Lightroom — How Many Photos Can I Have In A Catalog?
What's the maximum number of photos that I can have in Lightroom?
Many people on the web say that you shouldn't have more than 10,000 (ten thousand) photos. Then they go on to explain that after that many photos, Lightroom suddenly slows down, so it must be the maximum. So let's look a some of the facts:
- Lightroom does NOT store photos. It's not just semantics, there are many implications1.
- Lightroom stores information about your photos.
- Lightroom uses a database called SQlite.
- SQlite is a memory resident database. This means that all the information is stored in memory2
Consequences
The 2 important key points are:
- Lightroom stores information about your photos.
- All the information is stored in memory.
This means that the more information you have, the lower the number of photos you can have in your catalog. The more descriptions, the more keywords, the more edits, the larger the catalog.
You can shrink the catalog by:
- Clearing the history
- Backup your catalog and restoring the backed-up catalog on top of the existing catalog3.
- You can increase the physical RAM on your computer, but as a 32bit operating systems Windows or Mac, you can only use up to 3Gb of RAM, to access more than the 3Gb you will need to switch to 64bit operating system.
- You can close other applications and this will free the some of the memory available to Lightroom.
Conclusion
There is no definite answer as to what the maximum number of photos you can have in a catalog. It will depend on:
- Your hardware 32bit/64bit and the amount of RAM available
- The type of information you store in the catalog
- Your personal style like having many programs opened at the same time...
1 When backing up your catalog, you are not backing up your photos... ↑
2 Almost:SQlite can store more information that the available, it can store as much as the total memory + the paging file size ↑
3 Backing up does garbage collection and shrinks the catalog ↑
Tags: Dam | Lightroom | Lightroom-Why | Technical
What's the maximum number of photos that I can have in Lightroom?
Many people on the web say that you shouldn't have more than 10,000 (ten thousand) photos. Then they go on to explain that after that many photos, Lightroom suddenly slows down, so it must be the maximum. So let's look a some of the facts:
- Lightroom does NOT store photos. It's not just semantics, there are many implications1.
- Lightroom stores information about your photos.
- Lightroom uses a database called SQlite.
- SQlite is a memory resident database. This means that all the information is stored in memory2
Consequences
The 2 important key points are:
- Lightroom stores information about your photos.
- All the information is stored in memory.
This means that the more information you have, the lower the number of photos you can have in your catalog. The more descriptions, the more keywords, the more edits, the larger the catalog.
You can shrink the catalog by:
- Clearing the history
- Backup your catalog and restoring the backed-up catalog on top of the existing catalog3.
- You can increase the physical RAM on your computer, but as a 32bit operating systems Windows or Mac, you can only use up to 3Gb of RAM, to access more than the 3Gb you will need to switch to 64bit operating system.
- You can close other applications and this will free the some of the memory available to Lightroom.
Conclusion
There is no definite answer as to what the maximum number of photos you can have in a catalog. It will depend on:
- Your hardware 32bit/64bit and the amount of RAM available
- The type of information you store in the catalog
- Your personal style like having many programs opened at the same time...
1 When backing up your catalog, you are not backing up your photos... ↑
2 Almost:SQlite can store more information that the available, it can store as much as the total memory + the paging file size ↑
3 Backing up does garbage collection and shrinks the catalog ↑
Tags: Dam | Lightroom | Lightroom-Why | Technical
