Deleted my catalogue by mistake. Edited photos still on iPhone. Can I save them?

[hansv22472549]

By mistake I deleted the Lightroom catalogue on my laptop. Sadly I now learn that I have to start all over editing so I've created a new catalogue. But strangely my iPad & iPhone still have my edited pictures in the collections from the original catalogue. And it doesn't sync with my laptop. Now I have two questions:

1) Can I send these edited photos back to my laptop, saving many hours of work?

2) How can I re-sync my devices so they start showing my new catalogue/collections?

[Rob_Cullen]

First question-

Did you ever make a (recent) backup of the catalog at any time?

Because you could restore from a backup to recover much of your work.

Hopefully you have not also deleted your photos from the laptop.

[hansv22472549]

Thanks for answering.

I did backup once per week. But Can't find any backups. Where would they be? I might've  deleted them as well.

All pics are on my external drive - thats why I removed the stuff on the HD 😕 i didn't know that the catalogue was saved on the HD.

[DdeGannes]

@hans22472549, Please refer to the article at the link below so you can be aware of the location of the folders and files created by Lightroom when you import your image files into the Lightroom Catalog.

A clear understanding of how Lightroom operates is needed so that you do not run into problems that you are now experiencing.

Preference file and other file locations | Lightroom CC and 6

You can also get a free quick start guide from the link below.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/quickstart/

[hansv22472549]

Thanks for the answer. After deleting the pics and files I've started studying about catalogues. It's just too late if I've deleted them. And I still need answers to my two questions. Why is there still a copy of the edited photos on my phone, when they're not on my laptop? Can i somehow recover these pics? And why has the phone stopped syncing to the laptop?

[DdeGannes]

Why is there still a copy of the edited photos on my phone, when they're not on my laptop?

When you imported the files from the phone using the "Add option" the original files remain where they are located i.e. on the phone.

If you wish them to be on the external HDD then you would have to use the Copy option.

And why has the phone stopped syncing to the laptop?

There is no Catalog there for them to sync to!

[hansv22472549]

I am not very good explaining my problems, but thanks for trying to help.

I asked: 1) Why is there still a copy of the edited photos on my phone, when they're not on my laptop?

You answered: When you imported the files from the phone using the "Add option" the original files remain where they are located i.e. on the phone.

If you wish them to be on the external HDD then you would have to use the Copy option.

I didn't import the pics from the phone - I synced them from the laptop catalogue.

I asked: 2) And why has the phone stopped syncing to the laptop?

You answered: There is no Catalog there for them to sync to!

My mistake - sorry - I should have asked: Why have Lightroom stopped syncing to the phone.

My pictures are on the laptop - I sync to the phone  .... My laptop has the new catalogues i had to make after deleting the files from my HD - including the raw unedited pictures. My phone still has the old catalogues - including the edited pictures.

[Jim Wilde · Accepted solution]

Lightroom mobile can only sync to one catalog at a time, and of course Lightroom mobile doesn't know that you've deleted the one catalog that it was syncing to, hence no current sync activity.

If you make sure that you are running LR CC 2015.8 on your laptop, you can then take advantage of a new feature in that version, called Sync Catalog Recovery. Unlike all previous versions, 2015.8 now allows you to switch sync to a different catalog without first having to delete all previously synced data from the Adobe servers.

So, open you new catalog (don't import anything from the external drive), then enable sync (open the Activity Centre by clicking in the Identity Plate area, then click on Start on the Sync with LR mobile line). You should then get a message asking you to confirm that you want to switch syncing to the new catalog, click OK on that and wait.....all the currently synced images will then be downloaded. The neat bit is that if you had previously synced images from LR on the laptop/desktop, only smart previews are in fact uploaded to the Adobe servers, BUT if you haven't messed with the file/folder structure of your images on the external drive, LR will attempt to map the smart previews back to the original images, which if successful will result in the respective folders appearing in the new catalog, and you'll have access to the original files again.

I've done some testing of this feature, and while I wouldn't say it's bomb-proof (i.e. you might see a few errors), it just might get you out of the hole that you dug for yourself.

[hansv22472549]

Thanks Jim,

It worked as you told it would work. Great. Now I have the pictures back. Now I realize I need to study more about the way Adobe runs.

Hans V.