Where your files live

Useful when you're backing up, moving to a new Mac, or about to start over.

On your Mac

~/Library/Application Support/les Archives

The local database, per-workspace catalogs, thumbnails, and cached brand assets. Deleting this is what "start over" means.

Note the folder name. les Archives, with a space and a lowercase l. TBTCatalog was the old Xcode project name and it's the folder earlier builds used. If it's still on your disk, the app moves it to the new name once, on the first launch that touches it, and carries the database and every cache across with it. Anything that tells you to look in TBTCatalog on a current install is out of date.

~/.tbt-catalog

A second, smaller folder in your home directory. Two files matter in it. settings.json holds your app settings and is still written every time you save in Settings. projects.json is legacy, read once on upgrade and never written again.

Your photographs

Wherever you already keep them. les Archives reads your originals in place and never moves, renames, or writes to them. Disconnect the app tomorrow and your folders are exactly as they were.

Off your Mac

Two things travel. The metadata, meaning your account, workspace, catalog data, tags, alt text, submissions, carousels, and bug reports. And a 2560 pixel working copy of every frame you catalog, which is the copy carousels, submissions, and publishing all run on.

That working copy is made once, at catalog time, from whatever you pointed the app at. Never remade. Which is the whole argument for cataloging from your full-resolution exports.

Your full-resolution originals aren't among them, with one expiring exception. Approving a collaborator's high-res request uploads that one original to a separate bucket, and an hourly sweep deletes it 72 hours later. High-res requests has the detail.

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