Lightroom Tips

Why I Don't Backup My Photos Using Lightroom

If you’ve used the Import dialog in Lightroom, you’ve probably noticed an area under File Handing called “Make a Second Copy To:”. This is Lightroom’s way of letting you make a backup of your photos as you import them. That way you can get your import and your backup all done at once. A while back, some one pointed out that when you use this feature, you don’t have much control over how the backup drive stores the photos. Basically, it just stores them in a folder named “Imported on….”. For me this is a big problem because it’s not how I store my photos in my main photo drive. So now, my backup drive and my main photo drive would be out of sync.

That’s why I leave this feature turned off. Instead, I simply import my photos like normal (by the way, I cover this stuff in my Lightroom In Depth classes on Kelby Training by the way). I store them on my main photo drive in a “Photos” folder and I put subfolders under that for each shoot. So it looks something like this:

Then, once a day/week/however long I simply clone the main photo drive to the backup drive. You could use a simple copy/paste or you could save some time by using a program like Super Duper (some other options including PC). Either way, the goal here is to have your photo backup drive look exactly like your main photo drive. That way, recovering from your backup drive is simple. Don’t get me wrong. I’d rather you use the 2nd copy feature in the Import dialog over nothing at all. But if you want my actual backup solution and why I don’t use Lightroom’s features to help me with this, now you know.

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