Catalog takes over a Lightroom Classic catalog (.lrcat): its photos, their curation, their metadata, its keywords and its collections.
The Lightroom catalog is opened read-only and never modified, nor are the originals and their
.xmpfiles. Catalog references the photos where they are; it does not copy them.
Catalogs from Lightroom 6 and later versions are accepted.
1. Choosing the catalog
Open Imports, tab Lightroom, then Choose a catalog… and select the .lrcat file. File › Import Lightroom Catalog… leads to the same place and opens the picker at once.
Quit Lightroom first: if Lightroom has this catalog open, its very latest changes may be missing, and the report says so.
2. The dry run
Catalog first reads the catalog and your library without writing anything, and shows what the import would do:
- Version — the catalog’s Lightroom version;
- Photos — originals found, new, already imported (during an earlier import of the same catalog), likely duplicates, originals missing (with their list);
- Videos and videos left out;
- Keywords — new, already in the thesaurus, synonyms;
- Collections — created, empty left out, smart frozen;
- Kept — virtual copies, stacks, develop settings archived;
- the volumes not mounted: “Volume not mounted: LaCie 1. Connect it to import its photos.”
Duplicates are estimated by name and size; the import then checks the exact content (SHA-256). Choose another catalog goes back to choosing the catalog.
The options
- Keywords: as tags and in the thesaurus, with their synonyms;
- Collections and collection sets;
- Include videos;
- Archive develop settings, and The whole history (otherwise the last 50 steps);
- Content already in the library: Skip it or Import it anyway.
If you change an option, Catalog says so (“Options changed since the dry run.”): Run the dry run again updates the figures.
3. The import
The dry run and the import are free, in every plan, without a licence (see Licence and free tier). An imported file never becomes a work by itself: the free tier’s works limit applies when you create some.
Click Import n photos. The import moves through stages — keywords and thesaurus, reading the catalog, computing the SHA-256 of originals, writing the library, collections, stacks — and counts the photos imported, skipped and failed.
A missing (volume not mounted, file moved) or unreadable original is recorded as failed, and the import goes on. Only an unreadable catalog stops it. If part of the catalog cannot be read (keywords, synonyms, virtual copies, develop settings, collections), the photos are imported without it, and the report says so: the import then ends as “Import done, with failed files”, never as successful.
Stopping and resuming
You can stop the import: it stops between two batches, and what is already imported stays. The interrupted import (including if Catalog was quit) appears under Interrupted imports, with its progress: Resume continues it where it stopped, first retrying the photos that failed (a volume plugged back in meanwhile, for instance); Forget removes it from the list (what is already imported stays in the library).
Running the import of an already imported catalog again adds only what is missing: photos already imported are skipped.
4. The report
At the end, the report gives the catalog images, those imported, skipped (already there), missing, failed, the collections created, the terms added to the thesaurus, the synonyms kept, the virtual copies, stacks and develop settings archived, then the catalog data that could not be read (for instance “Keywords unreadable for 200 images”), the list of failed files and the notes (empty collections not created, smart collections frozen, volumes not mounted).
Export the report… saves it as CSV (columns kind, path, detail, count, note). Import another catalog goes back to the start.
What is carried over
The catalog becomes one imported folder of the library, named after the catalog. For each photo:
| In Lightroom | In Catalog |
|---|---|
| the original | a file referenced in place, with its SHA-256 fingerprint |
| rating, flag (picked, rejected), colour label | rating, flag, label |
| custom colour label | a label: tag followed by the label’s text |
| title, caption, creator, copyright | title, description, creator, rights |
| keywords | tags on the file; thesaurus terms, with their hierarchy and synonyms |
| camera, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, GPS, capture date, dimensions, orientation | the same fields |
| collections and collection sets | collections, nested as in Lightroom |
| smart collections | frozen collections, with their members at the time of import |
| virtual copies | named versions of the original file |
| stacks | “Stack” relationships between the files |
| develop settings, history, snapshots | archived in the file’s metadata in Catalog |
A keyword already in the thesaurus (by its label or a synonym) is reused, never moved. A collection that would hold no imported photo is not created.
The metadata carried over stays in the catalogue: nothing is written to XMP sidecars or to files. Develop settings are kept for the record; Catalog does not develop RAW files.
Good to know
- The thumbnails of the imported files are prepared in the background at the end of the import, as for a folder (see What Catalog prepares ahead). The previews Lightroom stores are not read.
- The imported folder that represents the catalog has the
.lrcatfile’s folder as its location. Import again on this folder re-imports it as an ordinary folder, not as a Lightroom catalog: to update a catalog, run the Lightroom import again.