Where did my files go?

[Chrissy_Burgess]

Hi, I recently had to uninstall and reinstall Lr on my computer and I was wondering if by doing this do you lose your digital files? I have lost everything except my edited files which are saved in my documents and external hard drives but I still don't understand why I lost my work in Lr? can someone please explain this to me and if I'm able to retrieve them back somehow?

Thanks

Christine

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

You need to find your catalog file. It has a .lrcat extension.  This contains all your edits and your image organization. You won't lose that when you uninstall and reinstall but Lightroom might not realize where it is and create a new empty catalog for you.