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alexandraw27
alexandraw27
Known Participant
November 3, 2016
Question

Import files by add or copy from Dropbox?

  • November 3, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 3070 views

Import files by 'add' or 'copy' from Dropbox?

To make things more complicated: I am using LR on my iMac with Dropbox installed on my home folder in selective sync mode, so I sync only folders of about 10GB at a time to my Dropbox. After importing the first folder with photos in 'add' mode to LR catalog, I sorted the files by year into collections. From there I plan on editing the files and then export them into a web portfolio. I finished sorting the first folder and now in order to move to the next folder I had to deselect the first folder and select the next folder in Dropbox. So now I have all ? (question marks) in front of the collection folders and parent folder, because LR doesn't know the location of the original files.

Will I be able to edit and export the photos of the first folder that I imported in 'add' mode or should I have imported it in 'copy' mode?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

JoeKostoss
Community Expert
JoeKostossCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 3, 2016

If your Drop Box is synchronized to a Drop Box folder on your hard drive, it is perfectly acceptable to select "Add" when importing.  But as stated by dj_paige, you cannot move these images outside of Lightroom.  If you move or rearrange the folders/images in Drop Box in the cloud, they will be moved on your hard drive as well.  Lightroom will then lose connection with these folders/images.

alexandraw27 wrote:

...I finished sorting the first folder and now in order to move to the next folder I had to deselect the first folder and select the next folder in Dropbox. So now I have all ? (question marks) in front of the collection folders and parent folder, because LR doesn't know the location of the original files.

Exactly what are you doing here? 

Did you actually sort the files outside of Lightroom in the first folder or did you create collections in Lightroom as the sort mechanism?

Did you import the second folder?

alexandraw27
alexandraw27Author
Known Participant
November 3, 2016

Thank you Joe for your time!

Yes, I sorted the first folder in LR by creating collections. Now I am importing the second folder from Dropbox into LR. Also in Dropbox 'selective sync' I am syncing the first folder back into Dropbox so these files are connected to LR again.

I would love to get both of your opinions, Joe and DJ!

I have about 100GB of photo and video files in my Dropbox and my task is in LR to sort by year and edit the photos, narrow down each year to about 100-200 photos and then export them to a web portfolio.

I don't have so much space on my iMac's internal hard drive, so I was researching on how to do this best using an external hard drive.

The solution seemed to be, creating two mac user accounts on my iMac, user account A has my entire Dropbox synced to the EHD as back up and mac user account B has my Dropbox linked to my computer's internal hard drive, but uses 'selective sync' so I don't use up all of my HD's space. Now that means, syncing one folder at a time and importing it into LR, sort and edit and then comes the next folder...but now of course I realize I will be filling up my internal hard drive again by importing folders and not being able to disconnect the previous folders after they are imported into LR. Makes sense?

Any thoughts anyone?

Help is much appreciated!

D
dj_paige
Legend
November 3, 2016

You have space problems. Buy another hard disk, that is by far the easiest solution.

D
dj_paige
Legend
November 3, 2016

Photos cannot be stored in "the cloud", for example in DropBox. They have to be stored on a local disk, or stored on a network drive.

The question mark happens because you move photos outside of Lightroom, this causes the photos to be disconnected from Lightroom. To fix this, move the folder back to your local drive to the exact same location it was in previously.

alexandraw27
alexandraw27Author
Known Participant
November 3, 2016

Thank you for your reply!

I am not clear on what the difference is between 'add' and 'copy'.

D
dj_paige
Legend
November 3, 2016

When you import

ADD doesn't move the photos, it leaves them in their existing folder location. Add is usually used when the photo is already on your computer.

COPY makes a copy of the photos in some other folder (which is specified in the Import dialog box under Destination), and it is this copy that Lightroom uses. Copy is usually used when the photo is on a camera card.

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