Syncing and moving files between folders takes ages

[andrewjsmith76]

Hello!

Here's a quick description of my workflow: I manage photos from multiple iPhones in one LR catalogue. The photos are stored on a NAS, the iPhones use the NAS's app to automatically upload new photos to a specific folder on the NAS. Periodically, I right-click those folders in LR to synchronize them (add new photos). Then I move the pictures from the NAS folders to other local (or NAS) folders and process the images.

This has worked well for years (over a decade). Lately, it's gotton slower and slower. The number of photos in the synched folder is a few hundred. But merely the act of synchronzing can take hours. And asking LR to move the files yields a box in the 'tasks' section at the top left of the screen ("moving files...") but the progress bar never advances...

Why has this stopped working? It was always extremely slow when doing this from a remote location (even with very good internet connection speeds), but now it's painfully slow even from within my own network) Network speeds are fine for other apps...

Is there a better way (not using Adobe Cloud)?

Best regards,
Andrew

[Chris 486]

Going to edit>preferences and clicking the lightroom sync tab, are you seeing any errors there? Can you screenshot for us?

[andrewjsmith76]

Hello Chris,

Thank you for getting back to me. It turned out that my NAS (Synology) needed a reboot - after over a year of up-time, it was bogged down somehow. The reason why I didn't initially suspect the NAS is that until the day before it had been performing normally and I often experience very slow syncing when operating remote (but, as mentioned, with very decent connection speeds).

I guess the quesiton is mainly if there is a better way...

Best regards,
Andrew

[richardplondon]

Personally, if the only reason for syncing the NAS folder was in order to import any new photos - Import can take care of that same task more simply and robustly IMO. LrC Import can detect photos that have already been imported, and avoid importing them a second time. As I see it Sync Folder is somewhat more 'risky' since it can also remove photos from the Catalog whose source files are not found, also it can update changed edit metadata - these are tasks that have got nothing to do with importing freshly-taken photos to the Catalog.

Adding to that, Sync Folder equates to an Add import (so far as brand new photos found).

But Import also offers other workflow options instead. For example a "Move" import might physically file images into an appropriate folder hierarchy (perhaps elsewhere in the NAS), doing so according to each photo's capture date. This way arriving images will get constantly cleared out of this starting folder, and only fresh images would be present on the next occasion. And an accumulation of already-imported images would not need to be laboriously checked through.

[andrewjsmith76]

Hello Richard,

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Best regards,
Andrew