Emergency Help with Lightroom 5

I accidentally moved my catalog files in my iMac HD and could not open them in LR.

So I attempted to restore everything with my Time Machine Backup. However, in the restoration I restored the actual

Lightroom Catalog Master file. Now its gone. When I open LR I get a blank catalog with none of my settings. the Master

file seems to have vanished. How can I retrieve this?

<p>Do you have your catalog backed up on dvd and can reload it?</p>

<p>First, try a search of your iMac HD for the old LR catalog. </p>

<p>When opening LR, you have the option to open a different catalog (if you locate your original).</p>

<p>Problem solved, as long as you DIDN'T delete your original!</p>

<p>Time Machine does keep earlier generations of every file, so you might search back in time until you find something usable.</p>

<p>You probably do have a backup, Time Machine as mentioned will also have a backup copy but keep in mind that simply opening LR doesn't insure it points to that backup. So just find a backup and double click on it OR use the Open command from LR and point to that backup of the catalog. You should be fine. </p>

I seem to have fixed it, but here is what I don't understand; When I tried to open the LR catalog with all my

files, it said the catalog was empty. The Catalog was stored in the Pictures folder on the HD. When I

dragged the LR Catalog to the desktop and then opened it from THAT location it opened with all the

missing files. I don't understand why I had to move the LR Catalog (NOT the ASSOCIATED FILES IN THE

CATALOG, just the program) to the desktop for it to read all the files. The actual files (10K images) are

stored in the Photos file on the HD. I want to move the LR catalog off the desktop but I'm worried I will

mess things up again

<blockquote>

<p>When I tried to open the LR catalog with all my files, it said the catalog was empty. The Catalog was stored in the Pictures folder on the HD. When I dragged the LR Catalog to the desktop and then opened it from THAT location it opened with all the missing files.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Moving the catalog shouldn’t affect it's ability to reference the existing files. By default, LR creates the catalog in the <em>Picture</em> folder on Mac OS. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I want to move the LR catalog off the desktop but I'm worried I will mess things up again.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It shouldn’t. But you could duplicate it to the new location, try the new location then delete the one on the desktop. Depending on the size of the catalog and the other associated LR files, that could be a large set of doc's. What you need to be looking for is a <strong>folder</strong> you named that contains the Library (.lrcat), Previews (.lrdata), a folder called Lightroom Settings. You'd want to locate and move that entire folder and all such files since they are associated with the catalog. </p>

 

<p>I think you have to do the moving inside of Lightroom. If you move files outside of Lightroom it doesn't "know" about them.</p>