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Jaaylord
Jaaylord
Participant
August 27, 2017
Answered

Sync between a Windows a Mac

  • August 27, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1921 views

Hello Adobe users,

I'm quite new to the Adobe-world, so please bear with me if you this question has been asked several times on this forum already

I am switching between Windows and MacBook Pro and would like to sync my Lightroom library between these two computers by using Adobe Creative Cloud.

So what I've done so far:

1) I've made a new catalog inside Lightroom and saved it into folder "Adobe Cloud Files Folder" (On my Windows PC)

2) Imported photos into this new catalog

3) Opened Lightroom on my MacBook.

4) Imported pictures taking it from the "Adobe Cloud Files Folder"

I'm a bit unsure if this is the right procedure, but as I import pictures into Lightroom on my MacBook, some pictures is in great quality as it should be, but others is blurred.. almost like when a picture is not fully loaded. Let me also inform that inside the Adobe Creative Cloud folder, not all the folders in there has this green logo, some of them has error mark?

I would really appreciate if someone in here could help me with this as my fingers are burning to get started in a 100% functionally Lightroom

Best regards,

Jay

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer ManiacJoe

Importing a second time is always the wrong answer.

Keep in mind that Lightroom is a single-user, single-computer software system. "Sharing" a catalog between multiple computers requires some jumping through hoops.

To share your catalog with multiple computers, it is a simple job of copying the catalog from the old computer to the new computer.

This does assume that the original files are accessible to both computers.

The easiest way to do this (not the prettiest way) is to put the original images and the catalog on an external drive and move the drive from computer to computer as needed.

Moving between Mac and Windows takes an extra step since the two operating systems do not reference drives the same way (drive letter vs drive name). In this case, each time you swap to the new OS, you will need to do a "relocate" on the top-most folder containing your original image files.

2 replies

ManiacJoe
ManiacJoeCorrect answer
Inspiring
August 29, 2017

Importing a second time is always the wrong answer.

Keep in mind that Lightroom is a single-user, single-computer software system. "Sharing" a catalog between multiple computers requires some jumping through hoops.

To share your catalog with multiple computers, it is a simple job of copying the catalog from the old computer to the new computer.

This does assume that the original files are accessible to both computers.

The easiest way to do this (not the prettiest way) is to put the original images and the catalog on an external drive and move the drive from computer to computer as needed.

Moving between Mac and Windows takes an extra step since the two operating systems do not reference drives the same way (drive letter vs drive name). In this case, each time you swap to the new OS, you will need to do a "relocate" on the top-most folder containing your original image files.

David__B
Adobe Employee
David__B
Adobe Employee
August 28, 2017

Hi Jay,

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Adobe advises against that kind of workflow. My understanding as to why, is that Lightroom is very system intensive, and attempting to sync a catalog file while being used by Lightroom causes too many performance problems.

Please see the How do I use Lightroom with Creative Cloud?

Frequently asked questions about using Photoshop Lightroom with Creative Cloud

Lightroom does have catalog backup built in natively though

How to back up catalogs in Lightroom

Best,

- Dave

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