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Lightroom and Time Machine Update
When Mac OS X Leopard was released, it came with a cautionary note about Time Machine compatibility with Aperture databases. Soon after, Adobe released information that the interaction between Lightroom and Time Machine was unknown. Of course, we all presumed that the safe thing to do would be to exclude active Lightroom catalogs from Time Machine and just have it archive our back up catalogs. With the release of Lightroom 1.3, Adobe's position is still that the status of things is unclear. So, several months later, where do we stand?
According to an Apple Tech Note Article, the problem with Aperture databases and Time Machine was resolved in 10.5.2. Based on that, many would think that the problem with Lightroom catalogs and Time Machine would be resolved. I certainly did. But, then after updating my system to I dug into my Time Machine archives and found something curious: my Aperture library wasn't being backed up by Time Machine.
I then checked on a fresh machine, a MacBook Pro that I had set up for the ETech and Graphing Social Patterns conference shoots last week. This machine had both Aperture and Lightroom catalogs in my ~/Pictures folder. Here's that folder:
And, here's the same folder on my Time Machine disk, a 250GB La Cie external drive:
I double-checked to make sure that I didn't still have Aperture library wasn't on Time Machine's do not back up list. Sure enough, the do not back up list on my computer only contained my Lightroom libraries. I went one step further and remove all the excludes. And still, there's no Aperture library sitting on my Time Machine disk. The way my system is behaving seems to indicate the fix in Mac OS X 10.5.2 was to automatically exclude Aperture libraries from back up at the system level.
Based on that, I think it's safe to say that we can't assume that whatever issues lay behind the original warning not to let Time Machine back up active Lightroom catalogs is still in effect and to proceed accordingly. Hopefully, we can find out more information on this in the near future. And, if you have information about this that might shed some light on the issues, please feel free to speak up in the comments.
Update (3/11): Based on the comments to this blog post, it seems that my particular experience is not typical. It's very strange. This is a fresh laptop I'm on. Aperture 2 was installed right after the system install and the Time Machine backup disk was started after all of that. Still, others have seen their library backed up just fine if Aperture isn't running. As for what all this means for Lightroom catalogs—the subject of interest for this blog—I dunno. I'd say it means proceed with caution.
Update (3/12): I've received strong confirmation that the behavior I'm seeing indeed is not "as designed". Evidently, Aperture tells Time Machine not to back up while it is running. Given this bit of info, I'm even more curious to see how this plays out with Lightroom. For now, I'd still exclude Lightroom catalogs from Time Machine.
Comments (12)
My entire Lightroom folder isn't backed up in Time Machine, either. And I didn't even add Lightroom to my do-not-backup list! I can understand why Apple wants to avoid touching the libraries, but the entire Lightroom folder (including all the photo files in subfolders in the Lightroom folder)??
I'm just glad I kept my SuperDuper backup routine.
Well, I simply keep the Lightroom libraries and the actual image files in seperate folders. The libraries folder is excluded from Time Machine and backed up by Lightrooms built-in backup function to the Time Machine volume. Just works.
I'm confused!
I just checked Time Machine and my Lightroom catalogue seems to have been backed up regularly. The file size of the catalogue has grown regularly over the period of time I have been using Time Machine and this is reflected in the various TM states. I'm reluctant to actually restore it to confirm the backup, so I'm going with this as a check.
Are you saying that TM has a problem with backing up LR catalogues that are open at the time of backup?
This isn't true - I can't say what's hapening in your specific case, but Time Machine definitely does back up Aperture Libraries - it is not automatically excluded.
I'm confused by this post as well. I had no previous knowledge that there was a problem with Lightroom backups and Time Machine, so I blindly set up Time Machine to backup all my files. I use a Drobo for backup and I just checked by Time Machine backups and Drobo independantly and found all of my Lightroom catalogs backed up. In fact I also found that the automatic Lightroom backup that is created everytime I startup Lightroom was backedup by Time Machine and Drobo. Like AndyL, I did not open any of the backup files for fear of damaging my active catalog file. The backup files are there and appear to be OK.
Marcus: That's what I do as well, exclude the active libraries and let backups and all the image files get slurped up by Time Machine.
AndyL: Indeed, unless you exclude them, Time Machine will slurp up the Lightroom catalogs just as all your other files. Or at least it does in my experience. Based on statements from Adobe, I'd be careful in trusting these backups--at least the ones made while the catalog was open.
BRS: What other explanation do you have? I've added some screenshots to the blog post above so that you can see that I'm not lying.
WaltO: Read the Adobe posts I link to in the first paragraph for more information.
Hmm. I just turned on Time Machine on just my home directory (the rest of the drive is SuperDupered nightly). I'll check when I get home and see if my Aperture library is in there: it was the whole idea of running TM, to track my iTunes and Aperture changes. I'll post another comment once I find out.
my library *is* in my Time Machine back up. weird. maybe this has to do with Time Machine back ups pre-aperture2? I created a new Time Machine backup destination last week (after installing Aperture 2), on a new external hd. Maybe this is why it is working for me?
Maybe try creating a new backup destination and leave it going over night?
Yep, checking my TM backup, looks like my Ap2 library is in there. From the out-of-the-box TM setup, I've excluded everything in / aside from /Users, and about half of my home directory contents as well (like my video media folder).
Edmund has a point: I too didn't use TM until after I installed Aperture 2 (and never had 1.x installed). It's possible yours got set to not back it up, and never got unset with Ap2.
The other alternative is that Ap2 isn't notifying TM that it's done making library changes, and so TM thinks the library is always in use, thereby avoiding it like the plague.
I think I've figured it out. I show the Ap2 library in my time machine backups, but it only appears in backups where Ap2 is not running.
So, it seems that TM looks to see if Ap2 is started, and if so it ignores the library. If it's not running, then it backs up, no problem.
Edmund: I started this particular TM backup disk fresh after installing Aperture 2. Aperture 1 wasn't ever on this laptop.
Christopher: It may be that there's something that makes Ap2's library look busy when it isn't. Very odd.
Ian: That's not been my experience here. I can force a backup when Aperture isn't running and I won't see a backup of my Aperture Library.
Overall, quite odd. Quite odd.
I've just updated the blog entry with observations and information from the comments. Thanks all. As for what this means for Lightroom catalogs—I'd be very interested to hear from somebody at Adobe about it.