Today’s Question: I installed the Lightroom Classic upgrade yesterday. I then decided to revert to the previous version for now until users have more time to test it. I reloaded the old version and worked through reconnecting to my old catalog. It worked, but I might have just got lucky. Can you how to revert to old version? Thanks as always.
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can revert to an earlier version of Lightroom Classic by installing the previous version and then opening the version of your catalog from before the update to the new version. Just be sure that you don’t make any changes to the updated catalog before reverting to your previous catalog.
More Detail: When you install a “major” upgrade to Lightroom Classic that requires an update to the catalog file structure, the existing catalog will remain untouched, and a new copy of that catalog will be upgraded to the new version. This provides a way for you to revert to the previous version if you decide you don’t want to start using the new version yet.
While the old and new catalog will be retained as separate catalogs in this scenario, the new version of Lightroom Classic will actually replace the previous version. Therefore, the first thing you’ll need to do is install the previous version.
To install an older version of a Creative Cloud application, go to the Creative Cloud app, which is where you install updates. Choose “All Apps” from the top of the menu on the left side of the Creative Cloud dialog. Locate the application you want to revert (Lightroom Classic in this case) and click the button with three dots to the far right of that application to bring up a popup menu. Choose “Other Versions” from that popup menu.
In the dialog that appears you can then click the Install button for the most recent version before the current version. In this case that would involve installing Lightroom Classic version 10.4.
Once Lightroom Classic has been “updated” to the previous version you can navigate to the folder that contained your original catalog before the upgrade. Find the catalog file, which has a filename extension of “.lrcat”. Double-click on that file, and Lightroom Classic will launch with that catalog, and you can continue working as you had been before the update.
Also, note that today marks twenty years since I sent out the very first edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter. You can get information about an eBook I’ve published to commemorate this milestone (with options to pay to show your support or get the eBook for free) on the GreyLearning website here: