


Therefore, if you want to continue to safely use your old version of Lightroom, DO NOT UPGRADE TO Mac OS CATALINA when it becomes available. In addition, you may encounter video playback issues with older versions of Lightroom, and it’s possible that other issues will be identified once Catalina is out and users put older versions of Lightroom to the test. While you should initially be able to use Lightroom 5, 6 and CC 2015 on Catalina if you have installed that version of Lightroom prior to updating to Catalina, if you then encounter an issue with Lightroom that requires uninstalling and reinstalling the software to resolve it, or if your hard drive fails and recovering requires reinstalling software, you won’t be able to. (These issues also apply to old versions of Photoshop.)

Namely, if you install OS Catalina, you will no longer be able to uninstall, reinstall, or activate old versions of Lightroom, since the installers for these are 32-bit applications, and Catalina only supports 64-bit applications. While Adobe is working to make the latest version of Lightroom Classic compatible with Catalina, there are serious issues with using old versions of Lightroom that will not be fixed. Apple plans to introduce its new Mac operating system, OS Catalina, in late September.
