Recover original photos and presets by connecting your device to a computer.
When Adobe Lightroom on iOS encounters a startup issue, you can recover your original images and custom presets by connecting your device to a Mac or Windows computer and accessing the app's file system directly.
After launching the Lightroom app on your iPhone or iPad, an error message appears: "Lightroom detected a corrupt database. Please connect your device to a computer to back up your photos, then install Lightroom again." The app may fail to display your photos or allow normal editing.
The recovery process involves accessing Lightroom's file storage through your computer to retrieve original images and preset files before reinstalling the app.
If you’re using macOS Mojave or earlier or a Windows PC, use iTunes to share files between your computer and your iOS device. If you’ve used multiple Adobe IDs on the device, you may find multiple user folders with separate sets of originals and presets.
Once you've recovered your files, reinstall Lightroom on iOS from the App Store. You can then restore your photos using one of these methods:
- If you use Lightroom without signing in: Copy the recovered photos to your device’s Photos app, then import them into Lightroom for mobile.
- If you have an active Creative Cloud membership: Import the recovered photos into Lightroom desktop, where they will sync automatically to your mobile device. Visit Sync Lightroom across desktop and mobile platforms.
This recovery method is also useful when you want to extract all original images and presets at once, or when you’ve used multiple Adobe IDs on the same device and need to locate photos from a specific account.
