Handy tool for cleaning up your Lightroom Classic backups

Sunday 28 December 2025, 16:32 by Elja Trum | 4,497 views | 31 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Lightroom Classic regularly backs up your catalogue. Handy if something goes wrong. But Lightroom never cleans up those backups. You have to do that yourself, by hand, or with this handy tool!

I regularly forget to clean up those backups myself. Each backup made for my catalogue is now 3 gigabytes in size. So that soon adds up. That's why I have now created a free tool that automatically deletes the backups for me.

My Lightroom Classic Backup Cleaner is available for both Windows and Mac OS (Intel or Apple Silicon). You can set how many backups you want to keep. For example, the last five backups. You can also specify that no backups younger than, for example, 3 months may be deleted.

You can quickly delete the backups by starting the tool and clicking 'clean up'. But, even more conveniently, you can also set the app to check for older backups to delete every time your computer starts up. This keeps your computer tidy.

The tool is completely free to download and use, and is also open-source.

Download:
» Lightroom Classic Back-up Cleaner - Windows (x64)
» Lightroom Classic Back-up Cleaner - macOS (Intel)
» Lightroom Classic Back-up Cleaner - macOS (Apple Silicon)

Of course, I tested it extensively myself, except for the Apple Silicon version, as I don't have a suitable Apple computer at home. But if something goes wrong, let me know. Then I can look into it and update the app.

How many gigabytes can you free up?

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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31 comments

Erik Snoeij wrote on Sunday 28 December 2025 at 20:38 | reply
Top, deze tool! Gelijk gebruikt en snelkoppeling op bureaublad gemaakt.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Sjoerd van der Wal wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 09:38 | reply
Net even getest op een Apple Silicon Mac en het werkt perfect. Bedankt!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 10:16 | reply
Dank je, goed te horen dat dit ook goed gaat.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Pieter wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 10:22 | reply
Top en erg handig, 2o gb op mijn Mac schoongeveegd . Is het ook verstandig om de Oude back te verwijderen. Er staat van wel maar voor de zekerheid toch even vragen. Dit zou noig eens 3,5 Gb schelen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 11:24 | reply
Ja, die oude back-up is je catalogus van voordat Lightroom een grote update gedaan heeft en je catalogus ook ge-upgrade heeft. Die back-up maakt Lightroom voor het geval er bij het bijwerken iets mis gaat.

Als je jouw Lightroom Classic al weer maanden gebruikt hebt met de nieuwe versie en alles werkt goed, dan kan die oude versie gewoon weg.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Harry Wolf wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 11:35 | reply
Ik ben niet heel handig met dit soort dingen. Heb de Windows versie gedownload en het zip bestandje in de map Program Files bij de andere Lightroom bestandjes gezet alvorens hem te openen. Bij het openen krijg ik een waarschuwing dat een onbekende app iets probeert te doen met mijn pc. Helaas krijg ik bij die melding niet de optie uitvoeren of niet uitvoeren en kan daar alleen niet uitvoeren aanklikken.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 13:33 | reply
Je moet het programma wel even uit de .ZIP halen. Als je de zip opent (door er op te dubbelklikken) kun je daarna het programma naar een andere map (of je desktop) slepen.

Het zou in principe niet uit moeten maken waar je hem neerzet. Met dubbelklikken op het programma moet je hem kunnen openen. In jouw geval kun je hem wellicht uitvoeren door er met de rechtermuisknop op te drukken en 'als administrator uitvoeren' te kiezen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Jo Verdoodt wrote on Tuesday 21 April 2026 at 20:00 | reply
Windows 11 doesn't want me to install the program. Not even as administrator.
Translated from Dutch.

Louis wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 13:13 | reply
top tool ! dikke merci
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Adri FRIJTERS wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 15:23 | reply
Jammer dat de virusscanner aanslaat en eigenlijk niet wil dat je de tool gebruikt.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

info@wimwilmers.nl wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 16:42 | reply
bij mij geeft de pc ook aan dat het een verdachte tool is helaas
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 17:34 | reply
A computer will quickly do that when it has been downloaded from the internet. So that doesn't say very much, but it is indeed wise to be careful.

