The Mega-Important Automatically Write Changes into XMP Switch
I posted an article recently on the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s Preferences Menu. There are some important buttons in that article, but perhaps the most important switch in the whole program lives elsewhere. I know that preference menus are not exciting stuff, but trust me. This one is absolutely worth your time and attention.
I would argue that the most important switch in the whole program lives inside of the Catalog Settings menu. To find these buttons, Windows users go Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Mac users will find the exact same buttons in the Lightroom > Catalog Settings > Metadata menu.
Future articles will talk about the other two tabs within the Catalog Settings menu. Today’s article is all about the “Automatically write changes into XMP” switch which lives inside of the Metadata tab.
Lightroom Catalog Settings Metadata Dialogue
When I teach classes, I call this the “happiness vs. unhappiness switch” and from the factory it is set to unhappiness! The good folks at Adobe make fantastic software, but they don’t always pick the best words for their buttons and knobs. “Automatically write changes into XMP” should have been labeled “Auto-Save.”
If you turn this option ON then all of your metadata, and your develop settings, are automatically written into your images. All of your changes are pressed into your file’s storage area which is called the XMP data block. Think of this as if it were a constant “save my work right now” option!
If you don’t turn this switch on then all of your changes and improvements are stored temporarily inside of your Lightroom Catalog file. Your metadata, and improvements, will not be pressed into your images until you click the elusive “Save Metadata to File” button. By turning the automatically write changes switch on, you never need to find or press this button. Once you switch this on, your work is continuously saved behind the scenes.
Failure to save your changes down to the file level will cause you enormous problems if your Lightroom Catalog ever gets corrupted or deleted. If your Lightroom Catalog file gets destroyed, and you have not pressed your changes down to the file level, then all of your work will be lost!
Not saving your work down to the file level will also cause you great frustration if you try to open your images outside of Lightroom. If you were to open one of your images directly into another program like the Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photoshop, iPhoto, or Apple’s Aperture, without saving your work down to the file level then all of your improvements will be missing! If your metadata, and develop settings, are not written into your image’s XMP block then no other program will see any sign of your hard work.
Please watch this short presentation to learn more about this vital switch.
Lightroom’s Super Important Automatically Write to XMP Preference Switch from David Marx on Vimeo.
I’ll cover the other two panels in this menu in another tutorial, but in the meantime don’t worry. There aren’t any switches within these other tabs that are nearly this important.
For more information please check out this article by Lightroom expert Martin Evening. I also recommend watching Adobe Lightroom Evangelist George Jardine’s excellent “Where Are My Pictures?” podcast.
Filed Under: FAQ • Getting Started • Tutorials
About the Author: David’s sports and landscape images are often used on the web and in outdoor sports publications. He has an extensive knowledge of digital photography and is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. David is a talented instructor and his entertaining teaching style works for students of all skill levels.
In 2009, David Marx led digital photography programs for the 
For what it’s worth, I disagree strongly with your characterization of this preference. You make it sound like a no-brainer, and that the user is in for a world of hurt if you leave it unchecked.
I quite deliberately leave it unchecked, and I think I’m happier for it.
You do have to take care with your catalog backups, for sure. But other than the belt-and-suspenders nature of using written XMP data for backups in case of catalog failure, I see absolutely no advantage *for my workflow* to writing out XMP, and several disadvantages. I don’t use any other applications that can read the XMP data, so the only reason to do it would be for backup purposes. If you use other XMP-aware applications, then obviously that changes the cost/benefit equation.
The major disadvantage is performance. This has certainly gotten better as new versions have come along, but the reality remains that if you turn it on, you’re writing more data to disk (and reading more from disk), and that can’t be faster. I expect this performance divide will increase in the future, not decrease.
Second, if you write out the XMP data and you care about it, you have to back it up. Currently, I only have to back up my image folders at Import time, and they never get written again. If you write out the XMP data you have to back up those files again regularly, and if you write the XMP directly into the image files (for compatible file formats), you have to back up the entire file again, not just the .xmp sidecar.
My workflow is faster and simpler because I leave that box unchecked, and I don’t see why that would be true for many other readers, provided they have excellent catalog backup hygiene.
I like having the .XMP file sitting right next to my raw files. It means when I back up the raw files, I back up *my* work as well.
It also simplifies the restoring process. When I restore my raw files, I don’t have to hunt down ‘which catalog’ I was using back when I worked on those raw files. I simply re-import the raw files and Lightroom automatically picks up the latest work I did right out of the .XMP files.
If your work flow is like Mark’s (up above), and you only ever back up your raw files once, then I agree with him.
