Move an album from cloud to local

[paolo_6654]

Good morning everyone, today I activated Lightroom and created the first album that I'm already working on. However, I realized that the album was put on the cloud while I would like it locally in a specific path but I can't move or copy the album locally to continue working on it in this mode. Can anyone help me? Thanks everyone for your attention.

[Rob_Cullen]

Albums are only available in Cloud mode for the Lightroom app on a Mac or PC. Your imported (added) photos are stored in the Cloud. Albums are only created lists of selected photos you have imported to the Cloud.

In 'Local' mode you are only using the most basic finder browser to view files you have in your Mac system- there is no correlation between 'Cloud' and 'Local'.  

[paolo_6654]

Thanks for the reply, so if I were to stop accessing lightroom I would lose everything, am I right?

[Ian Lyons]

Are you using Lightroom (cloud focused version) or Lightroom Classic?

If Lightroom, then you can download the album and it's contents to your computer using the the 3-dot menu just below and to left of the cloud icon at top right corner of the application UI. I've attached some screenshots that might help.

[Conrad_C]

Thanks for the reply, so if I were to stop accessing lightroom I would lose everything, am I right?

By @paolo_6654

You don’t lose everything, at least not right away. If you cancel your Lightroom subscription, what happens depends on whether the images are stored in the cloud or locally.

If your images are stored in the Cloud tab, according to the Adobe help article Cancel Adobe Trial or Subscription, this is what happens:

Adobe will continue to store your original images for one year after your membership lapses. During that time, you can continue to launch Lightroom to download your original files from our cloud services.

Adobe also offers the Adobe Lightroom Downloader app that will download all Lightroom images from the cloud, also for one year after your membership ends. Either way, after stopping a Lightroom plan, you have one year to download your images.

If your images are edited with the Local tab, nothing happens, because they are still on your computer in an ordinary folder and Lightroom will never delete those. In the Local tab, Lightroom edits to raw files are stored in XMP sidecar files, and also remain on your computer in the same folder as the images. Those XMP files are also compatible with Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, and Adobe Lightroom Classic.

[Rob_Cullen]

"if I were to stop accessing lightroom I would lose everything, am I right?",   Basically, yes, unless you have first downloaded local copies.

@Ian Lyons  I am not sure that photos set to be "Offline"  will be 'permanent' if a subscription is cancelled. I understood that offline photos will be deleted if the online 'cloud' version is deleted or is no longer available.

If a subscription is cancelled, I understood that photos must be downloaded either by Exporting from Lightroom, or using the Downloader App (with a time limit after a subscription is camcelled)

Any clarification would be helpful. Thanks

Rob