P: Option to stop syncing photos in a Collection when that Collection is stopped from syncing

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Bring back the possibility to stop a Collection from being synced AND stop photos in that Collection from being synced as well, in one-step.

Since LR CC 2015.7 this happens when you stop syncing a Collection (clicking the little sync icon or deselecting Sync with Lightroom Mobile via mouse contextual menu):



(Now you have to go and find those photos in that Collection from All Synced Photographs and remove them from there. Too many steps, too cumbersome and too easy to make a user error.)

There still is the requested option to remove photos at the same time when you delete a Synced Collection instead of just stopping it from syncing:



That same option should appear for just stopping the Collection being synced as well.

The first dialog for stopping a Collection from being synced is messy altogether as it asks if the user wants to "Stop syncing these photos?" but the button for doesn't actually stop syncing the photos and instead keeps those photos synced to LR Mobile and Web and just stops syncing the Collection name.

So at least more correct title could be "Stop syncing this Collection?" and that's not enough as there needs to be a way to stop syncing a Collection AND stop syncing photos in that Collection, in one step (unless they are part of another Synced Collection).

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Even more confusing, if you use mouse contextual menu on a Synced Collection and choose "Delete..." there's a different dialog than deleting with the keyboard shortcut (image):



Leaving that checkbox unchecked you have the option to stop syncing.

So why is there an option to stop syncing photos together when deleting a Synced Collection but not when just stopping a Synced Collection being synced?

EDIT: I got confused about deleting a Synced Collection via keyboard shortcut: there isn't a keyboard shortcut, and in the original post 2 days ago I had mistakenly actually referenced deleting photos in a Synced Collection, not actually deleting the Synced Collection itself. But, the dialog for deleting a Synced Collection via mouse context menu remains the same and gives the user an option to stop syncing the photos in that Collection. That option is not available when just stopping a Synced Collection from being synced.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This probably should have been marked as a PROBLEM as there is no more a way to stop syncing a Collection and the photos in it – instead you have to:

1. duplicate the Collection
2. delete the original Collection and select not to leave photos in All Synced Photographs (unless they are part of another Synced Collection)
3. rename the duplicated Collection (to remove the " Copy" suffix)

[arjunhaarith]

Hi Anssi,

Thanks for your inputs and suggestions. They are highly appreciated.
The heading "Stop syncing this collection" would sound more apt here.
Currently , the behavior is, if you sync a collection, all the photos in it would be present in 'All synced photos' collection. 
Do you want an option to remove photos from being synced (by removing them from 'All synced photos' collection) when we unsync a collection? If this is the case, the behavior would be the same as deleting photos from a synced collection(where we give an option to the user to leave photos from being synced or remove them from being synced). If we stop syncing the collection, we can still give an option for them to be unsynced. However, one important thing to be noted here is, if the photos are present in a different synced collection say 'A'. We then unsync a collection 'B' which has the same photos that are present in 'A'. Now even though we say stop syncing the photos from 'B', the photos would not be removed from 'All synced photos', as they are still referenced in a synced collection 'A'.

Please let me know you inputs.

Thanks,
Arjun

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I agree with Anssi that this is a point of confusion and frustration.

Simply put, unsyncing a collection should automatically unsync the photos it contains unless those photos are in another synced collection.

No need to keep referring to "All Synced Photos"

[arjunhaarith]

Hi Jordan,

Please check my above comments on this and let me know your inputs.

Thanks,
Arjun

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Arjun,

I did read your comments, but I find it all to be confusing and don't have the time to devote to figuring out the best solution, nor am I being paid to do so.

My previous comment is my suggestion. Good luck.

Jordan

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Sorry Arjun, I've missed your reply.

Yes, I want an option to remove photos from being synced when I unsync a collection.

Yes, the behavior would be the same as deleting photos from a synced collection (and choosing the option to remove them from being synced).

Yes, I would very much expect having an option to have the photos unsynced when I stop syncing the collection.

Yes, I do understand that photos present in another synced collection are still synced.

There already was this possibility before LR CC 2015.7. Why was it removed?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This really needs to change already. Two months should be enough to bring back the obvious function of stop syncing photos in a Collection that's no more synced.

When a photo is not part of any Synced Collection it should not be synced. At least there should be the same option as when deleting a Synced Collection – stop syncing the photos and do not keep them in All Synced Photographs. In stead, from LR CC 2015.7 onwards, when unsyncing a Collection all photos have to remain synced. What?!

I'm getting very frustrated with organizing synced photos.

For example, I have a project where I initially made all photos (3.500 of them) available on the go and shared via a Synced Collection. Then the photos were reviewed and refined and in the end there's three different collections with 14, 139 and 245 photos in each Synced Collection. All other photos in various Synced Collections should now get unsynced as all those other Collections get archived in Lightroom catalog without being synced. But, there's no way to do that! If I would delete those Synced Collections I would get an option to stop the photos from being synced. Why is this, why isn't there that same option when just unsycing?

