Quick and easy way to back up Lightroom
Backups are important. Its frustrating to lose important data, and even more so to realise you could have prevented it with a little effort creating and maintaining a backup regime. Unfortunately this is a lesson most people won’t learn until its too late and they are staring at a non-booting computer wondering what to do next.
Those who do backup their systems might not be capturing everything they want to restore in the event of a failure. Most Lightroom users who do backup would backup their photo files but not all will remember to backup their Lightroom catalogs, which contain all of the develop adjustments they have spent hours making while turning snapshots into masterpieces. Fewer still will remember to backup those templates and presets they have spent time collecting and creating, and the other program settings they have tweaked to their liking and help them efficiently execute their digital workflow.
The recent major update of my TPG LR Backup plugin (formerly Config Backup) can help make the backup of your catalog and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom configuration files painless, so you can work safe in the knowledge that your data is being safeguarded in case disaster strikes.
How I backup Lightroom
To backup my photos and Lightroom I use the following approach. Your needs and environment may be a little different from mine so please treat this as a guide only and adjust the processes to suit your individual needs.
Pre-requisites
Before backing up Lightroom I use SyncBackSE to copy all image files to a separate system. I’m not going to detail this aspect of my configuration because you can easily fill a book on this topic (and Peter Krogh already has – the highly recommended The DAM Book
Lightroom 2 and above includes a catalog backup feature. I switch this on using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item and set it to backup my catalog weekly. This ensures every time I start up (Lightroom 2) or shutdown (Lightroom 3) Lightroom checks whether it should create a new backup of the current catalog. 
Plugin Configuration
Once I’ve enabled Lightroom catalog backups I then use features from my TPG LR Backup plugin to build upon this base level of protection. Installation instructions for the plugin are linked from the plugin’s home page so I won’t repeat them here. Please note the remainder of this post assumes you have registered the plugin to enable the automatic backup functionality.
Open the File –> Plug-In Extras –> Configure Automatic Backups menu item to show the following dialog:
The From folder needs to match the folder where you configured Lightroom to write its catalog backups. The To folders indicate where you want the configuration and compressed catalog backups to be written. These can point to different locations but I prefer to write both types of backups to a single Lightroom backup folder.
| TIP: If you use more than one Lightroom catalog consider using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item to configure all of your catalogs to write their backups to the same folder. This will allow the plugin to compress all of your catalog backups regardless of which catalog you have open when you start Lightroom. |
I set the configuration to be backed up once per week, and the catalog backups (created by Lightroom’s inbuilt backup feature) to be compressed whenever they are found. The latter is particularly important because catalog backup files can be quite large and can quickly overrun your disk space. Compressing the backup files typically results in an ~90% size reduction so you can afford to keep more backups than you would otherwise.
It is recommended that your configuration and compressed catalog backups be stored on a separate hard drive from your Lightroom catalog and configuration files. Doing so will help increase your chances of recovering from a disaster. If your hard drive fails, backups will do you no good if both they and your Lightroom catalogs are stored on the failed drive.
Once you have configured your automatic backups press OK to save the settings, and it is best to restart Lightroom as soon as possible to test that everything works as expected. If this is the first time you have enabled automatic backups they will also run at next startup (regardless of the selected backup timing) to confirm you have configured your backups correctly.
Plugin Operation
If you are a Lightroom 3 user and have just setup catalog backups then you should see the following dialog when you exit Lightroom. Make sure the backup folder matches the folder configured for your automatic backups then select the Backup button. Lightroom will then take a few moments to copy your catalog and add it to the selected folder.
If you’ve used the settings suggested in the previous section then next time Lightroom starts you should see the following appear at the top of your Lightroom workspace. You may need to open the top panel of the Library module to see it. This progress bar lets you know that TPG LR Backup plugin is executing your backups in the background while you continue working on your images. Once this step has completed you will have a new zip file in your backup folder for each type of backup that was scheduled to run.
If you ever want to know when your last backup occurred just open up either of the plugin’s menu items and you will be able to see the most recent backup events at the bottom of the dialog.
Feedback
I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to setup your own Lightroom backups. Please let me know via the comments if there is anything other part of my backup regime you would like me to expand upon.
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In: Howto, Software · Tagged with: backup, configuration, lightroom, plugin, workflow
Great article! I will try out the TPG LR Backup plugin.
Personally i configured Lightroom to back up my catalog using the built-in feature every time on exit. This way i can always decide if i want the backup to happen and just hit yes or no. I wish there was an option to automatically delete old backups leaving only 3 most recent.
In addition i do periodic incremental backups of the catalog (and of all the image files). For this process i rotate two external hard drives on weekly basis (the one which is not currently used is stored in a safe remote location).