In this case I can tell you that it is safe to install. But then you'll have to take my word for it.

The source code is freely available, so if you know a bit about it you can check it yourself.
Translated from Dutch.

Harry Wolf wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 17:17 | reply
Dankjewel het is gelukt. Nu nog even kijken hoeveel ik wil weggooien.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Rita Bruynooghe wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 17:26 | reply
Great! Managed to free up 40 G
Translated from Dutch.

Michaël wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 18:09 | reply
Super useful. Can free up a lot of GBs. Thanks!!
Translated from Dutch.

arnold elfring wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 21:33 | reply
I managed to do it too and it works fine thanks
Translated from Dutch.

arnold elfring wrote on Tuesday 30 December 2025 at 21:36 | reply
works great
Translated from Dutch.

guest wrote on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 00:12 | reply
Often you first need to click 'More Information' (or words to that effect), then you get an option 'Run Anyway'.
Translated from Dutch.

guest wrote on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 00:21 | reply
Great tool! Works well. Still, one comment: for the 'Automatically Clean Up Daily' option (if enabled), it would be useful if the tool automatically hid itself in the 'System Tray' and kept running when you close the Window. That is not the case now, at least for me.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 08:32 | reply
When choosing daily at a fixed time, a Windows Task is created. It should start the app at that time (if the PC is on) and perform the cleanup.
Translated from Dutch.

Peter Van den Broek wrote on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 08:53 | reply
Hello Elja,
sounds great.
Only...how do I know which Mac OS I have: Intel or Apple Silicon?
I just have MacOS Sequoia listed.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Peter
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 31 December 2025 at 09:54 | reply
Intel are its older Macs. Apple Silicon are the Macs with an M1, M2, M3, etc processor. Basically everything you bought in the past five years will be Apple Silicon.
Translated from Dutch.

Pierre Pinkse wrote on Thursday 1 January 2026 at 13:47 | reply
It's a shame the program doesn't work for me. Windows version. Installation works. But when I want to clean up, everything freezes. I can't tick the settings either. Back to doing it manually then. Shame. Apparently it works for others.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Thursday 1 January 2026 at 14:43 | reply
That's strange. Can you email me some screenshots or a short video. Maybe I can see what's going wrong.
Translated from Dutch.

guest wrote on Friday 2 January 2026 at 16:38 | reply
Thank you!
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Edward wrote on Wednesday 14 January 2026 at 06:43 | reply
I have been running the program for quite a number of days and it does work in itself. However, every morning it crashes on a Mac PC. So then I have to restart it and it works fine.
I can send Elja the crash info if necessary. I work on a powerful Mac Studio with the latest version of the operating system.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 14 January 2026 at 08:56 | reply
Yes, please send the crash info by email, then I'll see what I can improve.
Translated from Dutch.

Edward wrote on Sunday 25 January 2026 at 10:30 | reply
The program keeps crashing. I sent you the code 2 weeks ago already, Elja. Just had to remove the program from my Mac, unfortunately, but getting a crash report every day :(
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Sunday 25 January 2026 at 15:37 | reply
I have received it, I expect to release an update soon.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 09:48 | reply
The new update is out. If it still crashes, I would appreciate receiving the crash logs. They are now explicitly saved in ~/Library/Application Support/LightroomBackupCleaner/
Translated from Dutch.

pedrobis wrote on Wednesday 29 April 2026 at 12:46 | reply
Hello Elja, nice tool. I installed it in WIN11 but now I’m wondering where this application is located. I can’t find it among the installed apps. Still annoying when you want to open the application to make an adjustment in the settings.
Translated from Dutch.

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Elja Trum

Photofacts; everything to do with photography!

Would you like to take better photos and keep up with what is happening in photography? Photofacts publishes articles that teach you something about photography — from a product announcement to a practical shooting tip or a look at a website. Photofacts covers photography every day and is a hobby project of Elja Trum's that got out of hand. The articles are written by a team of volunteer authors. If you would enjoy writing one or more articles for Photofacts, do get in touch.More about Photofacts

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Handy tool for cleaning up your Lightroom Classic backups

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Photofacts; everything to do with photography!