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cheetah80
cheetah80
Participant
October 15, 2023
Question

Importing photos to Lightroom on Ipad from Ipad storage is slow

  • October 15, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 698 views

Hi!  Due to airplane weight restrictions I need to use my Ipad (M1 Pro with 2TB storage) as my device to view and backup my photos while on a trip.  I'm a wildlife photographer so I may take many hundreds or even thousands of photos in 1 session.  I will be backing up photos from the card via Files onto the Ipad storage.  Then I would like to import them into Lightroom Mobile on Ipad so that I can view them properly.  
The problem is that the import from Files is extremely slow: it takes about half hour for each 1000 photos (from 45MP camera - raw photos).  On my Macbook it takes seconds or maybe a minute.  
Is this normal or is there something I can do to speed it up?
PS 1: In case it's relevant,  I do not want to sync via Cloud - the volumes I work with are too large and the internet connections where I will be would anyway not allow it.      
PS 2: due to the impaired way iPadOS handles files I do not want to import straight to LR as then I will face problems regularly backing up into an SSD as you can's easily select which files to copy when you are dealing with thousands of them 😞 

2 replies

D
danielmatthews
Participant
February 6, 2025

I'm importing images from an SD card into Lightroom on iPad. A lot of the images have already been imported so they are grayed out and I see a little icon on each photo that says "Lr" and is also grayed out. In addition on a lot of the already imported photos there's a little icon that says "Raw." Some of the Raw icons are grayed out and some are not. What does that mean?

C
Charlie.D
Inspiring
October 20, 2023

Hello @cheetah80 

 

I asked a developer about this, and it would be faster to import directly from SD cards to Lightroom, versus using the Files app as an intermediate step.  The APIs used for direct import are different than the APIs used for Files access, for the Lightroom app, and direct import should be faster.  I understand Files makes for a useful browsing/selection/culling interface, but if speed is most important, I encourage you to experiement with a small batch of direct imports from SD straight into Lightroom to see if that's faster for you.

 

My process while traveling:

1. In Lightroom, tap the cloud icon and disable sync

2. import from SD card to Lightroom using an SD card adapter (I use Apple's, but other brands may exist)

3. select and delete the imported images that I do NOT need, or at least which I'm comfortable importing and syncing later when I have more time and bandwidth. 

3a. Remember: I remind myself to also empty the app trash in Lightroom, so the deleted items in Trash will not sync

4. Resume sync when I can plug the device into power, near wifi, long enough for my imports to sync

 

Another thing to consider: are you connecting your SD cards directly via Apple's SD Card Adapter?  If you are connecting your camera directly, please know the Photo Transfer Protocol used by connected camera varies in performance across different makes/camera models. Apple's SD Card Adapter may provide faster file transport for you. 

 

I hope some bit of info above helps!

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