2 Replies Latest reply: Jun 15, 2014 4:27 AM by dj_paige RSS

    Limit on catalog size?

    ronze98 Community Member

      I used to organize my photos with one catalog per year.  However I found myself constantly going back for photos from previous years to create slide shows or books.  So I decided to have one big catalog containing all photos over the year.  There are about 20,000 photos in the catalog.  I am wondering if there is a limit on # of photos in a catalog, and if there are any drawbacks for having a big catalog.  Perhaps there will be some performance issues etc..?

        • 1. Re: Limit on catalog size?
          areohbee Community Member

          In general, the fewer catalogs the better.

           

          Big catalogs do affect performance of some things, but size should *not* affect performance of develop module or viewing photos in library module. What big catalogs can slow down is time to update smart collections, lib filters, or whole-catalog metadata displays... - things that require visiting all photos in the catalog. Develop module just works with a single record (or small set of records), and it's as efficient with a million photos in the catalog as with a thousand. Same for library module when you've got a folder or collection selected - the other records in the database are simply being ignored - not slowing anything down..

           

          If you *do* notice something slowing when it shouldn't, as catalog grows, it's typically due to some other problem with the catalog besides sheer size (or it's not the catalog at all..).

           

          Rob

          • 2. Re: Limit on catalog size?
            dj_paige Community Member

            I agree 100% with Rob. Also, people in these and other forums have reported Lightroom catalogs of over 1/4 million images that are working well.