But I backup once at the beginning and once at the end. Plus, the entire time I work on my files, they are stored all together on a Drobo (similar to RAID-5) which means I can easily lose my system drive (and catalog) at any time and _not_ suffer any loss of work. (having lost 3 hard drives in a year’s time last year, this type of redundancy weighs heavily on my mind)
Dear Mark and David,
Thanks to both of you. You each make excellent arguments for the experienced Lightroom user. I am going to stand by my recommendation though that folks learning Lightroom turn on the “automatically write changes to XMP” option. For folks starting out, I am absolutely convinced this is the vastly superior way to go.
Now, as to the .XMP sidecar files twist, I convert all of my raw files to DNG on their way into Lightroom. It’s not that sidecar files scare me, but I see absolutely no reason why I should have them or propiertary raw files on my hard drives. I am eager for the day when my camera can automatically record a raw file using the dng format. In my world, a raw file format that carries its metadata internally, and that is approximately 15% smaller in file size than my original captures, is a huge advantage. But, the convert / not to convert to dng debate will have to wait until I get that article up.
I have similar thoughts to Mark. Using a single DB definitely requires backup to that one file, but writing all the change data into the raw file itself presents lots of headache for backup.
I use Carbonite to automatically backup anything in my pictures folder. As soon as I download the photos off of my camera they start getting backed up to the cloud. So if I do that, then a week later finally get around to editing my files and do a global white balance fix, every one of my images needs to be fully re-backed up… right? Maybe I need to do some due diligence in that I think Carbonite (and maybe others) do byte level backups, so they may only need to back up the part that changed.
This is the one thing that prevents me from switching to the embedded xmp data. If I had 4GB of images in the above example, I back up 4GB at download time and then 4GB again a week later when I do my edits (and yet again with any further edits). That’s a lot of bandwidth going back and forth for small changes, where my DB being only a few hundred meg is much smaller.
Inversely, if I open a single image and change a single thing, I have to back up that whole few hundred meg file again as well. Not very optimal in this case.
David’s sidecar file may be the happy place in between. Small backups every time.
So that raises the question of what happens when you switch? I have a catalog with several years of info. If I check that box does it only do it going forward, or does it go back and create files for all my past work?
Also can you mix and match? If I was DB driven on one computer, but on another computer I went XMP (sidecar or embedded) and then imported them into my DB driven lightroom… what happens?
Thanks for the writeup and any input you have here. Someday I’ll be educated enough to make a good decision
Great discussion going on here! I fall between the lines with my personal workflow. I do feel that it’s important to have the metadata saved out to the files (I, too, use DNG, so those pesky “sidecar” files are not an issue) for backup etc. I do not, however, like to have Lightroom do that for me automatically. As David stated, though, the automatic saving of XMP is an excellent choice for those just getting into Lightroom or those wanting a “set it and forget it” type of strategy.
After my session of work is complete in Lightroom (or a few times along the way), I select all of the images in my catalog and hit Cmd-S (Ctrl-S on a PC). That’s the shortcut for the “Save Metadata to Files” command found under the “Metadata” menu. That way, I control when Lightroom saves the metadata out to my files.
Aaron, that answers one of your questions. If you are turning the switch on for the first time, go ahead and select all of your images and choose “Save Metadata to Files” this one time. That way, you’re sure the information is saved.
For your second question, importing images with the metadata included (embedded or sidecar) into a catalog will allow that catalog to read the settings in the file.
Hope that helps.
-Scott
What is the effect of setting the preference to automatically write to XMP sidecar files if you’re dealing with DNG-format files?
Thanks,
Will
For what it’s worth, I’ve always had the setting enabled and couldn’t live without it. I use RAW images with XMP sidecards and regularly synchronise changes to a backup location. That way my regular backups are quick and easy (since only the XMP files change) but I still have everything backed up in one go.
I generally don’t spend that long developing any one individual photo, but if I lost my develop settings for all my images (even if I still had the original RAWs) then the impact would be massive.
Will,
Great question. The rules for DNG files are no different than for other raw files (NEF, CR2, CRW, etc) or for JPGs. With DNG, the metadata can be saved inside the file, thus not requiring the use of a .XMP “sidecar” file. The same XMP metadata is stored with the file, however, so saving it out to the DNG files offers the same backup advantages that David discusses above.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
-Scott
I think this is a bad idea. Although saving out metadata is critical, I don’t recommend auto-save. Here’s why:
With this option enabled, Lightroom will write metadata to your files after EVERY change, no matter how small, including undo/redo. So if you tweak white balance, adjust brightness and change the rating, LR will have written to the file three times. And if you change your mind and undo, or go back in history, again, more writing to the file(s). Obviously, this is overkill.
