Can LrC be connected to icloud directly

[leverett2]

I want to be able to connect to my Apple icloud 2T storage. Is this possible?

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

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[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

If you mean iCloud Drive*, yes, it’s possible because iCloud Drive syncs to a local folder on the Mac, and Lightroom Classic can catalog local folders. Simply import the photos from the folders synced to iCloud Drive, the same way you would import them from anywhere else. However, you might have trouble finding iCloud Drive files in the Import dialog box because of the hidden location where Apple actually stores iCloud Drive files on a Mac (see below). It will probably be easier to use drag-and-drop import: Drag the folders or files you want to import from iCloud Drive on the desktop, and then drop them on the Lightroom Classic application icon so that the Import dialog box opens.

Below are more details, and more complications you should be aware of…

Although you see iCloud Drive in the macOS Finder or iOS Files app, that is not its true location, it’s only a shortcut. The cloud-synced files are really inside the (hidden by default) Library folder of your macOS user account, in the Mobile Documents subfolder (in the Finder it appears as “iCloud Drive” but in Terminal it’s “Mobile Documents”).

That sounds technical, but the reason to bring it up is that if you imported iCloud Drive files into a Lightroom Classic catalog, you might wonder where they are in the Folders panel. You’ll never find them in the Folders panel under iCloud Drive. The Folders panel lists the imported files at their actual, hidden location. So after import, you want to look for the imported files under the path shown in the picture below, which is the actual path to locally cached iCloud Drive documents:

/Users/[username]/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs

The second potential complication is that sometimes the catalog may have trouble loading some photos. This can happen if iCloud Drive is not finished syncing changes from the cloud when the catalog wants to display something. It can also happen if you used the option to keep the file only in iCloud Drive (instead of syncing to a local copy), because then the only local file Lightroom Classic can try to open is an “dataless” placeholder file for the cloud original. In that case you have to make sure the file is actually downloaded.

If you can deal with all of that, then it’s OK to link a catalog to files on iCloud Drive.

Those guidelines apply to other cloud sync services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc…, although macOS actually keeps those files under the hidden CloudStorage folder as shown in the picture.

(*You can link a catalog to photos in iCloud Drive, but not to photos in iCloud Photos.)

[ExUSA]

Just be extremely careful with this as it could lead to data loss.

For example, what happens if another device changes the photos stored on iCloud? So your MacBook has one version and iPhone has another, the iPhone syncs the changed files, iCloud is designed to sync those changes to the MacBook. But you've done editing on the MacBook to the old file. You are going to have problems in that scenario.

Apple and other cloud providers have APIs so that apps can ask for a sync operation and confirm file integrity when working with cloud storage. Adobe currently doesn't use those APIs (as far as I know.) So you can't be sure that your app is working with the right file or version.