Config Backup Plugin
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Download the latest Config Backup Lightroom Plugin version here (20090606.002). Released under the GNU GPL version 3 license. Installation instructions here. |
The Config Backup plugin helps speed up and simplify backing up and compressing Lightroom files. It adds two new menu items to the File menu’s Plug-in Extras sub-menu.
- Customisable Configuration Backups – Allows you to customise and manually trigger the backup and compression processes
- 1-Click Configuration Backup – Immediately backs up the Lightroom configuration files and Catalog backups using your previously configured settings, and optionally displays the results of the backup process.
Configuration files included in the backups are:
- Windows XP: All files and folders under Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom
- Windows Vista: All files and folders under Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom
- Mac OS X: [username]/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Lightroom2.plist and all files and folders under [username]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom
Please refer to the official Adobe knowledge base article for detail regarding which configuration files can be found at each of these locations.
Usage
When you open the File menu’s Plug-In Extras sub-menu, two new menu items are available.
If you are a Windows user and follow the advice in Accelerate Access to Lightroom Plugin Extras you will be able to open this sub-menu using the Alt + F, then S key sequence and access these menu items using the accelerator keys listed below.
Customisable Configuration Backups
- Open the File –> Plug-In Extras –> Customisable Configuration Backups menu item to display the dialog shown here. If you have enabled keyboard accelerators (see above) you can use the Alt + F, then S, then B key sequence to open the menu item.
Configuration File Backups
- Use the Backup Directory field to specify where configuration file backups should be created. The path can be either directly entered or selected by using the Choose button. The quantity and size of backups currently found at that location will be listed below this field.
- Use the Create Backup button to immediately backup the Lightroom configuration files. The compressed backup will be created in the Backup Directory and the name and date of the latest backup will be available in and below the Latest Backup field, respectively. All files added to the compressed backup file will include path information relative to the directory displayed in the Config Base Directory field.
Maintain Lightroom’s Catalog Backups
Please note: The catalog compression section assumes you are using Lightroom’s inbuilt capability to create catalog backups.
- Use the Backup Directory field to specify where Lightroom creates its catalog backups. The path can be either directly entered or selected by using the Choose button. The quantity and size of backups currently found at that location will be listed below this field. Tip: If you use a multiple catalog workflow consider having Lightroom store all backups in the same directory, so the plugin can compress backups for all catalogs at the same time.
- Use the Compressed Directory field to specify where compressed version of the catalog backups should be created. The path can be either directly entered or selected by using the Choose button. The quantity and size of backups currently found at that location will be listed below this field.
Tip: Lightroom typically creates backups in the sub-directory of your catalog directory. To increase the robustness of your backups consider storing the compressed backups on a different disk drive, to help guard against hardware failure of an individual hard disk. - Use the Catalog Backup When Compressing drop down to select whether to Copy or Move backups into the compressed backup. The default option is to Copy, but if you are interested in conserving disk space you should change this to Move once you are comfortable everything is working properly
- Use the Compress Backup(s) button to immediately compress all catalog backups in the Backup Directory. The compressed backups will be created in the Compressed Directory as separate zip files named after the catalog and date/time of the backup. The name and date of the latest compressed backup will be available in and below the Latest Compressed field, respectively, to give you an indication of when the backups were last maintained.
Please note that catalog backups can be quite large, and the process of compressing then testing the backups can be time consuming. A status message (see below) is displayed below the Latest Compressed field to indicate how many files and how much data is being compressed. This should give you a sense of how long the backup compression process is likely to take.
General
The dialog contains numerous Browse buttons to open Windows Explorer or Finder at the desired folder. These are provided as a convenience in case you wish to manually inspect the folder contents.
The Show Results After 1-Click Backup check box toggles whether the status dialog appears to confirm backups have taken place. It is included here to allow users to re-enable the status dialog after they have chosen to disable it.
1-Click Configuration Backup
- Open the File –> Plug-In Extras –> 1-Click Configuration Backup menu item to initiate an immediate backup of the Lightroom configuration files, and compression of all Lightroom catalog backups in the Backup Directory. This is equivalent to pressing the Create Backup and Compress Backup(s) buttons in the Customisable Configuration Backups dialog, and uses the settings applied when that dialog was last run. If you have enabled keyboard accelerators (see above) you can use the Alt + F, then S, then 1 key sequence to open the menu item.
- If the Show Results After 1-Click Backup option is selected, the dialog depicted here will be displayed. This will show the same Latest Backup, Latest Compressed and status values described in the previous section. If you wish to prevent the display of this dialog in future please unselect the Show Results After 1-Click Backup option.
Restoring Backups
All backups are stored as compressed zip files. The user will need to shutdown Lightroom and manually restore backups, as unpredictable results would occur if the plugin restored these files while Lightroom was active.