In my opinion, this much unnecessary file access could itself cause problems. If your hard disk file system is at all unstable, or if Lightroom should crash while trying to write to a file, you’ve got big problems.
Anyone with experience using computers knows that frequently saving your work is essential. The key is understanding that working Lightroom is no different.
Unfortunately, it is possible to work a long time (or forever?) in Lightroom without ever saving metadata out to the files. Lightroom’s interface can be configured to provide clues that the file’s metadata should be saved, but this is not the default and is less than obvious.
So here’s what I recommend, instead: when working on an individual file, every so often, press Cmd-S or Ctrl-S. Just like in any program.
If you’re working with multiple files at once, such as applying keywords or ratings, at key points you should do a Cmd-A or Ctrl-A (Select all) and then Cmd-S or Ctrl-S.
Saving your work in Lightroom is no different than in any other program.
I guess my question is more about the mechanics of telling Lightroom to save the metadata. Is the metadata saved to a DNG file *only* if the preference is set to “automatically write changes to XMP”? Does Lightroom retain the metadata if that setting is not used?
I think Nathanial is correct that saving a modified [DNG] file copies the metadata into the file. I usually get a progress bar as the data is added.
Thanks,
Will
Will,
The metadata is saved to a DNG (or JPG, or .xmp file of a standard raw file) either automatically (after every, little change, as Nathaniel points out) or after you tell Lightroom to save it (by pressing Cmd-S or choosing “Save Metadata to Files” from the Metadata menu).
The treatment of a DNG is no different from a JPG or Canon raw or Nikon raw except that the metadata is stored within the file (not requiring an external .xmp file). (JPGs, TIFFs, and PSDs do not require external .xmp files, either.)
-Scott
The downside of saving into the DNG is that your backup now has to re-transfer the whole 15MB file, rather than the 1KB XMP file.
Of course the upside is that you have half the number of files when browsing the folder.
Good point, James. For me, the smaller file size of DNG (compared to other raw formats) and lack of sidecar file make it worth the conversion.
-Scott
Thanks for bringing up this very interesting topic!
My question is, does the metadata on all my images get saved when I click “Backup Lightroom catalog”? Or do I still have to press “save metadata to file” on all my images, and then run the catalog backup?
What does the Lightroom catalog backup actually do?
I know the catalog backup does not actually backup the image files themselves, which is why my workflow currently consists of automatic Lightroom catalog backups daily, and then a frequent manual backup of all my personal folders (Lightroom Library included) with SyncToy to an external hard drive.
Thanks!
Edward
Edward,
You are correct in your interpretation of the Lightroom catalog backup function.
Backing up the catalog does just that. It makes an exact duplicate copy of the catalog file itself…the database file or “card catalog”. Your images themselves are not backed up.
So, knowing that, we see that saving your metadata out to the files has no bearing on this catalog backup. Your metadata is always contained in the catalog whether or not it is saved out to the individual files as well.
Saving the metadata out to the files, however, acts as yet another safety net for our precious work. It is one more way that you can recover keywords and Develop settings were you to lose/corrupt your existing Lightroom catalog.
So, from the routine you mentioned above, I’d keep saving metadata out to the files, back up those files, and back up the Lightroom catalog. That should help should some unforseen data loss issue occur.
-Scott
Great topic, thanks! I have one more question about metadata. I was working on a few images on my laptop in a small catalog and saved metadata when finished. I then copied and imported these image files (nef + xmp) into my primary catalog on my desktop computer. The imported images do contain the edits, but seems that I lost the history. I had expected to retain the changes history in the xmp data. What’s going on here?
btw, to import the images, I copied into the image folder (on Windows) and then “synched” the folder from within LR.
Thanks!
Dave
The history (and a number of other cool Lightroom features) are contained only within the Lightroom Catalog; not within the saved-out metadata.
To have this information transfer, you’d need to export images as a catalog then import that catalog into your primary catalog on the desktop. That process is described in this article.
-Scott
Thanks, Scott. I suspected that this was the case. I’ll try the catalog export/import.
Thanks for this, and all other tips and tricks you provide David!
After I read this post in May I directly changed the setting as you suggested. But now, a few months later I started to wonder what happens with all the jpg files I have. It’s known that jpg files should be (re)saved as few times as possible as saving will decrease the image quality. Is that the case here? Will the automatic saving of the metadata to jpg files diminish their quality?
Stefan-
You are absolutely right that re-saving the pixels in a jpeg file introduces further compression and that the effects of the compression are cumulative. If you were to take the file into a pixel manipulating program like Adobe Photoshop and save it again and again, you would eventually do great harm.
