But LR CC stores smart previews on the computer. If your catalog is large, that adds up to a lot of space. How do you get LR CC to store the smart previews on the external hard drive? ... View more

OK. Yes. That's clear now. Thanks. ... View more

Thanks Jim. Things are much clearer. Except for: Jim Wild wrote: "FWIW, I have that option UNCHECKED on my LR Classic system, because I see no point in duplicating that data locally." Then in the next reply you write: "I didn't say that there's an option to store originals locally in LR Classic. There isn't, because LR Classic can ONLY store images locally." I see a contradiction between those two. Is there an option to NOT store images locally in LR Classic? (if they have been imported via LR CC or the LR app to the cloud?) ... View more

Ok. Happy to hear you confirm that copies of images are not "permanently" stored on my laptop with LR CC UNLESS I choose to do so by checking the option. This clarification is contrary to some comments above in this thread. Thanks for clearing that up. Based on your response, in order to sync photos I've taken with my DSLR across ALL my LR applications, the prudent method is to CONSISTENTLY add/import these photos in the same way. In my case, I will attach an external SD card to my phone and add/import them using the LR phone app. Then they will go into the cloud and sync with Mobile Downloads.lrdata which gets synced across all my devices, including LR Classic. If my objective is to sync everything across all my devices, then should it matter if I aslo import/add via LR CC by inserting an SD card into my laptop? I will get the same results for LR CC.  When I look at my Mobile Downloads.Irdata file I see there are two folders, one with files imported via my LR phone app, and another folder with all the files imported via my laptop. The only issue is the two methods show up in different spots on LR Classic - but both nonetheless are synced across my devices. I didn't realize, that with LR Classic, I had the option of NOT choosing to store originals locally. If I uncheck the box will it remove copies that HAVE stored locally? Or  will it leave those there and just not continue to store originals locally? You state: "Only ONE Classic catalog can be sync-enabled at any one time." I didn't realize that when I started using the products, so now I have multiple catalogs. Is it fairly easy to move items from one catalog into another catalog via Import? I would like to sync files across all my devices, and if having the same catalog on all my devices will do the trick, then that's what I'd like to do. ... View more

@jim So photos I upload using the LR app on my phone AND a SD card connected to my phone are uploaded to the cloud. But is a copy put on the phone somewhere? Is a copy put on LR CC on my laptop when synced? I thought the option of storing an original or a smart preview meant that if you didn't check those boxes [under SYNC Cloud (upper right corner), Setup up wheel (lower right corner), then Local Storage], then LR wouldn't store on your local device. Wasn't the whole idea of LR CC was to stop filling up our hard drives with images and get them into the cloud where we would access the photo from different devices? After uploading photos via my LR phone app, I can see the photos on LR CC on my laptop, but I can't see where copies are stored on my laptop. Is there a preview cache somewhere? Now, as soon as I open LR Classic, I see the images sync and begin to download to my laptop.  The images get stored in a file called Mobile Downloads.Irdata in a folder with a long file name. They weren't in there when I opened LR CC, only after I opened LR Classic. So, are there TWO sets of images on my laptop, one for LR Classic and one for LR CC? If so, that's a lot of data taking up storage space. Next, I can see that edits made either in LR CC on my phone or laptop flow thru when I open LR Classic, and vice versa. But if I open LR Classic on my desktop (as opposed to LR Classic on my laptop), will the changes made flow thru to all when synced? ... View more