Adding photo comments in Classic without public web collection/album sharing?

[umlautnord]

I'm wondering if there's a way to get Lightroom Classic to allow adding comments (in the Comments pane—Library view, below Metadata) without making a shared album fully public via Lightroom sharing.

In a hybrid Cloud/Classic situation, comments on shared albums are enabled and sync even if the album is invite-only and not shared with anyone. I.e., it's essentially still completely private. Crucially, comments written in Cloud (LrM/LrW) show up in the Lightroom Classic Comments pane in the Library view. It's a great way to leave narrative notes that (mostly) sync between Cloud and Classic.

However, I can only read these comments coming down from Cloud in Classic. I can't seem to add to the comment stream in Classic—unless the album/collection is made fully public on the web with an unprotected link. Then, I can add to the comments in the Classic interface. A fully public album seems like a bit of an odd requirement off the bat. But especially given that Cloud apps don't require it... is there a way around this in Classic that I'm not seeing in settings?

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Currently using Classic v13.1, MacOS Sonoma 14.3.1.

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

No. As you already noticed, this field is only to read comments that are synced down from the web album.

[umlautnord]

Alrighty! I'll work with it that way, then. Thanks for confirming.

As why it'll comment on public published galleries, I'm now thinking that perhaps it's not authenticating to do that—it's posting the comment as if from a member of the public through another API.

Just speculation. Thanks again.