@Tom, Thanks!
That approach will work too. I didn’t mention it but I also use SyncBackSE to backup my catalog (and other changing data) every day so I don’t need Lightroom’s catalog backup to be more regular than weekly. I then keep these “snapshots over time” for a while so if I have some subtle catalog corruption I have weeks (if not months) worth of catalog backups to help me recover.
And rest assured an “automatically delete old backups” feature will be coming to LR Backup!
I’m impressed you have the offsite backup happening. I’ve been meaning to but have had difficulties sticking with it. A couple of HDDs being swapped between work and home should be easy enough but the habit hasn’t quite stuck yet.
@Matt:
I am looking forward to the “automatically delete old backups” feature in LR Backup 🙂
An alternative to SyncBackSE may be Allway Sync – works really nice on a PC.
@Tom, Thanks for the Allway Sync suggestion. I’ve been using SyncBackSE on my PCs for at least 5 years now and am unlikely to be changing, but it will help others who have yet to commit to a syncing product.
Thanks so much for the blog post which spurred me on to get my house in order. Your plug-in works a charm….
@Julie, Thanks! I’ve been meaning to post this for a little while so its great to know people are finding it useful.
Great article Matt – I came over to get a copy of TPG LR Backup to use for an article I am preping on backing up Lightroom and saw that you just posted this!
My backup process is similar to yours, although I have not been using your plug-in to backup other LR stuff – my process is too awkward to write about, so finally going to use your plug-in!
I have all photo files and catalogs in 3 places (2 local, 1 offsite using rotating HDDs in caddy trays). I also back-up the catalog, presets etc to a cloud service as part of my ‘other data’ backup routine.
@Mark, Thanks! I haven’t been rigorous enough with my offsite backup regime but am working on it. Multiple local copies are definitely in action though. Cloud services only for config at this point in time – still having trouble mentally adjusting to keeping 1/2TB or more of data up there. If nothing else the restore times would be painful.
I’m also planning to put together a restore article sometime soon. My PC was kind enough to oblige and develop a faulty disk, so after a replacement and restore to factory settings I have the perfect opportunity to try out the backups in anger!
Hi Matt
I have read with great interest your explanations about your plug-in. I am not sure if I understand all correctly. Is the catalog configuration file the same I set in preferences e.g. where my cache drive is? I am new to LR and I have decided to put all my photos and the LR catalog + backup + cache on an external drive because then I can work at home on my desktop and when I am not at home I can work on my MacBookPro. But as I was informed I have to take care, that the preferences are set the same way on both computers. Therefore your plug-in would be a great help to me, if I could store also the preferences on the ext. drive. Then I would have always all with me and I could use SuperDuper to make backups of the whole drive.
@Enrico, The setup you are proposing sounds feasible. Preferences are typically stored somewhere different from the catalog file/backups but you can setup the plugin to backup both into the same location, and in your case the external drive. It would be worthwhile backing up that external drive though as having your catalog backups on the same external drive as the catalog is a risky backup strategy. Might be better off setting the plugin based backups to go to the local drive and SuperDuper those backups onto the external drive, though you would also need to SuperDuper the image files off the external drive in case of damage/theft/etc.
Hi Matt
Could you please describe in detail how you would restore LR preferences etc. from the backup you made with your plugin? I hope this question is not to stupid.
Thank you in advance.
@Enrico, That is not a stupid question at all! But it is something that I can’t describe in detail in a comment and will need a post of its own, which is something I’ve been meaning to write up. The short version is that you pick an empty directory on your HDD, unzip the backup there, then manually restore the portions of the backup that you need restored. e.g. if your preferences are corrupted, unzip the config backup file in some empty directory then copy or move the preferences file in that directory back over your main preferences file, after making sure that you have no Lightroom instances running. Restoring a backup should always be a carefully considered action and you should restore just enough of your old config to resolve the problem you are experiencing. e.g. if you only backup your config once a month and you have a preference corruption issue, just restore the preference file itself or you risk overwriting some of the unrelated (and perfectly operational) configuration changes you have made, such as tweaks to your develop presets.
Hi Matt
Thank you very much for your very helpful and elaborate answers. I assumed, that it could be very complicated to restore the preferences, than I hope it would be. I think the probably easier and better strategy therefore could be to do bootable SuperDuper copies of my OSX system drive, all programs and therefore also the preferences of LR included and SuperDuper backups of the ext. drive with the photos and the LR catalog. If I will copy a corrupt preference, I will have to reset it manually – but if I understood you right, I would also, when using your plugin.
Anyway, the fact, that the LR catalog get compressed to a very small size seems to me to be worth to test this plugin.
