Today’s Question: Currently when I quit Lightroom Classic it just closes, without asking if I want to backup the Catalog. How can I initiate a backup when this occurs?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can initiate a catalog backup for Lightroom Classic by choosing the “When Lightroom next exits” option from the “Back up catalog” popup in the Catalog Settings dialog. Note that you may also want to make sure the backup frequency setting is established based on your preference.
More Detail: Lightroom Classic will prompt you to backup the catalog based on the frequency you select in the Catalog Settings dialog. This includes an option to backup the catalog the very next time you quit Lightroom.
To adjust the setting, go to the Lightroom Classic menu on Macintosh or the Edit menu on Windows and choose Catalog Settings. In the Catalog Settings dialog choose the General tab and check the “Back up catalog” popup.
You can set the frequency of the backup to once a day, once a week, once a month, or never. Naturally I recommend backing up your catalog on a somewhat frequent basis, taking into account how often you tend to update information in your catalog.
Regardless of which frequency option you have selected in the Catalog Settings dialog for backing up your catalog, you can always perform a backup on an ad hoc basis. Simply choose the “When Lightroom next exits” option from the “Back up catalog” popup, close the Catalog Settings dialog, and quit Lightroom. You will then be prompted to backup the catalog, with the setting in Catalog Settings going back to the frequency option you had established before choosing the “When Lightroom next exits” option.
Even if you are using other software to backup the hard drive where your Lightroom catalog is stored, I still recommend making use of the backup feature included within Lightroom Classic. That’s because as part of the process of backing up your catalog with Lightroom Classic you can have the catalog checked for errors and also have the catalog optimized.