LR previews.lrdata folders

I understand the LRCAT is the main file for a catalog. In LR4, the program is generating a preview.lrdata folder containing thousands of new folders and taking up a lot of hard drive space and a lot of time when syncing drives.
If I delete all of the preview files and folders and reopen the catalog, LR immediately starts generating these folders again.
Do I have something checked (like full size previews) that is causing LR to make all of these folders? I don't remember seeing this in LR3. I've looked around in the prefs and catalog settings for a check box.
Maybe it has something to with the preview size I have selected? I had Catalog Settingst at 1440/Medium/Discard 1:1 after one day. I just set it to 1024/Low/Discard 1:1 after one day.
My main catalog has 170,000 files now and the LRCAT file is roughly 2.63 gigs.
I am using Alwaysync to sync drives on a PC in Windows 7. Having all the folders is requiring extra time to analyze.
Thanks in advance,
M Jackson

Hi,
I'm about to set the same way you do - sync LR catalog on my PC with my NAS server and then with my notebook using AlwaysSync and it works.
You can use exclusion rules --> Job - Properties - your rule - Inclusion and Exclusion filter
beside inclusion rules I have these exclusion onces
\LR Catalogs\*\*Previews.lrdata ... Folders only
\LR Catalogs\*\*.lrcat.lock .... Files only
\LR Catalogs\*\*.lrcat-journal .... Files only
Notice I have one catalog per year and my folder structure for catalog 2013 is
...\Library\2013 - for images (with subfolders)
...\Library\LR Catalogs\2013 ... for catalog

Similar Messages

Catalog Previews.lrdata folders

I see that in the previews.lrdata folder, there are several folders, each containing about a thousands empty folders. What are all of these folders? Are they really empty, or is it stuff that Windows just will not show. I have "show hidden folders" turned on.

Those folders are where Lightroom keeps it previews. It generates the previews when you import photos or later e.g when you go to Develop;
Are the folders empty? That probably means that they contained full-sized previews that now are empty because the full-sized previews were discarded (as chosen by you on the "File Handling" tab of the Catalog Settings Window.)
If these folders really are empty, then you could delete them, if you are worried about clutter.
I know that Lr will regenerate any missing folders in the previews.lrdata folder, whether it reuses empty ones I do not know.
Even if you delete the complete .lrdata folder Lr will regenerate, but it can take a long time for a large number of images.

How do I consolidate Previews.lrdata files and folders?

After having succesfully consolidated multiple catalogs, how do I consolidate the different Previews.lrdata folders/files?
I have combined many catalogs into one "MasterCatalog" database but still have a dozen previews.lrdata folders spread over multiple hard drives.
How or should I combine them into one larger folder all on the same drive?

The previews for "MasterCatalog" are correct, and are a combination of all of the individual previews that existed previously.
The only thing you can do with the previews from other catalogs is delete them via your operating system, which shouldn't be a problem.

Lightroom 2 Catalog Previews.lrdata?

I am running into space problems on my C drive (hard to imagine, but I my computer was configured before LR and iTunes). I have moved the iTunes music to another drive, but still need to free up space. LR is using over 3GB in the following location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog Previews.lrdata
Under it are folders 0 through 9 and A through F (plus a file called thumbnail-cache.db). These in turn have their own subfolders. Can I remove the whole C:\Documents and Settings\DandJ\My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog Previews.lrdata structure? Do I need to change a preference to have this preview stuff go to a different drive in the future? My 'Camera Raw Cache Settings' is now pointing to a different drive, but this doesn't seem to be the same thing.
I would LOVE to have that 3GB+ free for other things (like defragging without having to move stuff back and forth)!
Thanks.

You can move your Lightroom catalogue and the previews to a different drive. The previews always must be in the same folder that the catalogue lives in. After you move them, simply double-click on the moved catalogue file to open it, and away you go.
Hal

Whatever happened to previews.db in Lightroom 5 Catalog Previews.lrdata?

