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R
RMacL
Inspiring
August 27, 2022
Question

How to control Lightroom mobile cache size on iPad

  • August 27, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 605 views

So, this is not a post about Lightroom Mobile taking up too much space on my iPad, but rather the opposite. Prior to a recent version upgrade, LR on my iPad would allow the local cache to grow without restriction. The more images I reviewed the larger the cache would become. This didn't worry me as I have 512GB ram on my iPad and adavantage with large local cache was that I didn't have to wait too long for images to load to full original resolution, asuming I had already reviewed same images earlier and had not cleared the cache. However, since updating LR on my iPad recently it seems like LR is now auto-clearing the cache to keep its size below 10GB. The end result is that it is taking excessively long time for my images to download to original full resolution version from the cloud every time I go back to look at them. Has anyone else noticed this behavioral difference in LR mobile cache and is there a way to set a custom cache size limit? In my case I would be quite happy to allow the cache on my iPad to grow to 300GB and beyond. I pretty much only use my iPad for LR.

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1 reply

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Jim WildeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 27, 2022

I don't know of a way to set the cache size, however you could work around the problem by setting specific albums to "Store Locally". I'm pretty sure that all the images in any album which is set to store locally are excluded from the managed cache, and so will remain on the iPad until you uncheck that option.

 

If you are thinking of doing that, one thing to bear in mind is the "Only Download Smart Previews" option in the Settings>Cloud Storage & Sync tab....if that is enabled then only smart previews would be stored locally, and the originals would likely still fall under the cache management rules. However, you can still edit using the smart previews, you would only need to download the original should you need to export an image using an export size greater than the smart preview maximum size of 2560 pixels. Or keep that option unchecked, in which case you would be storing originals locally for any album which you have set to "Store Locally".

R
RMacLAuthor
Inspiring
August 27, 2022

Thanks. Yes, I've considered the store locally option, but oftentimes I'm working across various albums and it's not always easy for me to know in advance which I should set to local storage if that makes sense. Having the cache follow which images I'm actually working with at any given time is more useful to me. I understand that, in keeping with the simplistic mobile ethos, Adobe probably want to address issue people have had with the cache getting too big an occupying too much space on their mobile device - with these people not realizing they can simply clear the cache at any time, but this apparent new level of cache management limiting it to max. 10GB feels that Adobe are catering too much to the needs of the lowest common denominator. The risk is that the mobile product is gradually becoming less and less practical for the more serious users and that is a shame. There is no way to manually set cache size limit in the mobile environment and is only possible in LR desktop version. As to your point about "only download smart previews", I always have this option turned off as I need to review full res images to assess sharpness, etc. Anyway I'll look into setting certain albums to "store locally" as you suggest as this seems to be only option to mitigate the issue presently?

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