Best regards and thank you again
Enrico
Hi Matt, This is probably going to sound very stupid, but I’m confused by what files/catalogs I need to keep forever. My LR2 is setup to do catalog backups each time LR is run. This goes on to my external F drive and they are auto named by date and time. Since each of these get progressively larger in size, do I only need to keep the most recent ones? Opening the folder I see the catalog.ircat. Can I free up a lot of space on my drive by deleting the earlier ones?
Also, are these the same as what Adobe calls a “database” file? If so, at http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405365.html they say not to delete database files? Further confusion….
Thanks for any help you can give,
Reny
@Reny, Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. The duration you need to keep backups is a very personal decision. You can find a detailed discussion on this and other aspects of digital asset management at http://dpbestflow.org . You don’t need to keep these forever but keeping some older files (from months or even weeks ago) is a good idea in case you ever need to restore after some subtle and long running problem you weren’t aware of. The plugin referred to in this post helps you easily compress (zip) your old backups which can reduce their size by up to 90% so you can keep backups for longer. And yes your catalog is the database referred to in that kb article, but they are referring to your active catalog not your backups of that catalog.
Matt, Thanks again for your great plugins. I really find Snapshotter extremely useful! Now I have another of your plugins I never want to be without.
P.S. – Have you considered the enhancement of Snapshotter? In a reply to a previous comment I made praising it you said “Having naming presets is a feature I want to add but have a few other plugin development tasks I’m trying to complete first.”
It’s a great idea and one I would really appreciate. It would promote consistency in naming the snapshots and help keep workflow clean…. Please?
@Bud, glad you are finding another one of our plugins useful.
The Snapshotter feature is still planned. Life, work and my first Publish Service are still delaying its implementation though. Sorry for the delay.
I donated $11.11, I hope that was not too little, tho I did get the unlock code. I found your app from the Lightroom Queen book. My question is if I backup my images, and your plug-ins folder will I have everything to set up shop on a new pc? Are there any other little hidden files lurking somewhere? Dale.
@Dale, Thanks for the support (and I’ll have to thank Victoria too!)! It’s a donation plugin so its up to you to determine what value you think is appropriate.
If you move the images across, the configuration file backups created by the plugin, your plugins themselves (you probably store them somewhere where the plugin won’t be aware of them) and your catalog you should be OK. You could rely upon the catalog backup if you are confident it is recent enough and you haven’t made any additional changes, but it is probably better to take across the catalog itself as you can control the timing better that way. There shouldn’t be any other hidden configuration files. The only thing to be aware of is that if you store your presets with the catalog (its a setting you need to explicitly enable) then you need to make sure they come across with your catalog as well.
I swapped my hdd for a sdd, and I seem to have gotten all my Lightroom pictures big into their old catalog order. Whew. Not all the plug-ins came across, SmugMug and TPG LR. I got the SmugMug going easily, but TPG LR was a chore. thank you for making it easy to get the serial number. NOW, how do I know if all my preferences are restored? Your plug-in is running. Do I locate the backups from the backups and open the most recent?
@Dale, SSD is a good move. Particularly if you store your Lightroom catalog on it.
Unzip your latest Lightroom Configuration backup zip file and it should contain a Lightroom directory (and more). That Lightroom directory can be copied over the top of your Lightroom configuration directory on your rebuilt system. That will restore all of your old preferences, presets, etc. On my Win 7 x64 bit system My Lightroom directory is found at %APPDATA%\Adobe\Lightroom . FYI that path will be understood by Explorer, the File open dialog, etc even though it looks a little odd. On Mac the directory is a bit different. Can explain further if required.
I can’t seem to see if there is any restore function? Do you have to manually go copy back any files to need to restore?
Thanx
@Grant, There isn’t a restore function built into the plugin. For one thing it is safest not to have Lightroom open when you are performing the restore depending upon which files you are restoring. For another, you should restore as few files as you need if you are only doing a partial restore which would be hard to manage from within a plugin.
Best approach is to unzip the backup to a working area then copy/move the necessary files to the folder. If you are restoring a catalog backup this is fairly simple. If you are doing a configuration backup this is more complex. For the configuration backup folders you should be restoring to vary by operating system so you will need to verify the appropriate details in the user guide.
Please excuse the newbie question…If I am backing up the file at computer>os?users>stacey>AppData>Roaming>Adobe>Lightroom , does that have all the LR configuration data I need to restore other than backing up the catalog itself? Are there more files scattered around that I am missing that your software would help me to back up? Thank You!!
@Stacey, There are some additional places that need to be backed up to capture the remainder of your Lightroom configuration. These additional locations are described here. As mentioned you also need to backup your catalog, as well as your image files.
Thank you, Matt. It will be great to have that all done automatically.