Skip to main content
Participant
March 21, 2026
Question

How do I prevent Lightroom Classic from syncing my files with in the cloud?

  • March 21, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 33 views

I have just bought Lightroom Classic, and when I try to open a raw file in it, there is a modal dialog telling me that Lightroom will automatically sync my files with the cloud. The only option it gives me, is “ok” … but the thing is that I only want my images to be on my computer hard disk and no where else!

I HATE having all your cloud solutions shoveled down my throat. I didn’t ask for a TB in your cloud, and I dont intent to use it at all, but I was never given the opportunity to say no thank you!

Now I am not sure if I can use your product at all, without having you guys uploading my entire foto collection to your cloud? What the feck happened to good old concent here? Why isn’t this an opt-in possibility, or at least give us a chance to opt it out, for crying out loud? 😠

    3 replies

    HasseDkAuthor
    Participant
    March 21, 2026

    I'm not sure of anything here, but my God, I hope you are right! 😍

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 21, 2026

    No, in Lightroom Classic, nothing syncs unless you manually turn it on and start assigning collections or images to sync. Like, if you never touch syncing, no photos/videos will ever be uploaded and will remain 100% local. 

     

    Make sure the top left corner of the module picker says Lightroom Classic. If you instead see two tabs that say Cloud and Local, you installed cloud Lightroom which does use the cloud by default. If so, you’ll want to uninstall that and make sure you install Lightroom Classic instead.

     

     

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 21, 2026

    Are you sure you installed Lightroom Classic (LrC icon) and not Lightroom (Lr icon)? Lightroom Classic does not sync anything to the cloud unless you tell it to do so (and then it’ll sync only smart previews, not original images).

    -- Johan W. Elzenga