Adobe Lightroom lost my catalog, how can I recover the missing catalog or restore backups?

If Lightroom can't find your catalog, look for files on your computer that end in.lrcat. On both macOS and Windows, the usual place to find these files is in Pictures › Lightroom. To open the catalog, double-click it or go to File › Open Catalog.

If the catalog is missing or damaged, open the.lrcat file from the most recent backup by going to Pictures › Lightroom › Backups and unzipping it. Lightroom can make saves of your files when you close it, so you can undo all of your changes except the most recent ones.

In case you still can't find any backups, look on external drives or in cloud sync files, as Lightroom may have saved them there.

Turn on "Automatically back up catalog every time Lightroom exits" and regularly back up your.lrcat and preview folders to avoid losing them again.