LR "Archive Locally" doesn't save edits.

apologies. you're correct, i didn't answer your question and in answering your question, i think i figured it out. i'm on a mac, and it defaults to opening image from external HD in "Preview", which as you've stated, doesn't recognize the edits, so i have to select to open in LR, it makes me add the pics back to LR and then i can see the edits...i'm definitely a little ignorant of the technology at work here, but the process seems a little clunky to me, does LR Classic also work the same way? (i use LR only)...i'm about to move to using a 3rd party client-sharing app (pixieset or smugmug), both have plug-ins for LR, so i'm hoping that will simplify this process a bit. again, appreciate your expertise.

Thanks for the help Johan! I'm running version 9.0. While I have been shooting for years, i was new to LR a few years ago? I have ended-up becoming the unoffical photographer for our local High School sports...i shoot volleyball, football, soccer, etc.,...i edit down from hundreds of shots to an album of around 100...i have been simply "sharing" each edited album with the team/parents...i have the max LR cloud storage (i think?), at 2TB...at some point, i used all the storage, so i started "archiving" old pics (unedited AND edited) to external HD's to free-up LR storage, but i JUST realized, none of the edits are carrying over to the external HD, just the original pic as shot...how do i go about saving the edited images to an external HD? Again, appreciate the help! I went from just snapping a few pics, to now shooting around 50,000 frames a year!