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FuzzyDuc
Participating Frequently
October 24, 2017
Question

What is the purpose of the Lightroom CC ecosystem folder

  • October 24, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 4528 views

In the Lightroom Classic CC 7.0 preferences dialog box, there is a tab called Lightroom CC, which contains a panel named Location, which in turn contains a checkbox labelled Specify Location For Lightroom CC Ecosystem's Images, and a path to a folder in the file system. I've set up that location, and it now contains some 300GB of files, in addition to the folder where my DNG images are usually stored.

What is the purpose of this folder? Do I really need to double my storage requirements?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

H
Henrik Helmers
Known Participant
December 25, 2018

I still have this question and other related questions. What does this feature do? What happens if I leave it off? Does anything happen if I change it?

Currently, I end up with everything in duplicate if I want to use Classic and CC on the same computer. Which I do, because I need Classic to print and CC to upload full-size images.

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 25, 2018

If you leave the ecosystem feature off, Lightroom Classic just stores the images from CC in a different location that is less visible but it still stores them on your hard disk. Classic NEEDS local storage of everything it has in it. It cannot dynamically download from the web. If you want to avoid double storage make sure you do not turn on the feature in Lightroom CC itself to store local copies of everything. Lightroom CC will automatically download what it needs. Lightroom CC stores its originals in the cloud and the local copies are there only for more rapid access.

H
Henrik Helmers
Known Participant
December 26, 2018

But if I change the location, it does not seem to move existing photos? Is it only for new downloads?

john beardsworth
Community Expert
john beardsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 24, 2017

It's the folder into which LR downloads originals uploaded to Adobe's servers by LRCC (the new PC/Mac app) or by LRMobile or LRWeb.

I'm not sure what you mean by "double my storage requirements?" Maybe explain more.

F
FuzzyDucAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 25, 2017

Well, I have the folder that my RAW images are imported into from my camera (and which are later converted to DNG), so that's 25000+ images for 300GB+ of storage; now Lightroom CC is also storing those files again in this new folder location, so where before I only need 300GB of storage for my photos, now I need 600GB - hence a doubling of storage requirement.

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 25, 2017

    If you migrated your files to Lightroom CC and sync to cloud also in Lightroom Classic, this might happen. Lightroom Classic is supposed to recognize it already has the same files and just link them there but if it somehow doesn't recognize these are the same images, it will end up downloading those files all over again. You should see them all as duplicates in "all photographs" in Lightroom Classic if this happens. A lot went wrong with the Lightroom CC introduction unfortunately.

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