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Dash8
Participant
April 20, 2019
Answered

Deleting 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata'...??

  • April 20, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 35606 views

Hello -

For some background, I use LR Mobile on my iPhone and am currently in the process of reogranizing/migrating my catalog from LR CC to LR Classic CC.  In the process of doing this, I hit that header button to 'Sync with Lightroom CC' and ended up with a massive loss of hard drive space.

I've read many discussions about this 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' and can relate firsthand to how big this file can become.

My question is this: What happens if I delete 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata'?  Personally I am not interested in having my mobile photos automatically sync and save to my desktop, so I don't mind if access is loss.  But I do not want to delete the original photos.  My goal is to keep the images on my phone and in the cloud, but not on my desktop.  At a later date I will intentionally organize them on an external hard drive.

Will deleting the file delete the originals mobile photos or just the local files on my desktop and the link between LR Classic CC and the cloud?

Thanks!

Brian

      Correct answer JohanElzenga

      If you just delete 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata', you will delete the images in it and so they will get deleted from all your mobile devices too.

      You can move the images from 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' to any other folder however, including a folder on an external drive. Just use drag & drop in Lightroom. Then, in the Lightroom Preferences, you can set this folder as the destination for new downloads as well. After you have done both, you can delete 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' because it will not be used at all any longer.

      1 reply

      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      April 20, 2019

      If you just delete 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata', you will delete the images in it and so they will get deleted from all your mobile devices too.

      You can move the images from 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' to any other folder however, including a folder on an external drive. Just use drag & drop in Lightroom. Then, in the Lightroom Preferences, you can set this folder as the destination for new downloads as well. After you have done both, you can delete 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' because it will not be used at all any longer.

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
        D
        Dash8Author
        Participant
        April 20, 2019

        Thanks Johan.  The thousands of snapshots from my iPhone have served to clutter and disorganize my LR catalogs, so I'm a bit overwhelmed and am tempted to purge cloud access and start over.

        To that end, if I "Permanently Delete" photos from LR Mobile on my iPhone, will it affect the originals that are stored in the camera roll on my phone?  The LR Mobile app says that only Lightroom photos, all synced devices, and all albums and shared galleries (presumably Adobe) will be affected.  I imagine this would reconfigure the 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata' file as well, no?

        Brian

          JohanElzenga
          Community Expert
          JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          April 20, 2019

          If you have copies of the images in the camera roll, then these copies are not deleted.

          -- Johan W. Elzenga
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