But, and this is a critical, but Lightroom is not a pixel manipulator. Lightroom makes changes only to the metadata block no matter what type of file you are using. Lightroom is not a pixel manipulator, but rather a metadata editor. By changing the metadata block only, it avoids this whole cumulative compression problem since your original pixels are never altered or re-compressed.
From the ground up Lightroom was built to be non-destructive. Your fears are certainly justified when working on Jpeg files in other software, but this program is cleverly designed to skirt around them!
Thanks for your quick response and for clarifying the issue.
Tonight I’ll sleep a lot better.
~Stefan
Thanks for this article and the subsequent comments, they’re very informative.
I have a question about the virtual copies, which your comments have raised.
How would you go about getting the virtual copy xmp data into a .xmp, or dng file, if the main raw/dng is being populated with your original xmp data?
Would you copy the original raw/dng file and then save xmp to file? How would it know where to save the xmp data, or how would you tell it to save to the copied raw/dng file?
Cheers
Owin,
Great question. Since Virtual Copies (and all their related information/metadata) exist ONLY in the Lightroom Catalog, we have to come up with a work-around if we want that information saved outside of the Catalog.
I don’t follow this procedure personally because I’m comfortable just having that information in the Lightroom Catalog (and I enjoy the fact that Virtual Copies don’t really take up any extra hard drive space). If you prefer, however, to have your Virtual Copies exists as real images, simply export them choosing “Original” as the file format and re-import them to your Lightroom Catalog. (The export and re-import can all be done in one step in the export dialog of Lightroom 2.) Now there is actually a second image file to which metadata can be saved. Once that is done, you can delete the original Virtual Copy.
The settings you applied to your virtual copy will be applied to the new “real image,” but the History steps won’t be there. That’s ok, though.
Hope that helps.
-Scott
If you think about it early enough and want the history to stick with your copies, just don’t use the Virtual Copy function in Lightroom. Export/import a duplicate of the original file and go to town.
IMHO, however, you’re taking a step backwards technologically using that approach. Trust the technology…but backup religiously.
What’s the other saying? Trust in God, but tie your camel?
-Scott
Victoria Bampton, aka “The Lightroom Queen,” previously mentioned a tip on Twitter on saving Virtual Copy develop settings to the original file. Here’s the text of her tweet:
Thanks, Victoria, for the tip and thanks, Sean, for reminding me about it.
-Scott
PS- If you haven’t already done so, make sure you read the book review I wrote about Victoria’s great book, Adobe Lightroom 2: The Missing FAQ.
Scott, thanks for the workaround. It is the same, or similar way I thought of to get around the problem.
As you say, wasteful of storage and a step backwards, but if you want/need to process the image outside of LR it is the only reasonable way to do it.
Thanks again.
Cheers
Owin
Owin,
If you’re using an external editor that you’ve defined in Lightroom (i.e.-Photoshop), then this steo wouldn’t be necessary, of course.
Just edit the Virtual Copy as your normally would, then choose to Edit in Photoshop (or other external editor selected in your Preferences), and a processed copy of the file in .PSD or .TIFF format (again, depending on your Preferences) will be sent to the external editing program,
-Scott
How does this affect time machine?
Let’s say I’ve got 20GB or so of RAW files that were conveted to DNG. I then enable this option and apply some presets to the group.
Is my entire 20GB fileset going to be backed up again by time machine?
And this will happen each time I change ANY setting in the file?
If so, having a 300+GB library currently, this will cause massive problems with time machine backup.
Please comment.
Same goes for Mozy online backup.
Paul,
You are right about this impacting the size of your time machine backups, but I don’t think that you are going to save much space by turning this feature off in Lightroom. May I suggest instead that you use Time Machine to backup your computers internal hard drive, but not your photos / Lightroom Catalog files? To protect your photos I suggest using a program like Carbon Copy Cloner. You can find out more about my backup system, and even watch a tutorial on how I use Carbon Copy, here.
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/05/my-photo-storage-system-two-external-hard-drives/
David
This is a bad idea. Bad for the speed of your workflow and bad for your hard drives. Do it manually ever couple days. It’s not hard.
Aloha,
I must say that this small tip has just made my day. I’m a new user to LR and have been learning as fast as I can. Frustrations still abound from having to unlearn my old ways but this is a huge relief. At this very moment I need to burn a back up DVD of my LR RAW edits and the accompanying JPEGS and LR is telling me that I have an unreadable disc in the burner and that just not the case. No matter though now that I know I can press the adjustments into the files and burn them using NERO.
Great tip.
