How to Delete a Lightroom Catalog and Start Over

Even if your Catalog consists of images and previews you no longer use, sometimes it is better to discard them and start afresh. I will walk through how to delete a Lightroom catalog and start over so you can have a mess-free real estate photography workflow.

How to Delete a Lightroom Catalog and Start Over

To delete Lightroom catalogs, open your desired catalog, Edit/Lightroom Classic, and then click Catalog Settings. Click on the Show Button from the General Tab to reveal the catalog. Next, right-click on the LRCAT file, then select Move to Trash to delete the catalog before creating a new one.

Deleting the catalog only means the previews and edit settings you make in Lightroom get deleted. Follow the steps below to delete your old catalog and enjoy a revived workflow in Lightroom.

Step 1: Locate the Catalog

The first thing you need to do is to navigate to the folder on your computer where your catalog is saved.

1. Open Adobe Lightroom Classic CC.
2. If you use Windows, go up to the Edit menu. Mac users will need to navigate to the Lightroom menu.
3. From the drop-down, select Catalog Settings.
4. From the dialog box, go to the General tab.
5. Look for the location of your catalog's file path.
6. Click on the Show button. It will open the explorer/finder window showing your catalog folder and files.
7. Besides your catalog, the backups folder and cache for Previews and Smart Previews are also stored in this location.

Step 2: Delete Catalog Files and Backups

Once you locate the folder containing your catalog, you can get access to the catalog files. You can delete the unwanted ones. 

1. Make sure you quit Lightroom first, as it won't allow you to mess with these files if it’s open. 
2. You will find the backups folder in the same folder containing your catalog. If your catalog is big, so will your backup folder. Lightroom keeps backing up everything according to a set frequency. 
3. Over time, backups pile up, occupying the disk space. You can go on to delete the outdated backups. This will free up space on your disk, which could be used for other purposes.

Step 3: Choose Which Backups to Keep

I recommend backing up everything in software to keep your data safe. Depending upon your choice, if any of these backups are helpful, you should keep them. 

However, in most cases, getting rid of backups is safe if you are deleting a catalog that is not used anymore.

While manually scrolling through the backup files, you may encounter corrupted ones. You can trash them as they are lying there, occupying valuable space without use.

Step 4: Delete Previews and Smart Previews

As you delete the Lightroom Catalog, it is an excellent time to purge those previews that keep piling up on your disk. 

Deleting the previews doesn't mean anything bad. It will just clean up the file containing previews and generate new ones when you relaunch Lightroom. 

1. Delete the previews by deleting the Previews.lrdata files present in the catalog folder.
2. Smart Previews are much smaller in size than regular previews of an image. However, if you have many RAW photos in the catalog, Lightroom's Smart Previews will eventually take up a lot of space on your disk. 
3. Delete smart preview by deleting the related Smart Previews.lrdata files in the catalog folder.

Step 5: Create a New Catalog

After deleting catalogs, start Lightroom once again. As the previous catalog is no longer available, it will ask you to start with a new catalog. Lightroom will open a fresh new catalog.

Your computer now has a far more efficient system due to the freed-up space. In effect, you should notice a considerable improvement in Lightroom’s speed and performance.

Why Should You Delete Lightroom Catalogs and Start Over?

As a real estate photographer, you must have collected many images in your Lightroom catalog over time. Many of these might be useless anymore, as the properties might have been sold or some might have been renovated, making the older images unusable.

• A lack of disk space or a corrupted, damaged catalog may be why you want to delete it. If you have a smaller disk size, it might need more capacity to store a large catalog. 
• A bloated catalog will only cause speed issues and errors in your workflow. Therefore, you may want to start again with a new catalog for future work. That way, you will recover valuable disk space besides the accelerated performance of Lightroom. 
• I recommend using a new catalog annually if you capture and edit thousands of images. Remember that as Lightroom is a non-destructive software, it doesn’t affect your original photos.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Deleting your Lightroom catalog may be necessary due to several reasons. Either your catalog has become redundant or corrupted, or it takes up much space on your drive. Whatever the reason, you can get rid of it safely using the steps mentioned above and enjoy an optimized workflow with your new catalog.