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dragondart
Inspiring
October 29, 2025
Answered

Syncing of Color Labels: Lightroom CC (V9) and LRC(v15): Smart Previews

  • October 29, 2025
  • 5 replies
  • 517 views

Testing the new color label support in Lightroom Desktop (v9)  syncing with LRC. Changes to color labels are correctly sync'd from Lightrooom desktop(V9) to the sync'd images in LRC(v15). Also the reverse works - change a label in the sync'd image in LRC and its reflected in the cloud clients. Smart previews only seem to work one way. If I change the color label in an image file in LRC that is sync'd via smart previews to the cloud - it is correctly reflected in Lightroom Desktop(V9), However the reverse is not true. If I change a color label in a syn'd smart preview in Lightroom Desktop(v9) it is not updated in LRC. This seems a bit odd as star rating for example are. Also it seems odd to work one way. I would understand if ti didnt sync at all.

Correct answer dragondart

Thanks for letting us know. 


@Rikk Flohr: Photography I did indeed migrate another LRC catalog to LR and only did a "Metadata->Save MetaData to File" prior to the mirgration and it sucessfully transfered all color labels. No need to reset the color labels. As I have a large-ish LRC catalog I am only migratiing a portion at a time by "exporting as a catalog" a number of files and then migrating the new catalog. I think what was happening was despite settting "automatically writing metadata to files" not all files hads been updated in the backfround prior to migrating the catalog. Its a bit odd as the smart collections I had set up to check on metadata status were showing no issues. Clearly that was not the case. A forced save meta data to files has solved the issue. Thansk again for your help...

5 replies

Ken Tryon
Ken Tryon
Participating Frequently
November 8, 2025

I just updated to v9.0 (I'm not in the beta program), and syncing color labels between LR and LRC was my first question. It sounds like this is planned for future releases, but there are details to be worked out—is that accurate?

Off topic: I'm happy to see bulk renaming has been added, and it would be even better if it was available on export. 😏 

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dragondartAuthor
Inspiring
November 5, 2025

On migrating an LRC Catalog(V15) to the Cloud (Lightroom V9) not all images have their color labels copies across! I follwed the documented process on preparing the catalog prior to migrating. After successfully migrating only the first 55 (capture date order) had color labels migrated - the remaining 23 did not despite having labels. I noticed the behaviot on a prior migration but assumed I ahd dome something incorrectly. 

 

The LRC catalog was created by "Export this Folder as a Catalog" from my master catalog. There was no medadata mismatch with files or missing files.

 

I have had some migrations (smaller in no of files) succusfully migrate all labels.  

 

Thoughts?

Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
Community Manager
November 6, 2025

@dragondart 

At this stage in the Color Label implementation, this is not unexpected behavior. Future updates will address this.  Unfortunately, I do not have an ETA for this. 

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
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dragondartAuthor
Inspiring
November 6, 2025

Thank you @Rikk Flohr: Photography. Just to clarify are you saying that when migrating an LRC catalog the migration of color labels is effectlvely unreliable at the moment - ie it works for some images but not all?

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dragondartAuthor
Inspiring
November 1, 2025

On my Macbook I have the Lightroom Desktop "Preferences->Cache->Store a Copy of All Orignals" unset BUT it is still storing my orignals at the selected location - in the .lrlibrary package.

 

I noticed this as I did a "Show Package Contents" to look at the library contents and found that is was saving orignals in the library. It had in fact a number of orignal files that had long since been deleted. (Note I would not expect them to be deleted if a file was deleted from the cloud).

 

I then updated the storage location to a fodler in the Pictures folder (I did not change the "Store a Copy of All Orignals" tick box - it remained unset and it immediately moved the saved orignals from .lrlibrary to the new location - but only those for files actually still in the cloud library - ie it deleted those saved origanals that had been deleted. 

 

Why is this happening? Is it a bug? Note on my Mac Studio client I do have "Save Originals Set" as I do want a copy of the original saved - but only once and certainly not on my Macbook.

Victoria Bampton LR Queen
Community Expert
Victoria Bampton LR QueenCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 30, 2025

Cloud sync of color labels between Desktop and Classic isn't supported yet. I can't reproduce what you're seeing with synced smart previews, but it could well be like the old trick/bug that got keywords to the cloud in older versions, where it got pulled from xmp already stored in the smart previews.

 

It is supposed to / does work between Local mode and Classic using XMP files, but there are a few oddities because of the way LR Classic handles color labels (being able to assign different words to different colors, etc.)

Victoria - The Lightroom Queen
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dragondartAuthor
Inspiring
October 30, 2025

Thanks @Victoria Bampton LR Queen (yet again!). As it happens I did a complete re-test and you are absolutely right. Heavon knows what I did the first time!.  I can confirm that changing color labels in cloud sync'd files in LRC does get reflected in LR just not from LR to LRC. Note I just use the standard color labels. Also it works for smart previews from LRC to LR - in fact any change to a "smart preview) file will cause the color label to be picked up by LR Cloud.

 

 

 

As per an earlier post on renaming - not reflecting changes back from LR to LRC is, for me, a bit of a blocker as I'd like to use the sync back to LRC to enble me to make a backup of my cloud files

 

@Aleke - no need to send you my workflow as this seems to be working as designed.

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grayj7988641
Known Participant
November 2, 2025

Not all photos seem to sync across Lightroom and Lightroom CC. 

A
Community Manager
AlekeCommunity Manager
Community Manager
October 29, 2025

Hi @dragondart, thanks so much for reaching out!

When you get a chance, could you share a quick screen recording of your workflow? That’ll help us take a closer look and better understand what’s going on.

Appreciate it!

Alek

*(If you mention me with an @, like @Aleke, I’ll get a notification and can respond faster.)*
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