Catalog Backup Files are Permanently Marked Temporary

Assaf,

I don't know of any way to unset the temporary attribute from the Windows GUI, but you can do it from the PowerShell. Here are two commands that should help you:

NOTE:
<top_level_path> is some path on your computer like D:\LightroomBackups that you want to assess and/or update.

List temporary Files
This command will show you all temporary files that exist in some directory structure. 

Get-ChildItem <top_level_path> -recurse | where {$_.attributes -match "temporary"} | ft fullname,lastwritetime,attributes -autosize

Remove Temporary Attribute
This command will unset the temporary attribute for the set of files listed by the previous command where the same <top_level_path> is used.

Get-ChildItem <top_level_path> -recurse | ForEach-Object -process {if (($_.attributes -band 0x100) -eq 0x100) {$_.attributes = ($_.attributes -band 0xFEFF)}}

WARNING:
This command assumes you want to remove the temporary attribute from every file that has it under an entire directory structure (i.e., every file in every directory under some parent directory).

If you would prefer to only update a single directory, remove the -recurse portion. If you would like to target exactly one file, use Get-Item <path_to_file> in place of Get-ChildItem <top_level_path> -recurse.

What's happening:
You may or may not care, but because I'd generally recommend against just running commands a stranger on the internet provides without understanding what's happening, here's an explanation of the most complex part of what is happening.

The file attributes are represented by a bitmask. The possible file attribute masks are listed on this page. To keep things succinct, your Lightroom catalogs will have an attribute mask represented in hexadecimal (essentially sets of 4 bits) as 0x120.

This comes from a bit-wise or of the two attributes which do apply:

0x100 (hex) = 0001 0000 0000 (binary) = temporary
0x20 (hex)  = 0000 0010 0000 (binary) = archive

NOTE:
The calculator in Windows can convert these values for you if you select "Programmer" as the operation mode. You can also do it manually with relatively little learning.

A bit-wise or is a simple bit-by-by application of a logical or operator. An or operator works this way:

• 1 or 1 = 1
• 0 or 1 = 1
• 1 or 0 = 1
• 0 or 0 = 0

So we get to 0x120 by applying this rule to each column of bits:

    0001 0000 0000
    0000 0010 0000
    --------------
    0001 0010 0000 binary --> 0x120 hex

We can tell which masks apply by using a bit-wise and against the mask. A mask applies if the mask itself is the output.

 A bit-wise and is just like an or, but the rules are slightly different:

• 1 and 1 = 1
• 0 and 1 = 0
• 1 and 0 = 0
• 0 and 0 = 0

So to isolate temporary files, we want to know where 0x100 applies:

    0001 0010 0000 (0x120 <-- Applies to Lightroom catalog backups)
    0001 0000 0000 (0x100 <-- Temporary file mask)
    --------------
    0001 0000 0000 (0x100 <-- The mask applies)

The -band argument in the commands above is what performs this bitwise-and operation. First it is used to isolate the files we want by performing the check above, and then it is used to clear the 0x100 mask:

    0000 0001 0010 0000 (0x0120 <-- Current mask)
    1111 1110 1111 1111 (0xFEFF <-- Unset 0x100)
    -------------------
    0000 0000 0010 0000 (0x0020 <-- New mask, no temporary attribute)

Hope this helps!

Myles