lightroom-catalog

name	lightroom-catalog
description	Index and search Adobe Lightroom CC catalogs on macOS. Build a searchable SQLite+FTS5 database from the .mcat catalog, with incremental sync, full-text search, EXIF/keyword filtering, and stats. Use when user wants to query their Lightroom library, find photos by metadata, or set up automated catalog indexing.

Lightroom Catalog Index

Build a searchable SQLite+FTS5 index from Adobe Lightroom CC's internal catalog on macOS. Extracts photo metadata (EXIF, ratings, keywords, dimensions, camera info) into a clean, queryable database.

Prerequisites

• macOS with Adobe Lightroom CC installed
• Python 3.8+
• pip install msgpack

Quick Start

1. Find the catalog

Lightroom CC stores its catalog at:

~/Pictures/Lightroom Library.lrlibrary/*/Managed Catalog.mcat

The script auto-detects this. To verify:

ls ~/Pictures/*.lrlibrary/*/Managed\ Catalog.mcat

2. Run initial ingest

python3 scripts/lightroom-index.py ingest --full

This creates ./lightroom.db with all photo metadata. A 200K+ photo library takes about 2 minutes.

3. Search

python3 scripts/lightroom-index.py search "sunset"
python3 scripts/lightroom-index.py search "*" --rating 4 --year 2024
python3 scripts/lightroom-index.py stats

Configuration

Three ways to configure paths (in order of precedence):

Method	Catalog	Database	Originals
CLI flags	--catalog PATH	--db PATH	--originals PATH
Env vars	LIGHTROOM_CATALOG	LIGHTROOM_DB	LIGHTROOM_ORIGINALS
Auto-detect	~/Pictures/*.lrlibrary	./lightroom.db	—

CLI Reference

ingest — Index the catalog

lightroom-index.py ingest [--full]

• Default: incremental (only new/changed photos since last run)
• --full: rebuild from scratch
• Output: JSON with assets_indexed, total_revisions, errors, max_sequence

search — Find photos

lightroom-index.py search <query> [filters]

Filter	Description
--rating N	Minimum star rating
--rating-exact N	Exact star rating
--year YYYY	Capture year
--edited	Only edited photos
--camera TEXT	Camera model/make substring
--lens TEXT	Lens name substring
--date YYYY-MM-DD	Exact capture date
--date-from / --date-to	Date range (inclusive)
--limit N	Max results (default: 20)
--with-path	Include file paths (needs --originals)

Use "*" as query to match all photos (filter-only mode).

stats — Library overview

Returns total assets, rated/edited/keyword counts, rating distribution, top cameras, year distribution.

keywords — Top keywords

lightroom-index.py keywords [--top N]

random — Random rated photo

lightroom-index.py random [--rating N] [--keyword TEXT]

Automated Scheduling (LaunchAgent)

To run incremental ingest nightly, create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.lightroom.indexer.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.lightroom.indexer</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/python3</string>
        <string>/path/to/lightroom-index.py</string>
        <string>ingest</string>
    </array>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>LIGHTROOM_DB</key>
        <string>/path/to/lightroom.db</string>
    </dict>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval
    
        Hour
        1
        Minute
        0
    
    StandardOutPath
    /tmp/lightroom-index.log
    StandardErrorPath
    /tmp/lightroom-index.log

Load it:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.lightroom.indexer.plist

Verify:

launchctl list | grep lightroom

Reference Files

• references/catalog-internals.md — How Adobe Lightroom CC stores data in .mcat
• references/schema.md — Output SQLite database schema
• scripts/lightroom-index.py — The indexer script