LightRoom - How to Rename an existing Catalog?

May 11, 2016
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I do a lot of my post-processing in LightRoom CC and after every air show, birding day, vacation, etc. I create a separate Catalog. I use a specific naming convention for each Catalog, and I have done so for many years.

But now I want to change that naming convention.
And that means I have to rename all my existing Catalogs.

However, there is no way to open a Catalog and then save it with a different name.
Or at least …… I cannot find it.

I am a bit reluctant to just rename the Catalog’s folder name, the .lrcat file name and the .lrdata file name. Mainly because I do not want the risk that I end up with Catalogs that in the future turn out to be problematic in whatever way.

Can anybody help me with this problem?
Thanks in advance!
 
I've always done it by renaming the files and I've never had a problem. I'm not aware of any other way to do it. I don't think the file name is embedded in the catalog. Only problem I've had is not syncing the name of the previews .lrdata file properly and having Lightroom rebuild the previews. If there is another way I'd be curious to hear it.
 
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When you open the renamed "new name".lrcat catalog file lightroom will look in the same folder for a "new name" Previews.lrdata file and I suppose a "new name" Helper.lrdata file although I don't know what that file does.

If Lightroom can't find files with those names it will created new ones and you will have to rebuild your previews. It won't really hurt anything AFAIK. It just wastes a bit of processing time. The .lrcat file is the only one that really matters. If you rename the existing .lrdata files to "new name" Previews.lrdata and "new name" Helper.lrdata Lightroom should recognize and use them.
Hope that makes sense. I think I'm making it sound more complicated than it is.
 
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