Using Lightroom Classic on Multiple Laptops with Cloud-Based Catalog and Photo Storage

[defaultz794vzymzo1y]

Hi all,

My company is using Lightroom Classic and would like to access the same catalog and imported photos across multiple laptops. I understand Lightroom Classic is designed for local storage, but I’m wondering:

Is it possible to store my Lightroom Classic catalog and photo library in a cloud service like Dropbox or OneDrive, so I can open the same catalog from different laptops (not simultaneously) and continue editing where I left off?

I don’t want to switch to the cloud-based Lightroom (due to budget constraints), but I’m comfortable with a bit of a manual workflow—as long as it’s stable and won’t risk catalog corruption. 

Has anyone here done this successfully?

Thanks in advance!

[JohanElzenga]

It's theoretically possible to do this and in the past many people used that without problems, but there are lots of error reports recently by people who try this. A lot safer option is to store the catalog and images on a fast external drive, that you switch between the computers.

[defaultz794vzymzo1y]

Thanks for your reply, Johan.

Just to follow up:

You mentioned that it’s theoretically possible - could you tell me how it's been done previously and what kind of issues people are running into?

We’re a global team and are often working from different locations, so an external drive would limit who can work on a project and when. We’re looking for a solution where team members can access the catalog from different laptops without any physical transfer.

Thanks again!

[JohanElzenga]

You simply store your catalog and images in the Dropbox folder and let it sync, just like you always do with synced documents. As long as you are certain that nobody touches this before Dropbox has synced completely on both computers, and it will never happen that two people try to use the catalog on different computers at the same time, this would work fine. We've seen quite a few reports recently about corrupted catalogs however, not only with Dropbox but also with OneDrive. So something has changed -either with Dropbox and OneDrive, or with the Lightroom Classic catalog structure- that makes this risky nowadays.

[Conrad_C]

We’re a global team and are often working from different locations, so an external drive would limit who can work on a project and when. We’re looking for a solution where team members can access the catalog from different laptops without any physical transfer.

By @defaultz794vzymzo1y

If this is for mission-critical business applications that can’t fail, it might be risky to rely on the fragile workarounds for this, even if they might work OK for one person or a small team. The lack of version control and access control are some of the risks. It seems too easy for multiple remote people to corrupt the catalog with conflicting changes because it was designed assuming only one user is doing local, practically immediate reads/writes to the catalog database.

Instead you might consider a solution built for safe, reliable multi-user networked image access like Mediagraph, which integrates with Lightroom Classic and was designed with the involvement of a professional Lightroom Classic user/consultant (Peter Krogh, author of The DAM [Digital Asset Management] Book). This is not an endorsement because I haven’t used their software, and I have no connection with them except that I did buy and use his book.

Many corporate and institutional photographers use Lightroom Classic for workflow and image management. And they are frustrated by the lack of whole-company access to their Lightroom libraries. Our Mediagraph plugin now fills that missing link with seamless integration. One or more Lightroom Classic catalogs can be directly integrated into a Mediagraph account. You can now give your whole organization access to a Lightroom-like library.

[Per Berntsen]

OneDrive is out of the question, it doesn't work well with LrC.

It is possible with Dropbox if you take extreme care, and follow some rules strictly.

Failure to follow these rules will lead to issues, and there's a high risk of catalog corruption.

I use Dropbox myself with two desktop computers in different locations, and I am the only user.

I get the impression that you are the only user of these laptops – if there are several users, I would not recommend using Dropbox – the probability of something going wrong will be too high.

If you want to try this, I recommend starting with a test catalog with some unimportant images.

Here are the rules:

• In Dropbox Preferences > Sync, Save hard drive space automatically must be turned off.
• In Dropbox Preferences > Sync, Default sync state for new files must be set to Available Offline.
• The path to Dropbox must be the same on all computers, which also means that the drive letter must be the same. I use D:\Dropbox. If you have different drive letters, your photos will be missing, and you'll have to reconnect them. This will be easier if all the folders are inside a parent folder, and you will then only need to reconnect the parent folder.
• Before launching LrC on any of the computers, Dropbox must have finished syncing.
• Since version 14 it has also become necessary to pause syncing before launching LrC, it can be turned back on as soon as LrC is up and running. (failing to pause syncing can lead to the error message An error prevented Lightroom Classic from opening this catalog.)
• When you have finished an editing session on one computer, close LrC, and wait for Dropbox to finish syncing before you turn the computer off, or use LrC on a different computer.
  Never leave a computer running with LrC open while working in LrC on a different computer.

This works for me currently, but changes to Dropbox or LrC in the future could cause it to stop working.

Keep an eye on the Dropbox sync settings, I have seen at least once that they have changed, probably after an update of the Dropbox application.

And make sure to make frequent catalog backups.