It is suggested the user decompress zip files in a temporary directory and then move the desired files across to the appropriate configuration and/or catalog directories. On some platforms decompressing a zip file directly into the target directory may remove any files that were already in that directory but not included in the zip file.
History
| Version | Change Log |
|---|---|
| Configuration backup extended to include presets, templates, etc | |
| Initial public release |
I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.
32 Responses to “Config Backup Plugin”
Accelerate Access to Lightroom Plugin Extras | The Photo Geek - June 4th, 2009
[...] Lightroom plugins add new menu items to the Lightroom user interface. Examples include my own Config Backup plugin, those from the prolific Jeffrey Friedl (the grandmaster of Lightroom plugin development) and [...]
I can’t for the life of me figure out how one would manually trigger a backup (i.e. without relying on the broken backup stuff currently in LR2). Hint?
what’s about presets?? i’ve a lot of them and it would be serious when they are not backed up. (i personally use a scheduled rar-skript for presets and catalog)
@Wade, The only official way to kick off the backup is to use Edit -> Catalog Settings -> Backup Catalog: Next time Lightroom starts only. Restart LR and then after backup completes, reset to the weekly (or whatever) setting again. i.e. the only official way is impractical.
In reality you might as well just write a script to check LR isn’t running, copy the catalog file to a subdirectory named using the same layout, and zip the result. That would be the only automatic way I can think of to perform the equivalent of the LR backup functionality without consuming too much space.
Does that answer your question?
PS Keep up the good work with those Lightroom Tuesdays!
@Sven, you’ve just beaten me to the punch. I have an update ready to publish that backs up presets etc. I just need to update the web page content (inc screenshots) to align with the change in functionality. Hoping to get it up on the site tonight.
Oh, too bad.
I was hoping this would do this.
BTW, I worked on the lightroom team and one of my pushes for 2.0 was to overhaul the backup – obviously it didn’t make it as other things took priority.
Hope they get to it this time…
Config Backup Plugin Updated… To Backup More Configuration Settings (Version 20090606.002) | The Photo Geek - June 13th, 2009
[...] recently released Config Backup plugin helps you backup your Lightroom configuration files and compress Lightroom generated catalog [...]
@Sven, the updated plugin is now referenced above and it backs up presets and other configuration details.
The Quick Way to Reclaim Disk Space and Backup Your Lightroom Configuration | The Photo Geek - June 13th, 2009
[...] Newer version(s) of this plugin are now available. Please visit the Config Backup plugin page to download the latest [...]
@Wade, there are no hooks provided by the SDK to trigger backups from a plugin, and to backup the database while open would be dangerous. The only other mechanisms available would be frowned upon by your former colleagues e.g. modifying the prefs file directly to trick the Lightroom backup mechanism to run at the next restart.
Will be interesting to see what they do with backups during LR3. I’m half hoping they borrow ideas or code from this plugin because they can take them further given they aren’t hampered by the limitations of the SDK.
I figured as much. I hope they get to an on demand backup – I’ll sit while they close and back it up. No sweat.
Of course, I’m out of the loop now
Thank you! This is very useful and will save me a ton of disk space.
I’ll make a post about it on my blog and reference your blog. There’s a lot more information here I have not read yet.
Have you found any utility to the Lightroom “test integrity of this catalog” option when backing up? Does it do anything useful? Does it repair the catalog if it finds errors?
Thanks again from Bangkok, Thailand.
@Ian, glad you find it useful.
I use the “test integrity” option but haven’t looked too deeply into how it works. When making backups you should verify their integrity before relying upon them. I expect this option makes sure it is still a valid sqlite3 database and might do some LR specific checks to confirm the structure looks OK. I’d be surprised if it repairs issues. Relaunch and Optimise is more likely to tackle that requirement, and it takes a fair amount of time to run.
Zálohovanie Lightroom: Config Backup Plugin | Digital Lightroom | adobe, adobe lightroom, lightroom templates, lightroom tutorials, lightroom presets, lightroom download - June 21st, 2009
[...] Photo Geek z rovnomenného blogu je autorom šikovného pluginu pre Photoshop Lightroom, ktorý zabezpečí zálohovanie nastavení tohto programu. Zálohujú sa teda všetky presets, šablóny pre úpravu, tlač a export fotografií, zoznamy kľúčových slov, šablóny webových galérií. Dobrá správa – plugin pre Lightroom je k dispozícii zadarmo. [...]
Lightroom Database Backups « Bkkphotographer's Blog - July 4th, 2009
[...] Config Backup Plugin | The Photo Geek. I quote from the web site: The Config Backup plugin helps speed up and simplify backing up and compressing Lightroom files. It adds two new menu items to the File menu’s Plug-in Extras sub-menu. [...]
