Bash script that exports all photos of a Adobe Lightroom (LR) Catalog.lrcat to the filesystem.
- Images that are part of a collection will be exported to a specific directory that is named like the collection. One directory per collection.
- Images that are not part of any collection will be exported in one or dedicated directories per year when the image was captured (if configured).
- In sum all image files that are known to the LR catalog will get exported either way.
- Image files will be exported along with its XMP sidecar files (if available).
- Image files can be renamed (if configured).
- The export is non-destructive. You can still continue working with LR and (re)run the export any time later.
- The LR application or a LR license is not required. The actual catalog file (e.g.
Lightroom Catalog.lrcat) and its image repository (e.g.$HOME/Pictures) are sufficient. - Any performed action is logged.
- A "dry run" mode is available in order to check what would actually happen via the logs.
- LR meanwhile rebranded as "Lightroom Classic" was and still is a great tooling for image organization and image manipulation.
- LR version 6 was the last release that you could actually buy and own. The successor "Lightroom Classic CC" (some kind of version 7) is only available for renting.
- LR is a proprietary product (in contrast to Free Software), so you never know where you and especially your photo library will end up one day.
- Free alternatives have matured over the years. Depending on personal perception and preferences they might have already outperformed LR in respected to functionality and usability. At least in respect to user's freedoms. There is e.g. darktable, RawTherapee, or digiKam to name just a few.
- Those but even any proprietary alternatives do not offer to migrate/import the LR catalog en bloc. The only workaround is via the filesystem.
- One has usually invested a lot of effort to carefully structure the image library in form of collections over the years. If you do not want to or simply cannot purely rely on your images' metadata (like tags) to represent this logical structure, you are required to somehow export this hierachy in form of directories and subdirectories to your filesystem.
- A LR image repository (root folder) is typically organized by subdirectories of YYYY/MM/DD, which might not be the preferred structure to bring to another software.
- A collection could be manually exported via the LR application. But as one typically has many collections, this might not be what you really want to do by hand.
- The LR catalog (
.lrcat) is actually a SQLite database file that can be opened with any compatible tooling.
- This script is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.
- As an image can be part of 1-n collection(s), some/many images will get duplicated (current duplication rate will be displayed when export starts).
- Virtual copies will be ignored and not get exported.
- Currently only a single root location (image repository) where all of your image folders are located is supported (e.g.
$HOME/Pictures). - Implementation could be more efficient, so it could take some time.
- Error handling could be more effective, so you might want to run it via
bash -x ExportLRCatalog.shin case of trouble. - Developed and tested on Debian 9.4 and macOS 10.13 with a LRv6-based catalog.
- Prepare your LR catalog (via the LR application if you still have it)
- Make sure that the XMP sidecar files are enabled in your LR application
- Make sure that all metadata are synced to the actual files via your LR application (Select all images and press "Ctrl+S" on Windows or "Command+S" on macOS to save the latest changes)
- Delete any unnecessary collections to prevent image file duplication
- Create new collections for images that you want to have within a dedicated subdirectory. To find any image that is not part of a collection you could e.g. create the subsequently outlined Smart-Collection within LR assuming that you do not use any strange filenames:
{Collection}{doesn't contain}{a e i o u 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9} - Delete any images that are no longer required
- Make sure that you have sufficient disk space in your export directory
- You need to have
bash,sed,sqlite3, andbcavailable in your$PATHon a POSIX-compliant environment like Linux or macOS
- Note that this is still BETA (work in progress) and might not do what is promised
- Prepare your LR catalog as described above
- Make a backup of your LR catalog and ideally use the backup for this export
- Adjust the configuration in
./Config.shto your needs and environment - Run
./ExportLRCatalog.sh - When completed carefully review the results and especially the logs
GNU GPLv3, see LICENSE for details.
- Inspired by https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/65153 by fabrizio
- Useful visualization of the table structure: "Getting to the data in Adobe Lightroom–with or without PowerShell"
- Similar Python-based approach: https://github.com/philroche/py-lightroom-export
- Similar Rust-based approach: https://github.com/hfiguiere/lrcat-extractor
- Special thanks to Adobe Systems Inc. for a still great LR (Classic) and implementing its catalog in form of a freely accessible SQLite database