Aodbe Lightroom Classic is an incredibly powerful tool for organizing and refining your photos but unlike other programs, saving your work isn’t as simple as hitting the “File > Save” button. Understanding how and where your image enhancements are stored is the key to protecting your valuable work.
The Non-Destructive Difference
The foundational principle of Lightroom Classic is non-destructive editing, meaning that your original image pixels remain untouched. When you move a slider—to adjust the exposure, increase the saturation, or crop a photo—you aren’t changing the source file itself. Instead, you are simply recording a new set of instructions (the edits) that tells Lightroom how to display the original photo.
These instructions, which include all of your edits, star ratings, keywords, and copyright info can be stored in two possible locations:
- 1. The Lightroom Catalog (.lrcat)
By default, all of the alterations that you make to any image are stored inside of your Lightroom Catalog file (.lrcat). Your Catalog is a database that tracks every photo that you have imported and all of the edits fo any type that you have made to every image. - 2. The Image File’s Metadata (XMP)
You can also choose to write all of the changes that you make to any photograph directly into the image file itself. For proprietary raw file formats (like NEF, ARW, or CR3), these changes are stored in a small accompanying XMP sidecar file. For formats like JPEG, HEIC, and DNG, the data is written non-destructively into the file’s header itself.
Recording all of your edits at the file level, in addition to the data that is stored inside of your Catalog, is a safety net that protects your work if your Catalog fails.
Your Three Saving Options (and Which to Choose)
Lightroom Classic allows you to choose exactly when and where these instructions are stored.
- Method 1: Catalog-Only (The Default But Dangerous Way)
How it works: Your edits are stored only inside of your Lightroom Catalog file. This is the factory default behavior. This behavior was intended to optimize performance since Classic does not need to trigger write operations at the drive level for any of your images but this performance boost comes with a huge potential pitfall.Warning: If your Catalog file ever becomes corrupted, damaged, or accidentally deleted, then all of your editing work might be lost. Storing edits at the Catalog level only is strongly discouraged, as it leaves all your hard work vulnerable to a single point of failure.
- Method 2: Automatic Metadata Save (The Recommended Way)
How it works: You can enable a setting inside of Classic’s Catalog Settings Menu that tells Lightroom to continuously and automatically write all changes into each image’s XMP metadata block or sidecar as you work. When active this option tells Classic to save everything that you do to each and every image in addition to saving your edits inside of the Catalog database file.How to enable it: Go to Catalog Settings > Metadata Tab and enable the box labeled “Automatically Write Changes Into XMP.”
Recommendation: This is the most reliable method for most users, as it provides a constant safeguard against Catalog disaster without requiring any additional effort. If you had to start all over, and build a new Lightroom Catalog, then all of your visual improvements, keywords, star ratings, and captions would survive. If you had to start again then all you have to do is create a new Catalog and re-import your folder of images. Classic will see the XMP data and perfectly reconstruct all your edits, keywords, and ratings for every image.
- Method 3: Manual Metadata Save (For Advanced Users)
How it works: You can select a group of images and then activate the Save Metadata to File command via the Metadata > Save Metadata to File menu. Once activated, this command copies all of your stored edits from the Catalog and writes them into each image’s XMP metadata block or sidecar XMP file.Benefit: If your Catalog file fails then almost all of your hard work is also stored within each image. This option strikes a good balance between performance and safety but it is only recommended for diligent advanced users and for those who use Classic alongside the LrTimeLapse software program for timelapse video creation.
Drawback: Although you can create a Smart Collection that continually looks for images whose metadata has not been saved out at the file level., it is easy to forget to run the Save Metadata to File command on a regular basis.
Performance Concerns (The Myth)
Some users worry that continuously writing all of their changes into each and every image will slow everything down. While this was a concern a decade ago, on any modern machine the performance impact is negligible. The XMP files are tiny, and the process is asynchronous (it happens in the background).
Unless you are changing thousands of images at once then the peace of mind that you gain by protecting your editing work is well worth the minimal performance difference on a modern computer.
Important Caveat: Lightroom is Not a Backup Program
Regardless of which method you choose, none of these options will protect you from hard drive failure. If the drive that stores your photos or your Catalog breaks then all of your data will be lost unless you have a dedicated backup system. If you are a Classic user then you must maintain a robust multi-location backup plan!
In addition, there are two features that live only at the Catalog level- Virtual Copies and Collections. The only way to protect the work that you have done using these two features is with robust backups of your Lightroom Catalog file on another hard drive.
