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lpfertig
Participating Frequently
October 21, 2017
Question

Avoiding LR Mobile using up my cloud storage allowance

  • October 21, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1049 views

Hi. I've just upgraded from LR CC 2015 to LR CC Classic on my Mac; I use LR Mobile on my iPhone/iPad both to view collections and to import via Camera Connection. I'm concerned that my (low) cloud storage allowance will quickly be used up. I note that LR CC Classic is telling me that I am using 9GB of my cloud allowance but the size of my smart preview .lrdata is only 2GB. I don't store any assets in the cloud.

1. My understanding is that cloud storage used to sync between desktop and LR Mobile DOES count against my cloud storage allocation. Is this right? (Adobe support first told me one thing then told me another.)

2. My understanding is that photos sync'd from desktop to LR Mobile will only store smart previews (not full image files) in the cloud. Is that right?

3.  My workflow often involves importing photos via Camera Connection to Camera Roll and LR Mobile (using auto import), and then sync'ing to desktop (now LR CC Classic). Clearly the full image file will need to be transferred to the desktop but ... does that leave the full image file in the cloud (chewing up my cloud allowance) or does the automagic of sync'ing transfer the full image file but only leave a smart preview in the cloud? Is the answer to this question affected by the new release of LR CC (which I don't use on the desktop but I have installed the upgraded LR Mobile which is designed to work with LR CC).

4. If the answer to (3) is that importing via LR Mobile leaves the full image file in the cloud, is there any way of clearing that down so that only a smart preview is left? I could unsync that collection and then resync. Would that do the trick?

Many thanks,

Paul

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Ian Lyons
    Community Expert
    Ian LyonsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 22, 2017

    lpfertig  wrote

    1. My understanding is that cloud storage used to sync between desktop and LR Mobile DOES count against my cloud storage allocation. Is this right? (Adobe support first told me one thing then told me another.)

    It counts towards storage, which depending on which CC account you have at present will be 20GB or 100GB

    lpfertig

    2. My understanding is that photos sync'd from desktop to LR Mobile will only store smart previews (not full image files) in the cloud. Is that right?

    That is correct, Lr Classic like Lr 2015.x only syncs smart previews to the cloud.

    lpfertig

    3.  My workflow often involves importing photos via Camera Connection to Camera Roll and LR Mobile (using auto import), and then sync'ing to desktop (now LR CC Classic). Clearly the full image file will need to be transferred to the desktop but ... does that leave the full image file in the cloud (chewing up my cloud allowance) or does the automagic of sync'ing transfer the full image file but only leave a smart preview in the cloud? Is the answer to this question affected by the new release of LR CC (which I don't use on the desktop but I have installed the upgraded LR Mobile which is designed to work with LR CC).

    Any images captures on iOS or Android mobile devices will be synced to the cloud in original format/size. Since the cloud is effectively at the centre of the entire mobile ecosystem then anything synced to it will remain there until deleted (note deletion from cloud means deletion of all other synced copies on mobile or desktop clients).

    Lr CC for the desktop is simply another CC client, and effectively behaves the same way as Lr CC for iOS and Android (formally Lr mobile)

    lpfertig

    4. If the answer to (3) is that importing via LR Mobile leaves the full image file in the cloud, is there any way of clearing that down so that only a smart preview is left? I could unsync that collection and then resync. Would that do the trick?

    It can be done, but is not easy and carries with it the risk of deleting originals too early.

    L
    lpfertigAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    October 22, 2017

    Thanks Ian, but that doesn't explain why when I copied the contents of Auto-added, and then emptied Auto-added, my cloud usage tumbled, but when I then unsynced collections the usage didn't budge visibly further at all. I too had expected to have to delete all links before seeing usage drop. It was as though the originals were synced to the desktop separately from the smart previews used to sync the same photos in other collections.

    Indeed, something of that sort must have been happening because even before I emptied Auto-added, LR Mobile was reporting that the photos in the collections derived from auto-added files were smart previews. So, at that time there were both originals and smart previews being stored in the cloud for the same auto-imported photos.

    The bottom line seems to be that emptying the Auto-added collection removes the originals from the cloud. Copying the contents of Auto-added to a (non-synced) collection before doing that would seem to eliminate any associated risk,

    Is there another (more correct) explanation?

    Paul

    W
    wiffeltje
    Participant
    October 22, 2017

    I'm wondering about this too.

    I do have all images on my local computer using Lightroom CC Classic. I don't need the original images on CCloud anymore after they are stored on my local disk. I have multiple backups of these anyway. But my usage of CC mentions 8.12 GB out of 20 GB because of the 'original' images synced from my mobile devices that are still on CC.

    As a test, I did remove a large number of images which where originally synced from my mobile devices from all shared collections in my local Lightroom CC Classic. And I did add them back into other shared collections. After that, CC mentioned a usage of 4.54 GB. So 3.58 GB was saved, which I think corresponds with the amount of data of the raw images I removed. I guess they are now uploaded as smart preview images.

    So, I think a work-flow like this could work (for me):

    1) create a shared collection "new"

    2) on the mobile devices - import into "new"

    3) on the main PC with Lightroom CC Classic - autoimport (from "new") into local folders

    4) after importing into local folders on the PC - empty shared collection "new"

    5) copy/drag the 'local' images I want to share on CCloud into other shared collections

    I'm not sure this will work correct and will do some more tests. But my initial test suggests that this could work.

    L
    lpfertigAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    October 22, 2017

    Thanks Wiffeltje. I just tried a more drastic version of your experiment, with the same positive result.

    I did the following:

    1) Create a new LR CC Classic collection "Local copy of Auto-added" and copy into it all photos from Auto-added - just as a safety net

    2) Remove all photos from Auto-Added

    Once LR CC Classic settled down this lowered my cloud usage down to under twice the size of my smart preview lrdata.

    So, importing via LR Mobile does result in full image files being stored in the cloud, as seems logical but contrary to Adobe support guidance, but they can be cleared out very simply.

    Doing this every now and then may be simpler than the workflow you suggested. Thoughts?

    Paul

    W
    wiffeltje
    Participant
    October 22, 2017

    Since the beginning of this year, all of my (raw and jpeg) images are being handled using LR Mobile. Some because the pictures where taken by one of our phones. The pictures from my Canon are transmitted over wifi to my phone and also auto-imported into LR Mobile. So all my images originate from LR Mobile.

    On my main computer, I use LR CC Classic. The images are auto-imported from the shared collections into a local folder structure on my PC. That folder is being backed up to multiple other locations. After working on the pictures, a selection of them is put into a new shared collection that describes the event. These are synced back to our mobile devices (phones, ipad, android pad, ...). For our convenience, we also keep shared collections for every year. So I also copy every picture from this year into the shared collection '2017'. That way, I always have a version of every picture on all of our mobile devices.

    That has been working fine. But since all of the images uploaded are stored in full in the Mobile Cloud, it adds up quickly. And I've got a subscription that only allows for 20 GB. Just a few days ago my account showed that I was using 8 GB out of the 20 GB allowed. (I'n not very sure how this is calculated, since on my local computer I've got about 19 GB of images for this year)

    Yesterday I did remove all pictures from my shared folders and did add them again from within LR CC Classic. That resulted in having only the smaller preview versions available on all of our mobile devices. That's OK for me. Now my account shows that I'm using 25 MB of storage. So, it looks like the small previews for syncing do not count for storage.

    Since I only empty the shared folder 'new' (that holds the newly auto-imported images from mobile devices) after doing my work on the images in LR CC Classic, the risk of deleting it too early is pretty low. So for me this work-flow works fine.

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