-scott
Dear Scott,
Aloha! Glad you found this useful. You’re absolutely right too. Once this switch is activated you can use drag and drop files into Nero or any other disk burning program to make an copy that includes all of the metadata that you added within Lightroom.
I don’t know why Lightroom is giving you trouble burning disks (unless you are using Vista) but I am glad that you found an easy work around.
–
David
P.S. This tutorial on all of the other Lightroom Preference switches might also help.
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/05/setting-preferences-in-lightroom-2-updated-now-with-video/
Hi. I am pretty green about all this, so this may be a dumb question. I don’t shoot RAW, only TIFF and JPEG. Do these types of files have the ability to embed .XMP info?
Thanks!
Dear Photogrrl,
This is confusing stuff even for folks who have been working digitally for a while. What you are really trying to ask is can tiff, jpeg, etc hold metadata? And the answer is yes!
XMP is the data structure that Adobe created for storing metadata. With proprietary raw files– Canon’s CR2, Nikon’s NEF, Olympus’s OLY etc–this data cannot be stored inside of the original file so Adobe applications create a separate text file called an XMP sidecar. With all other file formats this, the metadata, is stored within the original file so there is no need for the sidecar.
Hope this helps and don’t be afraid to shoot in raw especially if you are now using Lightroom.
–
David
I shoot solely in Raw format (CR2). I am working in both Lightroom 2 with the Camera Raw version of 5.6 (I believe) and Photoshop. Unfortunately, I am still using CS3 which has a Camera Raw version no higher than 4.6, if I remember correctly. Whenever I try to save to the XMP I get a message saying that the two versions of Camera Raw are not compatible and I cannot update my metadata from Lightroom to the XMP. If I make adjustments in Lightroom and go to Edit with Photoshop CS3 I get the incompatible message and Lightroom asks if I want to “Render in Lightroom” or “Open Anyway.” I have been choosing “Open Anyway,” but when it opens in CS3, the changes made in Lightroom are not shown and the image does not open with Camera Raw. I have tried just about everything to get these two to talk to each other, but to no avail. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Dear Mary,
I am not sure why Lightroom is telling you that you cannot save your changes but I think that there is an easy way to solve this problem. I suggest that you re-wrap your CR2 files using the DNG file format. These tutorials might help. See:
Why Can’t I Open My New Raw Files?
Converting to DNG with Lightroom
Converting to DNG should solve the saving issue. The other thing that you need to do is to choose the “Render in Lightroom” option when you send a file from Lightroom to Photoshop. This dialog is asking you which program should do the raw to PSD or TIF conversion. Selecting “Open Anyway” tells Lightroom to hand your raw file over to Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw processing engine which cannot understand the files from your new camera. Selecting the “Render in Lightroom” option you will solve this problem so that what you see in Lightroom is what you will see as the background layer in Photoshop.
best of luck,
David
Hi All,
I have a similar question and may be your article or technique of checking the ‘auto-save’ button on might work.
As i am abroad a lot, I have several LR catalogs, no issue so far, but when I export the images from one to the other catalog I lose in 85% of the cases all the history of the presets applied in the development module. This really sucks.
The only way to preserve them is to export them as a catalogue which is stupid because then I can never group them in one catalogue.
Does anyone, Eric ? , know how to preserve these settings ? I tried to export, copy, move, DNG, but nothing seems to work properly for this.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Jan
I wish I’d read this 2 days ago! I followed Scott Kelby’s book page by page on learning Lightroom, he says NOT to check the Save to XMP button. I just had the corrupted catalog file and while I had earlier exported 130 travel photos I spend a week processing to jpeg (so I have the final product) and had the orignals backed up, I lost all the edits and the ability to further process the photos without starting over from the beginning with the original RAW photos or the limited work I could do with the jpegs.
I just turned this switch on for both my MacBook and my iMac, if only I had done it earlier……..
Dear Jan,
This is tricky stuff because of word “Export” means one thing but “Export as Catalog” means something entirely different.
I believe that you are looking for a way to move a file’s develop history from place to place. For more info on the history panel see:
http://thelightroomlab.com/2008/12/an-overview-of-the-lightroom-history-panel/
In this case though I believe that you have no choice but to export a catalog and then import that temporary catalog into your master library. You need to go the catalog route so that the file and its history move from place to place. Exporting just the file– in this case export means creating a separate copy akin to what the “save as” button does in most programs–will not solve your needs since the new file is born with its own blank history of Lightroom development.
If I were you I would create a collection first then select add all of files that you want to move into your collection. Once everything is associated right click on the collection’s name and select the export as catalog option.
best of luck,
David