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jabraham
Inspiring
January 2, 2023
Question

My iPhone is re-importing duplicates of every photo, how to reset it?

  • January 2, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1367 views

Lightroom on my iPhone has always been set to import photos from my camera roll.  But yesterday it decided it should re-import all 5000+ iPhone photos.  I checked and I was getting duplicates in my library of every photo I ever took on my phone.  

How can I fix this? Every time I turn the feature back on, it continues on it's journey of importing the 5000+ photos and getting duplicates.  I want it to import new photos I take, not all the photo's it's already imported.

 

Any suggestions?

2 replies

I
iane44284980
Participant
August 25, 2025

New iPhone is re-importing all device photos to LR. I need to have auto sync photos on. Abode support are telling me that every user who get a new phone has their library duplicated in LR if they had auto sync on. Surely this is an error.... Peole get new phones all of the time and I never recall having this issue previously.

 

(latest ios and LR software)

    selondon
    Community Expert
    selondonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 26, 2025

    Last year I replaced my 11 Pro with a 16 Pro.. I used Quick Start (which didn't replace some random old app), so then I did a wired transfer.

     

    In both cases, Lightroom didn't reimport any Photos.

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 28, 2025

    Thank you for your reply.

    ios 18.6.2 Mac OS 15.6.1 :Latest LR

    Yes I am syncing to iCloud.

    Optimisation is enabled.

    Device is online and LR Sync was enaled (help told me to turn it off pending a resolution. I have not heard anytjing from them and they have closed my case saying the behaviour is 'expected' and nothing is wrong and it happends to every one who buys a new phone.

     


    quote

    Yes I am syncing to iCloud.

    Optimisation is enabled.

    Device is online and LR Sync was enaled (help told me to turn it off pending a resolution. I have not heard anytjing from them and they have closed my case saying the behaviour is 'expected' and nothing is wrong and it happends to every one who buys a new phone.

     

     

    No, it doesn't happen to everyone who buys a new phone, it only happens with those who have iCloud for Photos enabled and with optimize Storage also enabled, AND have auto-import enabled in LrM. 

     

    The way it works in that scenario:

     

    Take a picture using the phone's camera app. That is auto-added to LrM. But it is also uploaded to iCloud, and eventually iCloud will remove the original image from the camera roll and replace it with a down-sized version with a different filename. Because it's smaller and with a different name, LrM sees that down-sized version as a new file - which it is - and so auto-imports it. With a new phone, assuming the user has restored data from a backup of the previous phone. iCloud will populate the camera roll with a copy of the entire library which LrM will see as new photos and start to import them.

     

    Personally, I keep iCloud for Photos disabled and I also advise other users to do the same (or keep LrM's auto-import turned off and do manual selective imports from the device).

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 2, 2023

    Generally speaking, LrM doesn't just decide to import older images from the camera roll whithout something having been changed. The usual "villain" in this situation is using Photos with iCloud, i.e. if you've suddenly turned that on when it was previously off, or you have it set to manage the photo storage on the device such that it removes originals for the Camera Roll and replaces them with smaller previews (which then appear to LrM as "new" photos, so it starts importing them).

     

    So, has anything like that occurred recently?

    J
    jabrahamAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 10, 2023

    Yes, iCloud Photos is probably the culprit.  Is there a way to reset LrM so that it only imports photos new from today?  Would deleting the app and reinstalling it help?

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2023

    Are you using the free Lightroom mobile version, or do you have a subscription? If you have a subscription all the photos should have synced to your Adobe cloud account, in which case deleting and reinstalling the app on your phone won't achieve anything, so you'd still need to select them in Lightroom and delete them from there. But if you have the free version, then deleting the app and reinstalling would delete everything from Lightroom....photos and any presets that you may have added.

     

    Going forward, you'd still be at risk of it happening again if you continue to use iCloud for Photos (I have it deliberately disabled for that reason), in which case you might be better advised to turn off the "Auto-add" feature in the Lightroom Settings>Import tab and simply do a manual import from the Camera Roll when you want to import from there.

     

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