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Carl24692759kjpf
January 8, 2026
Answered

How do I prevent mobiledownloads.lrdata folder from populating ?

  • January 8, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 117 views

Hi everyone,

 

I'm hoping for some insight into an issue I experienced where the mobiledownloads.lrdata folder that lives in the Lightroom folder on my computer's hard drive (alongside my Lightroom catalog) auto-populated without me realizing it. For context: I recently ran out of room on my computer's internal hard drive (I have a Lenovo ThinkPad that runs on Windows 11), so I purchased a NAS and moved all of my photos from my computer to the NAS. To do so, I followed the instructions in this video and made sure to clean up all of my folder connections in Lightroom Classic (LrC) before copying the folders to the NAS in Windows Explorer. After I copied the photos, I reset the folder connections in LrC to route to the new folders on the NAS (the folder structure on my NAS is the same as it was on my computer). By the time I was finished with this process, the "Folders" panel on the left side of my screen in LrC only showed the folders and folder structure that now existed on my main NAS drive, which I labeled "Photography". I was also able to configure my NAS so that I can edit photos that live on the NAS both when I am at home and when I am away. This is worked well for the most part, with some minor speed issues at times. 

 

A few days ago, however, I noticed that some new folder connections had appeard in the "Folders" panel in LrC. Several of the folders were labeled "Mobile Downloads" and one was labeled something like "[My Name]DesktopHQ" or something like that (forgive me for forgetting the name, the folder is now deleted and I can't remember it exactly). The drives that these folders appeared under were my current phone (Google Pixel 10), two of my old phones (a Google Pixel 7 and 5a), and one "Other Lightroom Device."

 

I clicked "Show in Explorer" on the new folders in the LrC "Folders" panel, and I discovered that they all existed in the mobiledownloads.lrdata parent folder. Since copies of all the images in the mobiledownloads.lrdata folders already existed on my NAS, I initially just deleted all of them thinking that I could reconnect the smartpreviews in LrC to the correct files on my NAS. This ended up removing the images from Lightroom altogether, so I restored them from the Trash in regular Lightroom and decided to re-connect the problem images to the proper files on my NAS before deleting them again. I did this by renaming the folders housed within mobiledownloads.lrdata, which prompted LrC to allow me to relocate the images they contained. This was time consuming (I had to relocate about 1500 images), but it worked. My "Folders" panel in LrC now looks like it did right after I finished copying my photos to my NAS (see screenshot below). However, I'm worried that something similar might happen again. Does anyone know how I can prevent the mobiledownloads.lrdata folder from populating in the future?

 

Screenshot 2026-01-08 145345.png

 

A few additional details: The photos that ended up in the mobiledownloads.lrdata folders were primarily older ones, mainly from 2014 through the first half of 2022. Looking into how to solve the issue, I've gathered that the mobiledownloads.lrdata folder exists as a sort of repository for photos that are uploaded to the Lightroom cloud from your phone and then downloaded to your computer the next time you run a sync in the desktop version of Lightroom or LrC. Strangely, however, almost all of the photos that ended up in the mobiledownloads.lrdata folders were not shot on my phone. They were uploaded from my camera directly to my computer and did not live anywhere else until I moved them to my NAS. I occasionally make small edits to my photos using Lightroom Mobile on my phone before posting them on social media, so is it possible this is tricking Lightroom into thinking that the images live on my phone instead of my NAS, causing it to create new folder connections that route to mobiledownloads.lrdata? This would explain some of the issue. However, there were other photos in the mobiledownloads.lrdata that I haven't looked at or edited in years on any device.

 

Some poeple have noted that checking the box in LrC sync preferences that says "Specify location for Lightroom's Synced images" can allow you to make it so images downloaded from the Lightroom cloud are stored somewhere other than your computer's hard drive. However, I'm not so much concerned with saving space on my hard drive as I am with staying organized. I would prefer not to have a bunch of random photos in lightroom connected to some extraneous folder that exists outside the folder structure I've set up on my NAS, even if that extraneous folder lives on my NAS instead of my hard drive. Ideally, I would like my photos in Lightroom to remain connected to the same RAW files that exist in my current NAS folder structure. Is there a way to do this? Or is it possible that something about the NAS itself is causing the issue described above to occur?

Correct answer Jim Wilde

Images can end up in your cloud account basically in two ways:

 

1. You choose to sync images from LrC to the cloud, either by enabling one or more collections to sync and then adding images to those collections (every image in a synced collection is automatically synced), or by adding images that are not in a synced collection to that All Synced Photographs special collection (so the images would not be seen in a corresponding album in the cloud, but would be seen within the All Photos view in any of the cloud client apps). Note that images synced to the cloud from LrC in this way are only uploaded as Smart Previews (smaller proxy images that are 2560 pixels on the long edge), and also note that these Smart Previews do NOT count against your cloud space allowance. With this method of syncing images with the cloud, the user has total control over which, if any, images are synced.

 

2. Images added directly to one of the cloud client apps (LrWeb, Lr Desktop, Lr Mobile of phones or tablets) are automatically uploaded to the cloud in original format, and these DO count against your cloud storage allowance. So, unlike syncing from LrC, the user has very little control over what syncs (the only "control" would be to pause syncing from one or more cloud client apps, but that's not really a very effective solution). 

 

If you need to know which of those 7500 images in the cloud are originals vs. Smart Previews you would need to open the Lightroom Desktop app on your desktop, click on All Photos, then click on the Filter icon (at the right-hand side of the Search Bar, top of the main window), then click on Sync Status. You will see several items including "Synced from Lightroom Classic", which would be the Smart Previews, and "Synced and Backed Up" which would be originals.

