Lightroom Classic: Macbook Pro M1

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Just upgraded to the above computer and Lightroom is now unusable. As soon as it opens and I try to do anything, I get the spinning beachball. I have deleted and re-downloaded the programme, I have switched off GPU acceleration and optimised the catalogue. I am now at my wits end and could really use some help, before I take the machine back and go back to my 2011 MacBook pro instead.

[Marc Feldesman]

Are you running the current version of Lightroom Classic CC?  What OS were you running on your 2011 MacBook Pro?  There are two potential issues here.  First, if you were running any Mac operating system at or before Mojave, those are the only ones that support 32 bit software.  Starting with Catalina, no 32 bit software runs on a Mac.  Second, if you are running pre-subscription Lightroom (LR 6, for example), it is 32 bit software that won’t run on the decidedly 64 bit Big Sur installed on your M1.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks for all the help I've received. I know that 256gb is tight, I have never intended to store or keep any photos on it and have an external SSD that I will use for that. Although I had been looking into the new M1 machines, my wife surprised with the one I now have the other day as a xmas and anniversary present.

[Cletus]

*iangAdobe only specifies minimum RAM and no DISK size minimum for RUNNING Lightroom  I don’t think Adobe has issued any specific specs for the M1 Chip.  If you had asked for recommendations here or in a user led Lightroom support group, No one would have recommended a 256GB SSD. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

8gb ram and 256 ssd, I read reviews and everyone seem to say it would be fine, getting rather peed off now

[Paul McFarlane PSS]

What spec is your M1? Most owners we've had contact with have found them good, with exception of one who had the 8GB version - Memory seems to make quite a difference (all the others are 16GB), as does free disk space.

[GinJeff]

@cletus_lee I have no intention of just using the 256GB disk. I bought this M1 Mini for play and it will be replaced as my editing system with an M2 + lots of disk. I have well over a TB of photos on SSD (on my PC) and about 1/2 TB of video. Photos & video will likely move to a NAS and the catalog will stay local.

My point is an 8GB system can do an impressive job with Lightroom and it is because of the difference in how the M1 handles memory and just about everything else. I.e., to answer the OP, "it works".

And even PS (nothing fancy) and Davinci Resolve, even have had all 3 open at once. Each of those would benefit from more memory. Where LR on 8GB really suffers is with combining multiple images (e.g., panoramas from 30 x 46GB frames). And I can likely crash Davinci on export of a 4k video.

[GinJeff]

Sorry, Activity Monitor on MacOS.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Process monitor? I’ll have to check I’m on the M1 version. I’m starting to lean towards doing a whole new clean install of everything, although it seems to be settling down now

[Cletus]

Lightroom and many apps use working storage.   The means that you will need sufficient free space on the Primary SSD. 100 GB is recommended. After the OS is installed, this does not leave room for much data and other apps.   I contend that 256 GB SSD is inadequate for running Lightroom CLassic.  On an M1 machine the OS uses storage differently and I think this is why 16 GB of RAM is the current max.

[GinJeff]

*iang clean install, then I moved my presets, installed Nik Collection (free version), some publishing services and created a new catalog to play around. I am slowly moving from a PC to a Mac - this won't be the final machine. GPU is on full. Make sure you are running the Apple (M1) build, not the Intel build. This is shown as "Kind" in the Process Monitor.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Jeff, did you do a clean install or copy data over from your previous machine? Also do you run with GPU acceleration switched on?

[GinJeff]

@cletus_lee I run LR on an M1 with 8gb/256GB ssd. No problem especially with the new M1 processor.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

On my old MacBook Pro I had 8gb memory and 450gb ssd so I'm really hoping its not that. Photoshop is running absolutely fine btw.

[Cletus]

I have a new M1 16 Gb RAM and 2 TB of storage.  It runs fine. A 256 SSD and 8 FB of RAM is probably not adequate. Could this be your problem?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks Jeff, I have just uninstalled Lightroom and I am downloading a fresh install, which I won't try to open until I know that all the system updates are done.

[GinJeff]

And check again when that finishes to make sure it's up to 11.5.1 - the minor rev might follow the major one.

Then I would download LrC 10.3 again from Adobe Creative Cloud. That has a native version which is much more efficient than running 10.2 or earlier, which was Intel only. It does work but you are better off with the native one.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Jeff, again thanks for the reply, that is incredibly annoying! I just checked and I do have an update available for Big Sur, I done a system update when I got the new computer, didn't think to check if there was any more available. Just downloading it now. Will let you know what happens.

[GinJeff]

I run on LrC 10.3 on an M1 Mac Mini.

Make sure you update the OS to 11.5.1 which is the current version.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

*Marc Feldesman hi Marc, thanks for the reply, yes it’s the newest version of Lightroom classic desktop, operating system is big sir 11.2.2. Previously I was running classic 9.4 on high Sierra 10.13.16