Open LRCAT files in your browser
The catalog Lightroom Classic keeps of your photos. Look through one right here, without Lightroom: its folders and collections, picks and stars, keywords and people, each photo or the preview Lightroom kept of it. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your library opens like a folder of its photos, laid out as the app shows them, with a page beside it on what it holds.
- All photos • Albums, events, projects and collections in their folders
- People, Years and Favorites • Hidden and Recently Deleted on request
- Show details • Title, caption, keywords, rating and place
- The app's preview • When an original didn't come
About LRCAT
Adobe's Lightroom came out in 2007, and since 2017 it's Lightroom Classic. Your photos stay in their own folders, and the catalog, Lightroom Catalog.lrcat in Pictures/Lightroom, is a SQLite database of everything Lightroom knows about them: where each one lies, its stars, flag, color label, keywords, the collections it's in and its edits. Beside it, its Previews.lrdata holds a preview of each photo as an .lrprev, and its Smart Previews.lrdata a smaller DNG for editing without the originals.
Without Lightroom and its subscription, a catalog is a database nothing reads, and one from an old computer points at drives and folders that may be gone. Lightroom opens one catalog at a time, and makes an upgraded copy of an old one before it does.
Filepeek reads the catalog in your browser and lays it out as Lightroom's Library does: All photos, Folders as Lightroom lists them, Collections in their sets, People, Years and Picks. Each photo is found among the files dropped with the catalog by its folders and name, or else shows its preview from Previews.lrdata or its Smart Preview. Show details gives its stars, flag, color label, caption, keywords, camera, lens, exposure and place.
Lightroom Classic catalog
.lrcat
Format
- MIME type
- application/vnd.sqlite3
- Made by
- Adobe Lightroom Classic
- Released
- 2007
Inside the file
- Kept as
- A SQLite database
- Photos
- Stay in their own folders
- Beside it
- Previews.lrdata, Smart Previews.lrdata
- Knows
- Folders, collections, flags, keywords
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens Lightroom Classic catalogs in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on a computer. Drop the catalog with its Previews.lrdata, and your photos if you have them. On their own, browsers only download it.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open LRCAT
- WindowsLightroom Classic
- MacLightroom Classic
- iPhone and iPadNo app reads it • Lightroom for mobile keeps its own photos
- AndroidNo app reads it • Lightroom for mobile keeps its own photos
Questions
Which files do I drop?
The .lrcat and the Previews.lrdata folder beside it, or the whole folder they're in. Add the folders of your photos to see the originals. Without them, each photo shows Lightroom's preview.
Does it show my edits?
A preview shows the photo as Lightroom drew it, edits and all. An original shows as it was shot, since Lightroom keeps edits in the catalog and never writes them into the photo.
Lightroom is open. Can I still look?
Yes, but its newest changes sit in the catalog's -wal file until Lightroom closes. Drop that with the catalog, or close Lightroom first.
What about Lightroom, not Classic?
The newer Lightroom keeps its photos in Adobe's cloud, with no catalog on your computer, so there's nothing of it to drop here.