In earlier versions of Lightroom, there used to be a file called previews.db inside a directory called "Lightroom 5 Catalog Previews.lrdata" , but in Lightroom 5.7, I see that "Lightroom 5 Catalog Previews.lrdata" has become a file (no longer a directory) and there is no previews.db. I had a plugin that needed to read previews.db in order to generate thumbnails. Now I don't know what to do. (Rob Cole, you wrote the function that did this, and it worked great while there was a previews.db -- perhaps you know what is up.) If anyone can point me to where a file similar to previews.db can be found (it has to be parseable by sqlite), that would be very helpful. Thanks!

I don't use a Mac, so cannot answer definitively, but perhaps this folder was compressed either via selecting some option on the folder, itself, or by running some maintenance function that automatically compressed folders that were deemed as wasting space. I would think you'd want this to be an compressed folder so as not to use up an inorfinate amount of time to work with the previews contained inside. Can you make an uncompressed copy and then rename the compressed original as something else and rename the copy to the correct folder name?
Here is some info on compressed folders on Macs I found by Googling:
OS X Mavericks: Compress and uncompress files and folders

Very Large Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata File

My Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata file is very large, about 12GB; Is this because of my preview settings? I only have about 10,000 photos in my Lightroom catalog and I'm concerned as to how large this file will get as my catalog grows.

I have 129,980 in my lightroom catalog. The photos go back to January 2000 and are only about 350GB but this previews file is over 116GB. This seems excessive.
Is the alternative to simply take a moment to build previews when I go to a folder? Most of my folders are pretty small.

How do I separate the Catalog and the Previews.lrdata folder?

I have my catalog stored on a data drive that is backed up regularly. The Previews.lrdata folder is now located alongside with the Catalog.lrcat file. But since the Previews.lrcat folder is automatically generated and only contains previews of the photos, I don't want to backup this huge folder. I would like to store my preview.lrdata on a fast harddisk that I don't need to backup, and leave my catalog on my data drive.
Does anyone know the trick how to do this?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Hans,
I also wish one could specify the location where to store the previews on a catalog basis (as it is on a global basis for the ACR cache). I save my drives on a regular basis with an older version of Norton Ghost, which I'm very happy with. But, I cannot exclude files/folders from backups, so I'm stuck saving the previews regularely as well.
Beat Gossweiler
Switzerland

Catalog Preview copy folders?

All,
Quick question. I have two folders in the Lightroom subfolder of the Pictures folder on my Macbook Pro. They are:
Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.copy.1680lrdata
Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.copy.1440lrdata
as well as the standard Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata
Are those two copy files needed? Not sure how I might have created them. Thanks.
Jay S.

Ian Lyons wrote:
The folders are 100% not of Lr's making. On Mac platform Lr creates a package (lrdata) containing 2 files and 16 top levels folders (1,2,3,.....D,E,F). Each of these folders will contain multiple folder, and within these you will find the actual preview pyramid file for each image. If the image has a VC associated with it will be located beside the master. Each pyramid preview for a real file or VC contains multiple JPEG previews of various sizes (1024, 1400, 1680, 2048...). You need a special application to open the preview file as it is not a conventional JPEG (i.e. drop the preview file onto an app called File Juicer and it will extract all of the embedded previews).
http://echoone.com/filejuicer/
Ian,
Thanks for the link.. I'll look it up.. O.K., so the gaunlet is down. LOL .. I'm positive I didn't create those.. Again, when I was switching within the LR prefernces to different sizes for testing performance on rendering (1440 or 1680) that was the only place I was doing something. If not out of LR, I'm not sure where. It's odd that the two folder mirror the two sizes (by name) I was playing around with. I'm not at my Mac now so I can't test anything. They almost seem like programmed names though.
Again thanks for the filejuicer link.
Jay S.

Size of Lightroom Previews.lrdata and upgrading to 1.1

Hi
Thinking about taking the plunge for upgrading to 1.1, but only have just over 8Gb free disk space. Given the upgrade to 1.1 will be rebuilding the database it's going to need the existing space of the databases and then some. The current database size is about 110Mb, but the Lightroom Previews.lrdata is using over 10Gb of space.
A couple of questions, does anyone know if the upgrade uses the existing Lightroom Preivews.lrdata or whether this is upgraded as well (implying I'd need well over 10Gb of free space before attempting the upgrade).
Secondly, is it safe to delete Lightroom Previews.lrdata - will Lightroom re-create and re-populate the previews (I previously had the preview sizes would up higher than I probably should - and whilst I can discard the 1:1 previews, how do you get the remaining previews to be discarded or re-built at a lower resolution?).
For this issue, I'm on a Mac.
Thanks
Greg

1.1 uses the same preview cache as 1.0. The only rebuild is some shuffling of data in the main database.
Mark

Catalog Previews.lrdata Size - LR 3 vs LR 4

Just downloaded Lightroom 4 and have been using it for a couple of weeks adding 100 images to my catalog. Wondering why my previews.lrdata file in LR3 was 25MG and in LR4 is now 38GB.

