Catalogs & files
A catalog is a document, your photographs are wherever you put them, and everything else on disk is either replaceable or yours.
The catalog
A .lscatalog package: the index, the edits and the previews, in one item you
can move, copy and back up like any document. Catalogs made before the app was renamed
(.drcatalog) still open, and new ones are always written as
.lscatalog.
- New catalog
- ⇧⌘N
- Open catalog
- ⌘O
Keep as many as you like — one per client, one per year, one for the archive. Switching resets the window to that catalog's own state, and Open Recent lists the last few. A catalog holds no photographs: it holds what it knows about them.
Your photographs
- Imported folders
- Read in place, wherever they are. Nothing is moved and nothing is copied.
- App Library
- The copies the app does hold: imports from Photos, merges, upscales and captures — things that had no file of their own to point at.
Because the app is sandboxed, folders outside its own container are remembered through macOS's permission mechanism. If one stops being readable — it moved, the permission lapsed, the drive was unplugged — the folder offers Re-authorize Access… rather than showing you an empty grid and no reason.
Backups
- Back Up Catalog…
- Writes one now, where you choose.
- Show Automatic Backups
- Opens the folder the app keeps its own in.
A backup is a copy of the catalog, not of your photographs — it is small, and it is the thing that is expensive to lose. Your originals are backed up by whatever backs up the rest of your disk.
Application Support and Caches
- Application Support
- What belongs to the installation rather than to one catalog: the AI models, your presets, profiles, gradients, book backgrounds and sky packs. This is what makes a look you built available in every catalog you open.
- Caches
- Previews and the rasters the AI tools compute. Safe to delete at any time — everything in there is rebuilt on demand. It is also excluded from backup, because backing up a derived file is paying twice.
Sidecars
Optional .xmp files beside your originals: read on import, written as you
work if you ask for it, carrying the metadata and — if you want — the full edit. They are
how ratings and keywords travel to another application.
The originals themselves are never rewritten. An edit is a recipe in the catalog, and export writes a new file.