Is it possible to open a catalog an extenal hdd on ipad pro 2020?

[ragdesodanarg]

I am considering a purchase of the ipad pro 2020 with the intention of replacing my macbook pro on my travels. I save my catalogs and photos on an external hard drive. Since I usually move a lot of GB so I can't use the cloud.

Is Lightroom for ipad ready to open a catalog from an external hard drive?
Will I be able to import the photos from an SD to the external hard drive (just like I do on the pc)?

regards,

[DdeGannes · Accepted solution]

You cannot install Lightroom Classic on you iPad, the iPad and other mobile devices use the Lightroom Mobile app the equivalent of a Catalog is located in The Adobe Creative Cloud storage on line. You need a Computer to install Lightroom Classic.

You can sync Lightroom Classic, selected Collections you have created, to send Smart Previews to the Cloud storage and they will be available on your iPad and other mobile devices.

[adiseker]

I wish they had answered your question, not the question they thought you asked, but it looks like Lightroom for iPadOS doesn't see the LR catalogs on an external hard drive, or at least can't open them.  I'm irritated at this, since I have many catalogs organized, each for a particular shoot or location, and I seldom use collections, which is what Adobe seems to prefer.  Maybe in some future release they'll allow external hard drive catalog access, but I won't hold my breath.

[Rob_Cullen]

The question-

Will I be able to import the photos from an SD to the external hard drive (just like I do on the pc)?

Import to a Lr-Classic Catalog resident on the iPad- No. You cannot install or run Lr-Classic on mobile devices.

You can however, install and run Lightroom-Mobile (the Cloud Version 3.4) that will import to the Lightroom-Mobile Catalog and sync the camera files to Cloud storage, AND it will download them (full-size) to a Lr-Classic Catalog on your home PC/Mac (when Sync is switched 'on').

Lightroom-Classic Catalogs and Lightroom-Mobile Catalogs are NOT the same.

Also-

Lightroom-Classic was not designed to integrate with the Adobe Cloud ecosystem.

You can only ever sync ONE Lr-Classic Catalog with the Cloud ecosystem, and to sync photos 'up' to mobile devices from the Classic Catlaog you need to specify Collections of selected photos that will 'sync up' to the Cloud as Proxy (Smart Preview) files.

Your "many Catalogs" makes any syncing with the Cloud a nightmare, unless you merge the Catalogs, or set one Catalog only to be the 'Synced' Catalog.

[Conrad C]

DdeGannes is correct, but here’s more detail. Because although the iPad can do some of these things, it’s important to understand the difference between the capabilities of the iPad by itself, and the capabilities of Lightroom on iPad.

ragdesodanarg wrote:

Will I be able to import the photos from an SD to the external hard drive (just like I do on the pc)?

iOS 13 and later can import photos from a camera card directly to your choice of:

• Lightroom storage on the iPad, by importing through Lightroom.
• iPad internal storage, by importing through the Files app.
• External storage connected to an iPad, by importing through the Files app.

When you import to Lightroom from any of those three locations (camera card, iPad internal storage, iPad external storage), the photos are always copied from wherever they are into Lightroom storage on the iPad, then uploaded to Lightroom cloud storage as soon as possible when Internet is available, and removed from (but visible on) the iPad until you want to edit them. If you select a photo for editing, it is downloaded from the cloud and cached so you can work on it. This is different than how Lightroom Classic works on your PC, and a catalog is not involved.

Lightroom Classic and its catalogs, which use local storage as master photo storage, are different than the Lightroom (not Classic) cloud-based system on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.

If you import photos to an iPad, return to your PC, and open an Lightroom Classic catalog that is synced to Lightroom cloud storage, the imported photos are downloaded to your PC to a local storage location, and removed from cloud storage except for Smart Previews.

ragdesodanarg wrote:

Is Lightroom for ipad ready to open a catalog from an external hard drive?

Because of the differences above, Lightroom from iPad does not recognize a catalog from Lightroom Classic, because it uses the cloud as master photo storage, managed through the organizational tools in the Lightroom app for iOS.

[Cptn Kirk]

Thank you for this comprehensive response.  It helps me understand this issue clearly.