My initial reaction was that Lr4 added some previews to support the added images, but it's possible Lr4 is not reusing or recycling previous Lr3 previews.
I recommend deleting all files in the lrdata folder and recreate all previews - "can't" hurt and might help... (you may need to run that overnight if you have lots of photos in your catalog).
Cheers,
Rob

X.lrdata vs. x.Previews.lrdata

Hello all - I am in the process of upgrading to LR3. So far it is awesome!! I have what I hope is a quick question and I suspect I know the answer. When I upgraded I also gave the converted catalog a new name. After upgrading to LR3 I see
1) "Raimist LR3 Catalog Previews.lrdata" == LR Upgraded Previews from LR2 with the new catalog name.
2) "Raimist One Catalog Previews.lrdata" == LR2 Previews from upgraded LR1; I will remove once I am confident in LR3
3) "Raimist One Catalog.lrdata" == I assume that this is the previews from LR1 and that they changed the name to include "PREVIEWS" beginning with LR2.
Is this correct? I have attached a screen shot as well. What is the the lrdata vs. previews.lrdata ?
Thanks in advance, David

lrcat = catalog and lrdata = previews
Including Previews in name began with Lr2

Lr 5.6 error message that reading preview cache failed and will correct when reopened; does not correct on reopening; removing preview.lrdata files allows LR to open but photos not shown; what action should I take next?

Lr 5.6 error message that reading preview cache failed and will correct when reopened; does not correct on reopening; removing preview.lrdata files allows LR to open but photos not shown; what action should I take next?

Yikesyou have helped me before and I thank you for that. Funny how at the last resort I ask a question and then an hour later I fix something that has been broken for five days. I got off on the wrong foot with Lightroom installation and I really stepped in it...a lot had to do with a bad hard drive and all that. I still have remnants of catalogues etc so I am never quite sure where I am. I ran a search and found more than one .lrdata files. I finally got the right one to delete and I think I am okI'll be crying to you again if I am wrongall best, thanks again for your helpjim sterne

Can't reduce previews.lrdata size

Hi all,
My Previews.lrdata folder is 45 GB. On a 500 GB SSD (late 2013 15" retina MacBook Pro), this is a reasonable chunk.
So I've gone through and used the "discard 1:1 previews..." menu item on all photos that I don't expect to edit again. Somewhat to my surprise, the Previews.lrdata folder has not changed in file size by 1 byte. I've used the "optimise catalog" option, but that didn't seem to do anything either.
I'd prefer not to flush the entire preview cache by deleting Previews.lrdata, as for recent photos that I haven't edited yet I appreciate having the 1:1 previews pre-rendered.
Am I expecting too much here? Should there not be a relationship between me discarding 1:1 previews and a reduction in the Previews.lrdata folder size?
Thanks,
Nick

