That function is a function that you would use to take a catalog from one computer and LR catalog and move it to another computer and LR catalog. For example, I go on a photo shoot, download all my images for that shoot onto an external hard drive connected to my laptop computer and a temporary (that's what I call it) LR catalog. Lets say I have to show a few images to someone in a classroom setting (I'm most often out with a group) so I do some processing on a few images. At the end of the tour all of my images have been downloaded onto that same external hard drive and temporary catalog but only some have processing. When I get home I download all of the images onto my computer, normally using the cards because for me that is faster. But, I want that metadata from the laptop temporary LR catalog. I would choose just the photos that I worked on and export them as a catalog, in this case, since I've already imported the original image onto my desktop, I would not export the actual images. Then I would import that metadata into my desktop catalog and LR would match that data up to my original images (as long as I had not changed the name of the file, the program links by file name). If I had not already downloaded the images then I would include the images in the export as catalog option. As far as I know, there is no way to backup both catalog and images at one time. Having a complete backup strategy is important. I backup my desktop catalog when closing it (most of the time!), my entire computer is also backed up and if my catalog was on it, then it would also get backed up then (my catalog is not on my computer). My original images are backed up as RAW files upon import. It is important to sit down and write out your backup strategy and plan how it will happen. I hope I have not confused you. How people back up their computers varies greatly from one person to another and depends on your equipment and computer.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

In summary: no, exporting your edited images is not a relevant method to 'backup' your image files / LRCAT in LR-based environment.

LR is a non destructive image-editing database. LR contains pointers to the location on disk where your original and unchanged image files reside. You must back-up these original images files to back up your images.

The LR catalog resides someplace on disk. The master file has extension LRCAT. You must back up this active file along with your image files for disaster recovery. Preferably, you store all your custom presets in the same folder as the LRCAT (see / update your LR settings) and you simply back-up the entire folder containing the LRCAT file, this will include image previews.

Depending on how you want to spend your money and time and the extent of the disaster you want to / need to recover from, you have 1 or multiple copies of your images and the entire folder with the LRCAT, onto portable media, possibly offsite via the cloud or just portable HDs held in a different physical location in case of fire, storm / flood, etc.

Exporting your images is something that can be done, on demand, from LR. The original files and the edit-instructions in the LRCAT to recover. The edited images are better than nothing, but as the basis of a disaster recovery plan, this is time-consuming while achieving just the minimum above next to nothing.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

I believe, but I could be mistaken, that he was asking me about the "export as a catalog" function, rather than simply exporting images. But, again, I could be mistaken in that.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Neither option will be as effective nor efficient as simply backing-up all the original image files and LRCAT. If looking for 'creative alternatives' that deviate from proven best practices, one could update the LR parameters to create XML 'side cars' and then back up the image files and side cards together rather than going through the manual effort of exporting images as a catalog. What the side cars will be missing is your entire catalog / collection structure that is kept in the LRCAT. So, you'd be back to losing valuable work while expending more effort as compared to simply backing-up the images files and the entire folder holding the active LRCAT.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

What I did was simply explain to the OP what the function was intended for and did note that it was not a function intended for backing up. I did tell him that having a good backup plan was important and that people did this in different ways. Exporting and Importing as a catalog is a very specific function that has nothing to do with how one backs up either the catalog or images. I hope I was able to make this clear to the OP.