2 replies

J
JimWilde
Participating Frequently
January 9, 2026

You need to understand how cloud syncing works if you are going to use Lightroom Classic with the sync option enabled (as you obviously have done). One of the first things to know is that as soon as you enable syncing in LrC, a copy of every image that already exists in your Cloud account will download into that LrC catalog. The default location for them all is in the Mobile Downloads folder on your system drive, and they would be organised into "drives" which represent the actual device that the cloud images originated (though that is a virtual organisation, they are really all in that Mobile Downloads folder).

Those images could have been created in any of the Lightroom ecosystem clients, such as imports into LrWeb or Lightroom Desktop on your PC, or by imports or image captures in a smartphone or tablet.

 

This has nothing to do with the LrC images on your NAS....any of those that are synced to the cloud from LrC would be uploaded as Smart Previews and do not then get re-downloaded into that Mobile Downloads folder. And no, editing those smart previews in LrMobile does not trick Lightroom into redownloading them, but it does of course sync the edits to the connected original in the LrC catalog.

 

If you want to have all your images, including automatic downloads from the Lightroom ecosystem, on your NAS you can change the downloads location via the Lightroom Classic Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab to use the NAS. 

 

If you delete synced images from the Mobile Downloads folder (from within LrC) then they are not only deleted from LrC but are also deleted from the cloud. You can unsync images in LrC (including from within that Mobile Downloads folder), they will remain in LrC but will be deleted from the cloud.

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    Carl24692759kjpfAuthor
    January 10, 2026

    I'm understanding some aspects of this, but others are going over my head a bit. I guess the main thing I'm confused about is what determines whether or not an image ends up in the cloud. I have always used LrC with sync enabled because I like to be able to easily download/export images to my phone for posting on social media. I currently have over 7,500 images in my "All Synced Photographs" folder in my catalog, but before I deleted the mobiledownloads.lrdata folders it said I was only using about 39 GB of cloud storage.

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2026

    Images can end up in your cloud account basically in two ways:

     

    1. You choose to sync images from LrC to the cloud, either by enabling one or more collections to sync and then adding images to those collections (every image in a synced collection is automatically synced), or by adding images that are not in a synced collection to that All Synced Photographs special collection (so the images would not be seen in a corresponding album in the cloud, but would be seen within the All Photos view in any of the cloud client apps). Note that images synced to the cloud from LrC in this way are only uploaded as Smart Previews (smaller proxy images that are 2560 pixels on the long edge), and also note that these Smart Previews do NOT count against your cloud space allowance. With this method of syncing images with the cloud, the user has total control over which, if any, images are synced.

     

    2. Images added directly to one of the cloud client apps (LrWeb, Lr Desktop, Lr Mobile of phones or tablets) are automatically uploaded to the cloud in original format, and these DO count against your cloud storage allowance. So, unlike syncing from LrC, the user has very little control over what syncs (the only "control" would be to pause syncing from one or more cloud client apps, but that's not really a very effective solution). 

     

    If you need to know which of those 7500 images in the cloud are originals vs. Smart Previews you would need to open the Lightroom Desktop app on your desktop, click on All Photos, then click on the Filter icon (at the right-hand side of the Search Bar, top of the main window), then click on Sync Status. You will see several items including "Synced from Lightroom Classic", which would be the Smart Previews, and "Synced and Backed Up" which would be originals.

    MassC
    MassC
    Legend
    January 9, 2026

    Hey @Carl24692759kjpf, 

    Thank you for sharing such a detailed post about the issue you’re experiencing. Based on what you’ve described—and others are welcome to chime in—it sounds like Lightroom Classic is behaving as designed when sync is enabled.

     

    The mobiledownloads.lrdata folder is where Lightroom Classic stores photos downloaded from the Lightroom cloud. If sync is turned on and Lightroom can’t find a photo’s original file—such as during or after moving files to a NAS—it may assume the cloud version is the primary copy and download it to this folder. This can happen even for photos that were originally imported from a camera rather than captured on a mobile device.

     

    Deleting files from mobiledownloads.lrdata removes those photos from Lightroom entirely, which explains why they disappeared until they were restored and relinked.


    Your following questions are a little more complex, and I would defer to a few of our Experts, like @Victoria Bampton LR Queen 

    @johnrellis and @


    ^CM

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    Carl24692759kjpfAuthor
    January 10, 2026

    Ah I see, this makes sense. One small issue with editing off the NAS (or an issue I thought was small but may be a little bigger than I thought) is that there are some time brief moments where I lose connection with the NAS on my computer. This happens maybe once each day or two, and it usually only lasts 20-30 seconds before my computer and the NAS find each other again. Do you think it's possible the photos that were in the mobiledownloads.lrdata folder ended up there because my NAS and computer lost connection during a sync? In theory, this would make it so that, for a brief moment, LrC wouldn't be able to find the original files, potentially resulting in LrC assuming that the cloud version was the primary copy (as you put it).

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2026

    Do you think it's possible the photos that were in the mobiledownloads.lrdata folder ended up there because my NAS and computer lost connection during a sync? In theory, this would make it so that, for a brief moment, LrC wouldn't be able to find the original files, potentially resulting in LrC assuming that the cloud version was the primary copy (as you put it).


    By @Carl24692759kjpf

     

    No, it doesn't work that way at all. If LrC loses connection to the NAS then all the images on the NAS are reported as "missing". The only images that would normally end up in Mobile Downloads are those that have synced down from your Cloud account. If you are thinking that when a file goes missing from LrC that LrC then checks with the cloud to see if there's a copy of that images there, so can then download it to the specified downloads location, then no that's not possible.

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