ntompson wrote:
So if I reduce the size of the standard preview to below screen resolution, then Lightroom just uses (down-scales) the 1:1 preview...
That is correct.
ntompson wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to this?
No - your standard previews were set too high before.
ntompson wrote:
why have a standard preview at all?
For performance reasons - faster to grab/resize a smaller preview if it will do.
ntompson wrote:
Would I better off be setting the standard preview to the smallest possible size?
No. If you do that, then Lr will re-render a 1:1 preview for fit view, even if a standard preview was already available (since it would be too small). Granted, if the 1:1 preview was already available, it wouldn't need to re-render it, but if you're expiring them, it might not be available, and even so, it takes longer to load/resize a larger preview than a smaller one.
ntompson wrote:
when I make the standard preview size change in Lightroom, does it then invalidate all of the standard previews in my catalogue? Does it have to crank through and regenerate all the standard previews at the new size?
No, and no (but in my opinion, user should be prompted for whether he/she would like to rebuild when size or quality changes).
In many cases, the difference in having too small a setting or too large a setting, will be almost (or completely) inconsequential. To be honest, I'm surprised Adobe exposed this option to the user, since most users don't have a clue what an optimal setting should be. If I were Adobe, I'd assume Lr/main-UI was gonna be on the biggest monitor, and automatically size previews accordingly. Often when I mention this, people point out that the same catalog might also be used on a laptop, at which point previews would no longer be optimal, and there are other dual-monitor considerations.., but hey - whatever...
PS - Lightroom creates (up to) 7 different preview sizes: from 1:1 to tiny thumb. When it creates a big preview (1:1 or standard), it creates all smaller previews too, by halfening the size. Such is very fast, and no doubt accounts for the reason it won't discard 1:1 if next one down (standard) would be greater than half it's size (it's actually only creating 6 previews in that case - 1:1 through thumb, there is no big standard preview of the size you specified in that case , or if you prefer another way of looking at it: the 1:1 preview is your largest standard preview ).
If you want to better understand what's stored for previews, you can play with the PreviewExporter plugin I wrote (free) - it allows you to specify which level (1-7) preview you want to export, and if you enable verbose logging it will provide info about what was available, and which level of preview was exported. Here is an excerpt from "post-process action" (export-filter) UI:
Cheers,
Rob

My Pictures "not responding" - what is the purpose of the lr Previews.lrdata

I find that I cannot open "My Pictues" with Windows Explorer (Windows XP) - it sits there and finally indicates "not responding."
What I found is that if I move the Lightroom folder with the catalog and Previews out of "My Pictures" then the My Pictues folder will open very quickly.
I moved the Lightroom folder back into My Pictures but tired various combinations of the content (first with both the catalog and previews in, then just the catalog, just the previews, etc.) and found that for some reason it appears that the Previews folder is the one that is causing the "not responding" issue.
I have deleted the entire Lightroom folder and rebuilt the default catalog & previews data. Same issue occurs.
It could be a corrupted image file, but once I move the Lightroom folder out of My Pictures, I can open each image (and the folder) just fine.
I understand what the purpose is of the Catalog but what does the Previews folder do?
This is Lightroom 3.4.1 with Windows XP SP3.
Thanks

Just a guess, but easy enough to try is turning off thumbnail caching:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/prevent-windows-xp-from-creating-the-thumbsdb-thumb nail-cache-files/
If you have a large number of pictures added since your last visit to the 'Pictures' folder in Windows Explorer it will try to create thumbnail images for all of them, including the LR preview files. If you are running on an older (i.e. slow) system it could take a long time to build them.
I also suggest changing your default folder view setting for 'All Folders' to 'Details:'
http://www.xp-tips.com/all-folders-view.html
If still no joy try turning off Windows XP Indexing Service:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/turn-off-and-disable-search-indexing-service-in-windows-xp/

Is it safe to delete preview files/folders?

I noticed I have 30gb or more of folders in a folder called preview files. These seem to be the product of rendering and look like a waste of space - what happens if i delete the whole lot for projects i no longer work on? would removing these and the CFA and PEAK files damage the ability to work on the file at a later stage? I could use the extra space!
j

First of all, there is a difference between preview files and Media Cache files.
Preview files are those, which are created when you render the timeline. By default they are .mpeg and .xmp. If you delete them via Sequence -> Delete Render Files, .mpeg files, which represent the current state of your timeline, will be deleted, whereas the rest .mpeg files, which represent older state of your timeline, and all .xmp ones remain.
If you delete them manually, i.e. without going to Sequence -> Delete Render Files, you will be asked about some missing media on that project re-launch.
Media Cache files, some of which are .pek and .cfa, are created when you import assets into a project. You can check the Media Cache files location via Preferences -> Media.
Deleting all files from both Media Cache and Media Cache Files folders is safe: PrPro will rebuild Media Cache Database from scratch on restart. Moreover, deleting all files from both Media Cache and Media Cache Files manually sometimes helps fixing Dynamic Link or Importer Generic Error issues.

LR previews.lrdata folders

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