Lightroom Sync Overwrites, Fails to Respect Deletions

Question

Subject: Lightroom Sync Overwrites, Fails to Respect Deletions – Urgent Complaint
 
Dear Adobe Support,
 
I’m writing to express serious frustration and demand immediate clarity regarding the broken behavior between Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Web, and the syncing of cloud-stored images.
 
Over the past three days, I’ve repeatedly deleted over 1,700 images from the Lightroom Cloud interface. These were RAW files that had uploaded without my explicit permission. Despite confirming deletions (including permanent deletion via the trash bin), Lightroom continues to re-upload these RAWs, or worse — reattaches Smart Previews and original files in a way that prevents any distinction or clean unlinking inside Lightroom Classic.
 
At one point, I verified that RAWs were stored locally on disk. But any attempt to disable syncing or clear the cloud entirely has resulted in Lightroom:

Restoring previously deleted content
Overwriting local content with cloud references
And making it impossible to confidently isolate or copy edits without risking total data loss.

I’ve followed all documented steps to:

Create virtual copies
Filter for Smart Previews
Unsync albums
Save metadata to sidecar files
Permanently delete images from Lightroom Web

Yet Lightroom’s infrastructure continues to undermine user control. I am a paying customer and a professional user — this is an unacceptable drain on my time, risking both client work and archive integrity.
 
I demand a technical explanation and a reliable workflow to:

Prevent any future uploads from Lightroom Mobile unless explicitly authorized.
Ensure that deletions from cloud storage are final and respected across all platforms.
Fully disconnect cloud content from my Lightroom Classic catalog without removing edits tied to my local RAWs.
Avoid this kind of sync backflow again.

This situation has cost me nearly three days of work and created enormous confusion due to Lightroom’s deceptive and undocumented sync behavior.
 
Please escalate this request to a senior technician or product team member. I expect an actionable response, not a generic link to help pages.
 
Sincerely,
Nancy Coste
Lightroom Classic / Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber
 
[Moved from ‘Bugs’ to ‘Discussions’ by moderator, according to forum rules.]

Sameer K · Answer

Hey, @nancycoste. This must be frustrating and time-consuming. I'll clarify this for you.

1—You can enable or disable Auto-import on all Lightroom mobile surfaces from the camera roll. You can also disable Auto-Import from Lightroom mobile. This will prevent unwanted images from being added to Lightroom.

For Synchronization, you can pause Sync from the cloud icon and keep it paused for as long as you want. When Sync is unpaused, all the images in Lightroom mobile will sync up to the cloud, as the Lightroom Ecosystem (mobile, iPad, and desktop) doesn't have Sync; it syncs all or nothing unless you keep it paused.

2—Deletions are respected on all surfaces except Lightroom Classic. If you import an image into Lightroom desktop, mobile, or Web, the original image is uploaded, and Lightroom Classic always needs a local full-size copy of the image. So, if you delete an image from the Lightroom desktop or Web, the full-size original is retained in Lightroom Classic but no longer kept in the sync queue.

3 - For complete exclusion from Sync, you can leave the current catalog and create a copy of this exact catalog.

Choose File > New catalog and create a new one on the internal drive.

In the new catalog, go to File > Import from Another Catalog. Then, merge the old catalog into the newly created, internal storage-based catalog. For more help via video-based steps, check here. See Merging individual catalogs into a master catalog.

With the new catalog, you can skip any steps that trigger syncing, and that solves for 4.

In case you choose to try Sync again, read through the content here to learn more: https://adobe.ly/44KB7Qp

I hope this helps to some extent. Thanks!

Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

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