Sharing Catalogs Between Lightroom Classic, CC and CC Mobile

Question

It appears the catalogs used by LR Classic and LR CC are different. I can select a catalog in Classic but unsure how to do that in CC. The ideal would be to get Classic and CC on the same catalog. How do I do that? Also, can I merge or consolidate the two catalogs into a new catalog and then have both versions of LR use the same catalog?

Conrad_C · Accepted Answer

The difference between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom is basically what is considered the “reference” or “master” set of images, against which all other devices are synced.

In Lightroom Classic, the “master” is the set of photos on your own storage drives, organized by your Lightroom Classic catalogs, but only one catalog can sync to Lightroom Photos in the cloud. And what Lightroom Classic syncs are Smart Previews, not originals.
In Lightroom (formerly called Lightroom CC), the “master” is the set of photos in Lightroom Photos in the cloud. There is no catalog, and the images on your computer are not seen or used, only the images in Lightroom Photos in the cloud. What you edit in Lightroom on your computer is just a local cache of the single master set of images in the cloud. Unlike Lightroom Classic, originals are always synced to the cloud.

The two applications approach organization and syncing so differently, that they should not be used together until the different workflows are understood so well that you’ve carefully worked out the procedures that avoid unnecessary file duplication on your computer. It is not easy. Adobe recommends only using one or the other.

Reid865 wrote: “Also, can I merge or consolidate the two catalogs into a new catalog and then have both versions of LR use the same catalog?”

The closest you’ll get is to merge all Lightroom Classic catalogs into one. Then use Lightroom Classic to sync Smart Previews of everything in that one catalog to Lightroom Photos in the cloud, and use Lightroom on the desktop as a “terminal” that can edit Lightroom Photos in the cloud. Because remember, Lightroom doesn’t use local catalogs on your computer, it uses only its one master image store in the cloud.

For more information about what’s really involved when you try to use both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic together, read:

Migrating from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom CC, and the Controversy Over Using Them Together: An Exclusive Adobe Q&A

john beardsworth · Answer

"It appears the catalogs used by LR Classic and LR CC are different. I can select a catalog in Classic but unsure how to do that in CC. The ideal would be to get Classic and CC on the same catalog. How do I do that? Also, can I merge or consolidate the two catalogs into a new catalog and then have both versions of LR use the same catalog?"

Don't.

Adobe may have used the same names for the programs, but nowhere do they advocate using both. You can use them in conjunction, but it's not how they are designed and I would not encourage you to do so. The catalogues are different and not shared between the two applications.

If you really want to use the Cloudy Lightroom which you call "LR CC", put it on your second computer. Then treat it as if it is Lighroom Mobile running on your laptop - it doesn't do much more. You'd then sync photos from your Classic Lightroom on your main computer, and Cloudy is then a convenient additional way to access those pictures on your laptop. You can make adjustments and edit titles and captions, and these automatically sync back to your Classic Lightroom catalogue, but don't waste your time entering keywords in Cloudy Lightroom as they won't sync back.

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