How to convert Lightroom Classic CC catalog from ver 7.1 to ver 6.14

[paulp47625012]

Good day! I'm using Lightroom Classic CC 7.1 on my Mac and LR Classic CC 6.14 on my Windows PC. I have to import photos from Mac to PC, but system can't do it "Lightroom cannot import from this catalog. The catalog has been created by a newer version of Lightroom". Could you help me to covert LR Catalog 7.1 to I can use it on LR 6.14? Thank you!

[Per Berntsen]

It's impossible to convert an LR catalog to a previous version, it only works the other way round (upgrading to a newer version).

Since you have a Creative Cloud subscription, you should install LR Classic on your PC, and update both to 7.5, which is the latest version.

[JohanElzenga]

That is not possible. You can only upgrade a catalog, not downgrade it. What you can do is the following:

Go to 'All Photographs' and select all the images in Lightroom Classic 7.1. Then choose 'Metadata - Save Metadata to Files'. Now import the images into Lightroom 6. Because you wrote all metadata to files, Lightroom 6 will pick up those metadata on import. And edits are also metadata, so they will also be picked up. The only edits that will not transfer to Lightroom 6 this way are edits that were new in Lightroom Classic. That's only Range Mask in case of Lightroom Classic 7.1.

[Laura Shoe]

If you really want to go backwards, then saving the metadata and reimporting is the best that can be done - but expect also to lose virtual copies, pick and reject flags, presence in collections, and step-by-step edit History (but not the edits themselves). That said, installing LR Classic 7.5 on that computer is a better option.