Lightroom and pCloud

[Rhiael]

Just wondering if anyone else is using pCloud and their new plugin for Lightroom? I just signed up with them, and it seems Lightroom recognizes the drive, allowing me to import photos from my camera to pdrive (virtual drive) and allowing me to edit them in Lightroom and export to pdrive as well. The problem I'm having is at the point of adding the newly created folder that I exported the edits to. My only options in the import dialogue are copy, but not add.

Has anyone found a workaround for this?

[Mohit Goyal]

Hi Raven,

After setting up the pcloud drive with Lightroom, when you import newly shot images into Lightroom are you selecting the correct source(pcloud) for adding the images?

Regards,

Mohit

[Mohit Goyal]

Could you please share the screenshot of the Lightroom import window?

Regards,

Mohit

[Rhiael]

Hi Mohit. Thanks for getting back to me. Here is the screenshot.

I realized the destination wasn't quite the same in the first screenshot, so changed the export settings a bit. I notice new folders had been created. Was this done by Lightroom or pCloud?

[dj_paige]

My only options in the import dialogue are copy, but not add.

I'm going to guess that this is because for Lightroom to work with a photo, it cannot be stored "in the cloud", it must be stored on a connected disk or network disk. This is normal behavior for Lightroom.

[Rhiael]

pCloud adds a drive to your pc, so in a sense it is connected. Lightroom recognizes it and I can import and export to it through Lightroom, but if I create a folder in in through lightroom, it doesn't let me add the new folder.

[johnrellis]

pCloud adds a drive to your pc, so in a sense it is connected. Lightroom recognizes it and I can import and export to it through Lightroom, but if I create a folder in in through lightroom, it doesn't let me add the new folder.

Most likely, Windows has indicated to LR that the drive is removable, like a USB flash drive. LR doesn't allow catalogued folders to reside on removable drives.

You can verify whether Windows thinks the pCloud device is removable by looking in the Disk Management application.  A removable device is indicated as:

[Rhiael · Accepted solution]

Yes, it appears Lightroom thinks it's a removable drive. Hoping that at some point, Lightroom will allow catalogued folders on these drives. It's very frustrating. This would be such a perfect solution for photographers looking to free up room on computers.

When pCloud announced their Lightroom plugin, I assumed it would allow their program to work with LR. Seems all it does is allow imported photos to be uploaded directly to pCloud. However, if I can't then see those files in LR, I won't be able to work with them.

[johnrellis]

You could ask pCloud to change their pCloud device to not be marked as removable (like a hard drive).  That would be a trivial change for them.

[françoisc9156655]

Hi all

I'm using LIghtroom 6 and have had pCloud for a few weeks. Ihave an issue when importing photos into my catalog: the pCloud drive is the default drive in the Import window.

It holds more than a terabyte of images, and Lightroom needs to create previews for all images before I can start navigating and select what pictures I want to import.

It literally takes ages... (more precisely: ~12mn).

I have tried to disable the plugin, unfortunately it makes things even worse as just trying to import anything just puts Lightroom in braindead mode (i.e. just nothing happens and I have the nice little Windows doughnut circling around for ever).

Anyone has any idea about how to fix this?

[johnrellis]

To test my understanding: You are trying to import photos from a drive/volume managed by pCloud, and LR isn't letting you navigate to subfolders until it has generated thumbnails for all the photos displayed in the window. Further, you are using the pCloud Lightroom plugin, which makes it easier to export photos directly into pCloud.

I'm familiar with how LR export plugins are implemented, and I don't see how that plugin might slow down the Import window. So I think your problems with the Import window are unrelated to the plugin.

The Import window can be pretty unresponsive as it generates the list of thumbnails for a large hierarchy of folders. For example, when I click on "Macintosh HD" in the Source panel and then try to expand subfolders, it's very sluggish, nearly unusable (on my high-end Macbook Pro with an SSD).

An easy way to cope with that is to uncheck Include Subfolders in the Import window's Source panel:

[françoisc9156655]

Hi John

Thanks for this.

Understood, and yes actually unchecking "include subfolders" avoids having LR generating the full list of thumbnails. Thanks for the tip.

Incidentally I just discovered that my LR was not entirely up to date. Installing the 6.14 update seems to ease things up a bit. In the import dialog box I can now select the drive from which to import and immediately switch to my c:\ drive and avoid the long 1-Tb scroll.

Probably the pCloud thing had no incidence, however I removed it from the plugin folder (I actually was not using it much anyway) and things have all gone back to normal now.

François

[johnrellis]

Glad you got a workaround to the problem.

[BrightM]

Is this problem solved yet?

Is there any opportunity to add pictures on the pCloud drive? I even cannot move the picture from the drive to another location via Lightroom. So I have to copy the files to another location and move them back to pCloud after the copy is made.

Isn't there any workaround?

The marked "solution" is a good explanation of the problem but its not a solution

[wdburgdorf]

Another year later ... I pCloud properly working with LR yet?

Currently I use OneDrive, which is working fine. But I'd like to switch to another cloud with more space and lower price, away from M$.