Today’s Question: Should I rename my Lightroom Classic catalog before or after upgrading to Lightroom Classic 14? Or does it matter?
Tim’s Quick Answer: If you’re going to rename your Lightroom Classic catalog I definitely recommend doing so after you upgrade to Lightroom Classic version 14, not before.
More Detail: Prior to version 14 of Lightroom Classic, renaming the catalog files was simple in concept, but involved considerable risk that one or more files wouldn’t be renamed correctly. With the update to version 14, the new Rename Catalog command makes it remarkably easy to rename the catalog without risk.
Once you’ve upgraded to version 14, you can rename your catalog (including all related files) by choosing File > Rename Catalog from the menu. In the dialog that appears, you can enter a new name for your catalog. If you want to rename the folder that contains your catalog files to the same name, you can turn on the “Rename parent folder” checkbox. Click the Rename button to apply the change.
By comparison, before the Rename Command was added you would need to rename all files related to your catalog in the same way, while retaining the “extra” text for some of the file such as the Previews and Smart Previews files. While this was reasonably straightforward, it involved renaming multiple files and required a bit of attention to detail. The new command makes it remarkably easy. I just wish Adobe had added the command a long time ago!
