mvetrano2 Loc: Commack, NY

Can anyone guide me with an easy, step-by-step, process, or simple software, for a full set of backups? Here is my current setup.

I have aprroximately 35K+ photos stored on my Mac and on my Mac's Time Machine, all catalogged through Light Room with editing and keywording. What I would like to do is create two full backups of all 35K+ photos and videos, including all the enhancements made to them in Light Room, and also including all of the keywords attached to those photos anf videos. I would like to duplicate this data on two separate external drives.

if there is free software to accomplish this task, please inform me. Otherwise, can you outline a simple set of processing steps to accomplish this.

Thank you,
Mike Vetrano

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I use Synctoy, a free utility from Microsoft. I run it in a mode where it backs up any files that have changed. After it has completed, I also copy my Lightroom catalog file to the backup. It's worked for me for years.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

There's lot of things you could do, many of them unnecessary beyond the minimum.

The minimum:

1, A back-up of all your LRCAT related data. This is done by finding the folder that typically resides in "pictures"\Lightroom. Be sure to pre-delete the subfolder \Backups as these files are virtually worthless for purposes of your backups.

2, A back-up of all your original image files. Here, your foldering approach to maintaining your image files makes this easy or hard(er).

If you wanted to run a mass-export of your edited images to full-resolution JPEGs, that would give you all your edited images and keywords, if desired. Although, everyone of these images could be dynamically recreated, on-demand, from the LRCAT and original images, items #1 & #2.

mvetrano2 Loc: Commack, NY

Thank you Paul, I want the full backup of all 35K+ photos and videos with the LR enhancements and keywords included. So, how would I go about running a mass export of all of it to an external drive? I want to be able to bring the drive with me to be accessed on another computer serching by keyword, outside of Light Room, and displaying the Light Room enhanced version of the original photo or video.

dhspeck

I would go with the full drive backup. Then you'd also have your documents and programs saved, too.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

In the "All Photographs" view of your LRCAT, you just "select all" the images and export with the appropriate export settings. You set the output target to the external drive and let it run. Personally, I'd let it run overnight on a system that has nothing else running / open and see if it will finish in 4- to 6-hours (by next morning).

Alternatively, you might export the images to the same folder as the originals, just in a subfolder to each original folder. This can create the same 'subfolder' under every existing folder of the LR original files. Say you used \2024-Mass-Export with all your images selected in the LRCAT.

You might end up with JPEGs in:

20120101-New Years\2024-Mass-Export
and
20220317-St Patricks\2024-Mass-Export
and so forth

Your export parameters determine how your Export will process. Only you can decide how to instruct the LR software to operate.

MJPerini

I'm not sure I completely understand your request, but....
> remember any mass backup is a single point in time, so there has to be a process for keeping those up to date that is not too onerous.
>To the extent you intend to keep using lightroom into the foreseeable future Follow Paul's advice
> remember the OFFSITE component of complete backup
> you include Keywords as though they are a separate transferrable thing. Your keywords are inextricably linked to lightroom unless you searched every keyword and exported JPEGs of all the files linked to each one. (To say nothing of all the files linked to multiple keywords)
>But if you stay with lightroom, and keep it properly backed up along with your source files, then any future version of lightroom would be able to recreate your keywords.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question, If I am , I apologize
When Apple killed Aperture, there were lots of proposed solutions for preserving Projects ,Keywords, versions, etc and transferring to other Apps. My experience was that NONE worked.
I did a two fold solution, I froze the computer on which I used Aperture, and Bought another computer on which I run Capture One and DxO, and effectively 'Bought Time" to transfer 100k image files in a (semi) )orderly fashion.
I offer that only if your desire to export keywords was so that you could use them independent of lightroom.
Now because of Lightroom's ubiquity, there may well be more tools available than I had, so I offer my experience only as a cautionary tale.
Good Luck ---it is likely all you need are backups of your HD and LR Catalog (and source files if they are not on your internal drive) both on and off site.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

To the idea of ongoing back-ups, once you have a full 'copy' from some point in time, when using LR, you just need to:

a, Keep your images organized by dates, as shown in my example, and just add additional new folders to your back-up media.

b, Replace your \Lightroom folder with the current source \Lightroom folder. This is quickly done by

i) renaming the HD folder like \Lightroom-x
ii) Copy the source LRCAT folder \Lightroom from the working computer to the target HD
iii) Use the File Properties and confirm both the source and back-up have the same total count of files
iv) Delete the renamed \Lightroom-x from the backup media

c, Sort your original image files by the 'modify' date to pick up any changes you've made to historical images since your last back-up.

d, Finally, if you also do a mass-export as discussed before, just find all the newest images in the LRCAT since the last mass-export and just export those new images. Here, creating a User Export Preset for this processing means you don't have to remember / re-invent the export settings to do the same thing over again.

mvetrano2 Loc: Commack, NY

Paul, If I do a mass export of all in the catalog, will the export contain all of my folders, which are by month and year, or just the photos and no hierarchy? I would like the backup to contain the year/month/subject as well. How can I set up the backup so that the hierarchy is maintained?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The LR export is based on a) the images you select and b) the target organization you (the human) specify.

Will Lightroom "build" a folder structure that matches the layered structure of the original images when exported? No.

The 'export' process is not a 'back-up' process like you intend to use that mass-export function. As near as I can find, the mass-export just 'dumps' all selected images into a single new target (output) folder -- in any number of possible places -- OR, Lightroom can write images into the same location (or a subfolder) as where the original images reside.

To the question of maintaining a hierarchy of folders, well that's you -- the human. If you organize your original images in such a hierarchy, you can easily 'see' (find) the newest images and just copy those folder(s) into the target 'copy' of those folders and files. Whether you perform this copy processing (backup) manually or let some automated processing do it, the copies will reflect what you set-up in your original primary organization.

mvetrano2 Loc: Commack, NY

So, is there a total backup function for Light Room, other than export, that will leave the entire structure of folders and subfolders in tact? Does one exist externally, or as part of Adobe library of programs? It would be extremely tedious, with a multitude of steps, and very time consuming if I had to export each folder and sub folder separately. There has to be a way to do this in one fell swoop somehow, and somewhere.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

The only backup function Lightroom has is for the catalog. You'll need to back up your photos separately. That's where a backup program comes in. You can usually define settings you can use for repeated backups. For example, in the Synctoy backup program that I suggested, you can set up a named backup process, tell it to back up any photos that are new or have been changed in c:\photos (including all subdirectories) to your backup drive (to, say, D:\photos). Then, Synctoy will find any photos that meet those criteria and back them up (and only those photos, since other photos haven't changed) to your backup drive. It also deletes photos on the backup if you've chosen to delete them in c:\photos since the last backup.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You might have missed the point of a few of the multiple comments so far.

1, Adobe is not responsible for backing up your original image files. Their only 'backup' action is to make a compressed copy of their LRCAT file.

2, The export function has nothing to do with 'backup'. The LR Export exists to merge the edit instructions with the original image file to output an edited image file, to the target location, file format and pixel resolution / file size, as specified by the human.

As mentioned in the earlier reply, you can SELECT-ALL and export all the images in your LRCAT, either into a single consolidated (output) folder. Or, you can output the exported images to their original folders of each source image, or a common subfolder 'name' inside each source image folder. See example in the earlier reply.

I've tried to steer you away from the mass-export altogether, given the limited options / control of such an operation, and the clock-time needed to execute. Consider revisiting "why is this important?" I guess, if you're traveling with a tool where LR can't operate, the export images might be the next best thing. But, if you can bring along your LRCAT and LR Classic software and copies of the source images, you don't need those mass-export images. Instead, just export what you need, only when you need it. And, run your searches inside the LRCAT, not outside.