Importing from cloud with Lightroom Classic is painfully slow and creates a messy local folder

Question

I have a huge collection of photos up on adobe's server as a long time user of Lightroom CC. Now that Lightroom Classic CC has been added to my plan I decided to try it. It took 4 days to download my photos. I though maybe this was a result of adobe servers configuration not to use too much bandwidth. Then I discovered Lightroom Downloader is much, much, much faster.

This is apparently a known bug as searching for it

I came across multiple Reddit posts telling the same experience and it has also been going on for quite a while. Is there any chance the software itself becomes as fast as the downloader?

Another big problem for me is, at the moment, the fact the imported photos folder is not taking creating the same structure as my Lightroom library (I carefully divided photos by events, month and year). I know the operation would make it difficult to create album folders for albums taking photos from composite albums (meaning by that albums that are composed of different photos from different events) but I think the are multiple solutions to this problem:

One would be to avoid creating folders for composite albums as a proper option.

Another one would be to use hardlinks for files present in multiple albums, a solution that would somewhat replicate some of the features of Lightroom itself and is currently supported both by NTFS and APFS. A third solution would be to import the photos in their original upload album so that some the properties are actually supported.

the reason why I'd love to have this ability is because I have a folder on my backup disk that also has a copy of my whole photo collection. Now that folder is humongous as I upload the files there at the same time while I import photos to Lightroom so it also includes all the rejected files from culling. Still having always followed the process of creating an album for every import I would be very happy to have that same structure on my hard disk.

thnaks in advance

Jao vdL · Accepted Answer

It's too late now but the trick is to set the destination folder to the location you want the cloud images to go and then use a dated folder structure that is the same as how you import. This neatly files all cloud images exactly with direct imports into Classic. Preferences->Lightroom Sync->Specify Location ... and hit choose. Also check use subfolders ....

Your albums in cloudy Lightroom should get synced to collections. The collections structure is a completely separate structure from the on-disk organization and images can be anywhere on your local storage and be in any collection. So check the collections area in Classic and you should see all your Lightroom Cloudy albums and folders.

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