Lightroom using to much hard drive space

[ndwgolf1]

I just started a new lightroom classic catalog and saved it to the creative cloud. Before I started importing photos I had 119 GB of free space on my Mac Book Pro. After importing around 300 images and also creating smart previews my hard drive has dropped to 11 GB and fluctuating between 11 and 12 GB.......whats going on? I was under the impression that the smart previews were stored in the cloud not on my hard drive.

Thanks

Neil

[Sreenivas R]

Hi Neil,

I am assuming you are using LR Classic because you have also mentioned that you saved it to creative cloud. Any particular reason you saved it to creative cloud?

Also when you say you imported 300 images where are those images present? Were they already present on the disk which you imported into LR? Hope while importing you didn't accidentally choose "Copy" option in LR which would made a copy of the images into the selected folder.

Smart previews are stored on the disk only but they will not be bigger than the actual images itself. Hence they will not be contributing to this problem. Smart previews are sent to the cloud also only when you turn on Sync.

Thanks

[Tony_See]

So it sounds like you are shooting in a raw format?

The size of the sensor can contribute pretty quickly to file size and hence storage issues: I believe you can choose to over-ride the embedded preview in the Preferences settings so its worth a look there as to what you may have set.

[JohanElzenga]

Smart previews have nothing to do with this. If importing 300 images takes up about 100 GB of disk space, then something else is going on. No camera produces raw images of 33 GB each, and the Lightroom catalog also does not take that much space, even if you render 1:1 previews and smart previews as well. I think it's more likely that some backup software is creating a temporary cache. I have seen Carbon Copy Cloner do this and Apple Time Machine can also make a temporary backup to a cache if the backup disk is unavailable.

[ndwgolf1]

I’m sure the problem is comig from iCloud but I’m not sure why. As soon as I disabled iCloud all the storage came back. The confusing bit is my Lightroom catalogue has nothing to do with icloud.

Neil

[Just Shoot Me]

ndwgolf1  wrote

I just started a new lightroom classic catalog and saved it to the creative cloud. Before I started importing photos I had 119 GB of free space on my Mac Book Pro. After importing around 300 images and also creating smart previews my hard drive has dropped to 11 GB and fluctuating between 11 and 12 GB.......whats going on? I was under the impression that the smart previews were stored in the cloud not on my hard drive.

Thanks

Neil

If you are using LR Classic, and not Lightroom (the New name for the Cloud Centric version, No CC at the end) then building Smart Previews never get uploaded to the clouds. Smart Previews are stored on you hard drive in a subfolder called CatalogName Smart Previews.lrdata under the same folder the catalog is stored in. Smart preview can take up a lot of space as they are, IIRC, reduced in size and compressed DNG files equaling about 1.5MBs each. But even with smart preview for those 300 images should not take up 100 GBs.

Then you have the images themselves. How large are these images.

The only time Smart previews are stored in the Adobe Cloud system is if you Sync collections with the Adobe mobile and web system and even then the smart previews you create on your computer are not used. New, other, smart preview are created and uploaded.

I have no idea what Apple's iCloud has to do with this as unless you specifically setup iCloud to copy your LR catalog and images. No Adobe software uses the Apple cloud system.

[ndwgolf1]

Each of the images are about 270MB. I followed a YouTube video on using more than one compute and the way I understand it is the smart previews are stored on the Adobe cloud so that as long as you select that catalog on any computer you will see the smart preview........... is that not correct?

neil

[JohanElzenga]

ndwgolf1  wrote

Each of the images are about 270MB. I followed a YouTube video on using more than one compute and the way I understand it is the smart previews are stored on the Adobe cloud so that as long as you select that catalog on any computer you will see the smart preview........... is that not correct?

neil

That is correct, but it has nothing to do with your problem. Smart previews are only about 1 MB.

270MB would be huge for original images, so I assume that these are Photoshopped images, not originals? Mind you, 300 images of 270 MB each is 81 GB. If you copied these while importing them, that would explain the loss of disk space.

[ndwgolf1]

They are just RAW files. I’m 99% sure I just used the add command not the copy but I will check when I get home

Neil

[JohanElzenga]

ndwgolf1  wrote

They are just RAW files. I’m 99% sure I just used the add command not the copy but I will check when I get home

Neil

A camera that produces 270 MB raw files? What camera would that be?

[Just Shoot Me]

ndwgolf1  wrote

Each of the images are about 270MB. I followed a YouTube video on using more than one compute and the way I understand it is the smart previews are stored on the Adobe cloud so that as long as you select that catalog on any computer you will see the smart preview........... is that not correct?

neil

What camera records image files of 270MBs????

