How to remove onedrive from my lightroom catalog location found in Catalog Settings

[ralpha68698745]

Lightroom Classic ver.12.4., Windows 11.

I installed lightroom on a new Windows 11 computer, and now Onedrive shows up as the location of my LR catalog in Catalog Settings as: C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Lightroom.   I need to remove OneDrive from the location and replace it with Pictures, and I can't figure out how to do that. I want the location to read: C:\Users\myname\Pictures\Lightoom, which used to be the default location, I believe.

I disabled OneDrive, then uninstalled it from my computer. Then I copied my catalog from OneDrive to my Pictures folder.

I hope this is clear. I would be very grateful for any help the Community can give me.

{Moved from Lightroom Cloud to Lightroom Classic Forum by Moderator}

[dj_paige]

Using your operating system, and with Lightroom Classic closed, copy or move the catalog file to whatever folder you want it to be in. (Seems like you did this) Then, double-click on the copied or moved catalog file to open it.

[GoldingD]

Been trying to understand or at least eliminate a misunderstanding I may have. Does anyone have links to understanding OneDrive and how it can foul up LrC?

Specifically I see an OP listing as this OP did a path like"

C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Lightroom

And I think that means the catalog is on the cloud. Is that correct or incorrect???

I avoid OneDrive like the plague,  I use local user accounts, and local Admin account as part of that avoidance, yes I have a MS Account, just in case, but it is avoided as well.

[daleducatte]

It's been a while since I've used OneDrive for anything, but I think that path (C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Lightroom) means the folder containing the catalog (and other LRC data) is both locally stored AND synched to the cloud. I remember trying it years ago with the Lightroom catalog: the problem I saw was that the catalog changes so often when you're working in Lightroom that OneDrive synching would bog down Lightroom and the system. And, since the whole folder containing the catalog (not just the catalog itself) was being synched continuously, previews and other Lightroom data that change frequently would also synch to the cloud while you were using Lightroom, causing more performance problems. 

To get the catalog into OneDrive, someone would have to choose the folder "C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Lightroom" as the location for a new catalog -- which is why I say that everthing that's stored in a Lightroom catalog FOLDER is being synched, not just the .LRCAT file itself.  Lightroom of course puts previews and other data in this folder. 

At one point, OneDrive started allowing users to specify that a folder could be stored in the cloud only, and not locally stored. The folder would still exist on the local drive, but its contents would be in the OneDrive cloud -- sort of like a folder mounted from a network drive. This was never turned on by default, though; you had to set it for individual folders if that's what you wanted. And I never tried that, so don't know if, or how well, it might work.

[ralpha68698745]

Thank you very much for such a detailed answer. You've helped me sort out my problem.

[daleducatte]

Oh, wow, glad to hear it! And thanks for letting me know!

[Chickweed Arts]

I didn't enable OneDrive. I am very careful about that since I live in the Arctic on slow internet and work as a professional photographer and videographer. Last thing I want is the cloud controlling how fast I can work. However, it has recently done the OneDrive setup/sync and changed the file directory to "C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Lightroom". There is no longer a regular >Pictures folder so it moved that (along with my other user folders) completely into OneDrive. This broke my Adobe Lightroom Classic. I am struggling to get back my catalogs. None will open from the OneDrive and the Lightroom app itself will no longer open either.

I use Adobe Lightroom Classic precisely because I did not want to have contend with cloud performance issues and be undable to work when we have netwrok outtages. So to find that Microsoft has activated OneDrive without my permission and hijacked my Lightroom folder to the cloud is beyond annoying. 

I am trying to find clear and simple ways to reverse it all, but its not as simple as it seems.

I think the steps I need are:

A)  "C:\Users\myname\   add back a new Pictures folder here

B) Copy contents of the OneDrive/Pictures folder to the replaced original folder

C) Delete OneDrive app

D) Delete the OneDrive Pictures folder (and delete the other OneDrive folders once I have restored them as well.)

E) If Lightroom will still not launch, then I will also reinstall Lightroom

Any tips welcome.  Greetings! Jamie

[GoldingD]

One of the methods to stop associating your catalog with OneDrive is to create a new folder that is in now way related to any Windows system user library folders such as pictures, videos, documents, downloads, etc. Also nit located within Users. Not within or similarly named with any of those folders.

Create a folder on one of your hard drives. A folder all by itself. Name it something like MyPhotos, MyLightroom, Photography, Rumplestiltskin, whatever you want that is not pictures, etc.

Move your catalog to that new folder.

You may also need to deal with your photos.

Another method involves going into OneDrive and disassociating this Windows library folders, and disassociating file types like photos and LrC catalogs.

[richardplondon]

Often people don't think they have enabled OneDrive syncing in Windows by name, but nonetheless have implicitly done so by responding to a prompt which asks in effect: "would you like your files backed up to cloud"? Responding 'yes' makes a number of actions happen silently. First, the location on disk of your Desktop, Pictures, Documents and some other stuff changes behind the scenes. You can still refer to a "Pictures" location by name and see the same contents, but what was C:\users\[username]\pictures has now quietly moved to C:\users\[username]\onedrive\pictures.  And everything in that 'onedrive' is being synced by default. So that change of location matters for the Catalog, and can cause problems because the Catalog deals in absolute folder paths and does not go by virtualised library locations.

While LrC and OneDrive syncing can be made to more or less tolerate each other - by excluding certain folders from syncing for example - personally I think in the bigger picture, the user files area is not the best choice in the first place for LrC managed (imported) files, or for the LrC Catalog and its support folders. Also a continuous syncing approach does not 'play' so well with how LrC works, as will an on-demand or timed backup regime which happens at a time when LrC is not running. There is no problem with having exported images participate in OneDrive sync of course. But I find it more robust to steer clear of user file areas such as 'Pictures' for the working image library and Catalog. Not least, what if one's user profile became corrupted and a new profile had to be created: to have the Lightroom files in a user-neutral disk location completely outside of that corrupted user profile, would then allow one to pick up seamlessly under the new login. This scenario does occasionally happen.