P: Creating Directories in Inappropriate Locations ~/Documents

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Adobe Lightroom 4 is annoyingly creating a directory in ~/Documents on Mac OS X. For example: /Users/smith/Documents/Adobe. Contained within this Adobe directory is an empty directory named "dynamiclinkmediaserver". This is an inappropriate place to create files or directories of this nature. OS X has other directories that can and should be used for settings, preferences, temporary files, and others of similar nature.These two directories are created every time that Lightroom 4 is launched, even after deletion. Please avoid creating these directories in ~/Documents and put them somewhere else in future patches and versions of Lightroom. I look forward to this annoyance being squashed. Thanks, and keep up the good work otherwise.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Every time I open Lightroom Classic CC, it creates the folders "Adobe" and "LrClassicLogs" in my documents folder.
I understand that these folders are necessary, but they should NOT be in this place, as my documents folder is for my own documents only, not for other software cache, which has many other places dedicated for it in other places on my system.

I cannot delete these folders, nor can I change any settings for where these folders are saved by default.

Please can this be fixed and/or solved, I am not the first to have this same problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I just wanted to echo the inappropriateness of Adobe creating a folder under My Documents. Please fix this, Adobe.

Alternatively, please provide an option to disable the dynamiclinkmediaserver, which appears to be the source of this directory.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

On macOS Lightroom Classic creates folder in user’s Documents area. 

From Apple guidelines:

It is important to remember that the user domain (/Users) is intended for files created by the user. With the exception of the ~/Library directory, your application should never install files into the user’s home directory. In particular, you should never install files into a user’s Documents directory or into the /Users/Shared directory. These directories should only be modified by the user.

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The folder Adobe creates on my Mac's Document folder is "Creative Cloud Files", which contains one stray PSD file. Seriously, this is what bothers you? Seems like a COMPLETELY trivial issue to me (25-year Mac IT Pro career), since it causes NO HARM. Adobe has bigger fish to fry!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

*carlos_cardona The user should decide what files and folders they put in Documents folder. Not applications. 

Perhaps you don't mind a messy mac. To each their own. Some people don't mind having 50 stray files and folders all over their desktop either. However, other people like me prefer to have a clean and neat mac. I work better without extraneous junk and clutter. 

[DESIGNmule]

*carlos_cardona

*allison_rosenlund 

I totally agree with Allison here, I do not like clutter on my computer that I can't change. Not only does Apple clearly state that applications shouldn't be doing this, but when it comes to 9 years of the same feedback, you would think, being that this isn't a big fish to fry, that it would take maybe a week to fix this issue. An issue that many people over many years over many applications have complained about. Especially when people have been paying $600 a year to use it. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Oh I'm totally ANAL about a clean Mac, my desktop has 8 folders in neat rows, and I run the Clean Up command regularly! You can't call one more folder inside Documents "messy" (unless you are even more ANAL than me?) I SUPPOSE that's possible, but the saying "let the small stuff slide" saves my sanity!

A week of all the Adobe engineers' time is a ton of money for Adobe to spend on something that bothers 10 people.

$600/year? $9.99 X 12 is $119.88/year for the Photography Plan. I remember buying the whole Creative Cloud CDs for all my Mac employees, at several companies, at $1000/employee! And 4 years later you'd have to do it again, so $119.88 is a bargain!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

~/Documents folder is a part of the cloud folder, that Adobbe "engineers" don't know that Mac OS has special places to be used for application specific files.

It is about engineering culture, not to trash user space with a files that users don't need. Instead of blame users suggest Adobbe to read Developers Guidelines.

[wtremmel1966]

The issue I had, was that Lightroom did not start if ~/Documents did not exist. It silently crashed without a notice. No idea if this still is the case.

[DESIGNmule]

@carlos_cardona

I'm certainly not suggesting that ALL the adobe engineers work on this, i'm suggesting one or two. And I have 3 folders, so having one extra upsets the balance. At this point it's on principal, they shouldn't be creating folders the main user dialogue and after 9 years one would think an issue that has so many comments would at least have garnered adobes attention. And the $600 refers to all of the creative suites, of which Lightroom and photoshop both have this issue. SO if I were to use Lightroom, I'd have 2 empty unusable irritating folders.

[timjwes]

Any update on this - it really is annoying.

[Uhl]

Lightroom Classic on macOS creates a folder called Adobe/dynamiclinkmediaserver in Documents. The Documents folder should be reserved for user-created content. Adobe should move any app-related files/folders it needs to a more appropriate location like ~/Library/Application Support/. 

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-creating-directories-in-inappropriate-locati...

[Uhl]

Wow, I can't believe this has been an issue since 2012! 🙀

[Uhl]

Adobe, log files also don't belong in one's Documents folder. Please also move LrClassicLogs to a more appropriate location:

 

[Street W ise]

It seems incredible that a billion dollar company can't instruct an engineer to fix the location of a folder. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all, 

A new update for Adobe Photography Products has been released.  The October (MAX) update contains an update for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for being so patient.

[Street W ise]

Thanks for the fix and letting us know. I note that after updating to the latest versions of my CC apps, the Adobe folder is still present in the MyDocuments folder.

• Can you confirm that it is safe to delete this folder?
• What is the location of the new folder?

Thanks in advance

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@Street W ise  

It should be safe to delete. I recommend renaming it and verifying that things are okay before permanently deleting it. 

[Street W ise]

Just noticed that when upgrading to 14.0. LR Classic zips the old 13-4 and creates a new catalog with default name also of 13-4. I suspect this is a bug, it should be 14-0 to reflect the version of LR.  Anyway it's easy to fix via the Rename Catalog. 

[johnrellis]

@Street W ise: "Just noticed that when upgrading to 14.0. LR Classic zips the old 13-4 and creates a new catalog with default name also of 13-4. I suspect this is a bug, it should be 14-0 to reflect the version of LR."

This is by design. LR 14 changes the way catalog upgrades work, no longer appending the version number:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-2024-10/

[Street W ise]

Ah, so the default catalog name after updating to 14.0 is the same as the catalog it replaces? Fair enough! However, it can be a little confusing if, as in my case, the previous name - which was system generated - included the version number '13-4'. I assume the correct course of action is to override the default name, by either removing the string '13-4' from the filename, or replacing it with '14-0'. Personally I think it's useful to see from the name which catalog format is being used.

[johnrellis]

"However, it can be a little confusing if, as in my case, the previous name - which was system generated - included the version number '13-4'"

Agreed. Overall, I think the new design will be less confusing to most users, once we get through the transition period of the old naming system.

Note that there is a new command File > Rename Catalog that makes it much easier to rename catalogs. I've got my own naming conventions, and it makes the upgrades much easier.