A boa da semana - 27 de junho a 4 de julho | Cento e Uma - July 5th, 2009
[...] Plugin para backup no Photoshop Lightroom. O tutorial é em inglês, mas tem figuras! lol [...]
I suppose that backups are not platform interchangeable. From Lightroom on OS X to Lightroom on Vista for instance. Am I correct here?
I guess Lightroom on Vista has no clue what a .plist file is …
Thank you for any clarification!
Thomas
@Thomas, Correct the preferences file backup won’t be interchangeable between platforms. It looks like the .plist preference files are a Mac platform specific feature. I expect it would be difficult to build a translator between the two, and Adobe would be unlikely to support you if you were running Lightroom over a converted preference file. As it is one of the possible resolutions suggested for problems is “delete your preferences file”…
The rest of the backup (presets, etc) should be interchangeable but you will need to unpack the zip in a temporary location, then carefully move the unzipped backup’s content into the correct location for that platform, directory by directory. Preference file directory structure varies across platforms.
All I get are “Error: Failed to create backup (return=1)” results for both backup and compress attempts. I’ve “browsed” to ID valid directories for each, and there’s plenty of disk space. Any suggestions?
Lightroom Brasil » Backup Plug-in: Presets e afins. - July 8th, 2009
[...] nisto, o pessoal da The Photo Geek criou este plugin, muito simples e de grande ultilidade. Vale a pena seu [...]
@TW, what OS are you running this under? I’d assume this is a configuration problem but sounds strange because that return code implies a successful backup file test (with some warnings). Did you check whether the backup file was, in fact, created? If it was created could you open it OK using your normal zip application?
Using WinXp SP3, LR works fine, as do all other plugins. No, no backup files have been created, and box on your plugin’s screen is empty when the error message appears (in red type). Any ideas?
@TW, I’ve sent you an email requesting certain info. I’ll look into this offline as this might be a bit difficult to debug via blog comments.
Does Config Backup work with LR 64bit on Vista 64bit?
Seeing some strange behavior. Had a directory of 58 backups done by LR, after compression I have two compressed files.
The config backup directory is another issue. I create one or not but when plug-in runs there is one that is set with an unknown owner, and I can’t access it, but gets deleted along with contents if there were any when LR is exited.
Cliff
Inside Lightroom » Blog Archive » Monday Plug-in roundup - July 13th, 2009
[...] a reminder from Lightroom Killer Tips about The Photo Geek’s Catalog and Preset Backup [...]
@Cliff, I’m pretty sure Sean (one of the first users of the plugin) is using 64bit Vista because we originally thought one of his issues related to that. Its working OK for him so I believe it should work OK on Vista 64 bit.
The issues you are describing haven’t been reported before. Out of curiosity are you using LR2.4? There have been some reports of issues with plugins installed using this version. Can you please try uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin to see if that helps? I know it sounds trite but it really did help one of my colleagues when plugins misbehaved soon after installation.
UPDATE: It has been confirmed that some Config Backup users are successfully backing up with 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Lightroom (2.3). Will keep looking into the issue though.
Lightroom Config Backup Plugin « Very Moving… - July 14th, 2009
[...] Config Backup Plugin | The Photo Geek. [...]
@Cliff, Just confirming the results of our testing. The plugin functions properly on Vista and Lightroom 64 bit. I will be improving directory validation in the dialog, to prevent users from setting the compressed directory to be a child of the directory being backed up. Also will be adding some “plain English” error codes so users can now what the zip program was complaining about.
Hello,
Fisrt of all THANKS for your great plugin.
I have a question “How can I change the config base directory, as my \Adobe\Lightroom is not on C:???”
Thanks for your help read you soon
Greatings from Switzerland
Phil
@Philippe, The plugin asks Lightroom where its configuration base directory is so there shouldn’t be a need to configure this. Lightroom should know where it is reading its configuration from. Are you saying this isn’t working on your system? Are you storing your presets with your catalog or using the default setting (storing presets centrally)?
Lightroom 2.5 BSOD « Bkkphotographer's Blog - December 6th, 2009
[...] had a backup of the file in a ZIP archive stored by my Config Backup plugin (http://www.thephotogeek.com/lightroom/config-backup/). I restored that file and everything was back to normal. It seems that Jeff Friedl stores plugin [...]
Wordpress Blog Services - Lightroom 2.5 BSOD - December 7th, 2009
[...] had a backup of the file in a ZIP archive stored by my Config Backup plugin (http://www.thephotogeek.com/lightroom/config-backup/). I restored that file and everything was back to normal. It seems that Jeff Friedl stores plugin [...]
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