Not even 40-50-60 MP cameras create files of that size. None that I know of.

No Smart Previews are stored on your computers hard drive, that is for Lightroom Classic.

Please clarify which version of LR you are using. In LR go to the Help menu and select System Info. Copy and paste the first 8 lines of text that comes up in the Sys info dialog window to a reply.

The Above reply by Johan Elzenga is correct in some points and incorrect in others.

The only time Smart Previews are stored on the Adobe Cloud system is when you Sync a collection in LR Classic to the Web/Mobile system.

Otherwise all smart Previews you create are stored on your hard drive.

With LR Classic there is NO Cloud usage unless you manually Sync a collection of images with the Web/Mobile system.

So to answer your question "is this not correct". What you Assume is completely incorrect.

Again Please Clarify which version of LR you are using. Lightroom, the Cloud Centric version, or Lightroom Classic, the Traditional version.

[ndwgolf1]

Hasselblad H6D100c

i using the latest Lightroom Classic cc and the web based Lightroom cc

neil

[ndwgolf1]

So if I ADD images to Lightroom classic cc say from an external hard drive and create smart previews, will I be able to see them on my other computer

thanks

eil

[Just Shoot Me]

ndwgolf1  wrote

So if I ADD images to Lightroom classic cc say from an external hard drive and create smart previews, will I be able to see them on my other computer

thanks

eil

NO!!!

LR Classic is a single user, single computer, single catalog program.

Even if you Sync collections from one catalog on one computer to the Adobe LR Web/Mobile system your other computer running LR Classic will not see them.

If that other computer is using LR CC, the Cloud Centric version, then it will see the images you have Synced through the collection or collections (you can sync multiple collections) you have synced up with LR Classic.

Even if you copy the same catalog from one computer to another, both using LR Classic, the images you have synced with the web/mobile system will not be visible. The Sync system in LR Classic is for One catalog on One computer.

[JohanElzenga]

ndwgolf1  wrote

So if I ADD images to Lightroom classic cc say from an external hard drive and create smart previews, will I be able to see them on my other computer

thanks

eil

It's a little bit different. If you sync the Lightroom Classic catalog from your first computer, it will upload smart previews to the cloud (you don't have to generate smart previews yourself). Those 'cloud smart previews' can be seen and edited (and edits sync back) if you use Lightroom CC on the other computer. Lightroom CC for Mobile will also use them.

[Just Shoot Me]

JohanElzenga  wrote

ndwgolf1   wrote

So if I ADD images to Lightroom classic cc say from an external hard drive and create smart previews, will I be able to see them on my other computer

thanks

eil

It's a little bit different. If you sync the Lightroom Classic catalog from your first computer, it will upload smart previews to the cloud (you don't have to generate smart previews yourself). Those 'cloud smart previews' can be seen and edited (and edits sync back) if you use Lightroom CC on the other computer. Lightroom CC for Mobile will also use them.

You can't sync the LR catalog from LR Classic. You sync collections not the catalog.

You can place all your images into one or multiple collections and sync them but that is not syncing the catalog.

The smart preview that are created in the Web system are not the Smart Previews that you create on your computer.

The Smart Previews that get uploaded to the Web system are created separate of smart previews you manually created on your computer.

[JohanElzenga]

Could we please stop nitpicking and help the OP instead? Of course you can sync the catalog, but yes, technically you do that by placing all the images in at least one synced collection. Doesn’t make any difference for the rest of the story.

[Just Shoot Me]

JohanElzenga  wrote

Could we please stop nitpicking and help the OP instead? Of course you can sync the catalog, but yes, technically you do that by placing all the images in at least one synced collection. Doesn’t make any difference for the rest of the story.

It does when the OP comes back and asks "How do you sync the catalog in LR Classic".

If you are going to give information to help someone that information should be factual. Not Round About. You usually do that so I'm not sure why that has changed.

And in LR CC, Cloud base version, you do sync the catalog, not collections.

[JohanElzenga]

Fine by me.

[elie_dinur]

Since Smart Previews from those Raws would be only 5 MP (5% of original) well compressed Dngs, if you rendered them their share of the disc space would be next to insignificant. I think more relevant questions are whether you are also rendering 1:1 previews (which would be huge) and what is the size of the .lrcat catalog file (which I would expect to be not much over 10 MB for a mere 300 images)?