[john beardsworth]

Why is this a significant problem? I start out from what's probably a similar viewpoint, disliking these dialog boxes and not wanting the photos to remain in All Synced Photos when I stop syncing them in a collection. But frankly:

• Why should I care if Adobe use web storage space for photos I no longer want to be synced? I don't pay any more, do I?
  
• If I subsequently add those photos to another synced collection, the sync up is already done.
  
• The photos no longer clutter up mobile device storage (if the synced collection's offline editing setting had been enabled).
• Life's too short to try finding anything in All Photos on the device/web. I look for stuff in collections.
  

So why is this a big deal? Apart from a "tidy gene" that some of us may have.

John

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

When there's tens of thousands of photos or more not meant to be synced, it's a significant problem.

• lost storage (previews of tens of thousands of photos not meant to be synced take up lots of space on mobile, web and on desktop)
• lost money (I do pay for 20 GB, it's not unlimited space for syncing, unless I've understood it wrong)
• lost performance (when tens of thousands of unnecessary synced photos update their metadata because I add a keyword)
• lost time (when unnecessary updating of unnecessary synced photos happens it affects performance which affects time)

When you look at it from a bunch of unnecessary photos being synced, it's maybe not a problem. But we're counting all our photos to be managed in Lightroom and it becomes significant problem when we don't have the ways to manage our synced photos (and we already did before LR CC 2015.7).

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

> (I do pay for 20 GB, it's not unlimited space for syncing, unless I've understood it wrong)

Lightroom Sync doesn't not come out of the Creative Cloud sync space. Photos synced through Lightroom are unlimited, at least at this point in time.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks Victoria, I had it wrong, then.

[john beardsworth]

• lost storage - they aren't available for offline editing so they take negligible space on devices
  
• lost money - as Victoria says
  
• lost performance - yet tens of thousands of keyword metadata is probably less data than syncing one photo
  
• lost time - it just happens in the background

So while I preferred the previous behaviour, I just keep coming back to my wanting to keep stuff tidy - and thinking is that all?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

> lost performance - yet tens of thousands of keyword metadata is probably less data than syncing one photo

Er, and keywords don't sync anyway.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

> lost performance - yet tens of thousands of keyword metadata is probably less data than syncing one photo

I think you understood me wrong. When there's tens of thousands of unnecessary synced photos having any kind of edit that trickers the syncing, all of them are getting updated and uploaded. It's not about how much data gets synced, it's about the unnecessary updating of unnecessary synced photos happening to a lot of photos – and that syncing taking unnecessary performance.

Even if you disagree with any performance issues, unnecessary synced photos can have unnecessary sync errors.

[john beardsworth]

>Er, and keywords don't sync anyway.

Trust me 😉 , they do. It's just that we don't normally see them anywhere in LrW or LrM.

[terrylivesey]

Arhhh, Why hasn't this been fixed yet, it's such a pain in the ......

Come on Adobe sort it out!

[rickm1970]

The problem is when you have thousands of pics to edit and you use a mobile device as part of your workflow. I like to edit on my iPad while I am watching TV or out and about. However, memory on my iPad is limited and so when I am done editing a collection I just want them off my iPad. However, when I stop syncing they are still in all synced. To get rid of those, I have to stop syncing all my collections then delete all synced photos. If I do not then all my pictures in my synced collections get deleted out of those collections. The other option is to sort through and delete out of all synced but who has time for that. Anyway, please address this, I have been burned a few times by forgetting I have a collection synced. 

[rickm1970]

Please Adobe, please!

[arjunhaarith]

Hi All,

Thanks for your concerns and we really appreciate your feedback.
However, this functionality is designed to match the behavior with other clients in the Lightroom ecosystem.
For eg : Even in Lightroom mobile, if you remove a collection or an image from a collection, the photos continue to remain synced (unless you delete the photo from 'Lightroom Photos' collection) 

Thanks,
Arjun

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks Arjun, for explaining the design decision on this. It makes it easier to understand why sync behaves like it behaves.

But it's a BAD design as the syncing is on LR Desktop now built around the concept of adding a big, coherent group of photos (a Collection) to LR Mobile and Web at once via a Synced Collection, but now there's no way to stop syncing that big, coherent group of photos and instead you need to pick them ONE-BY-ONE from All Synced Photographs.

That's no good.

I'm learning to enjoy having a big set of photos to cull down on a mobile device (iPad mini and iPhone) and I can share them easily, too, to second pair of eyes. But now there's no easy way anymore to remove big, coherent group of photos at once.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Just to make sure we're all clear, you do understand that photos in All Sync Photos take up very little space on your mobile devices? The photos are stored on the cloud, but they're only downloaded to your iPad when you need to view/edit them, and you can clear that cache of downloaded photos on your mobile devices to free up space without actually removing the photos from the cloud.

[terrylivesey]

It's the fact that it has to upload a set of photos. In the commercial world we can have a set of photos with a couple thousand images in it. We sync it to the mobile so we can do a selection. We then want to unsync it so that we can edit the remaining images. When we do bulk edits and every change we make gets synced to the mobile device, not only does this slow everything down, it also slow the internet down. Now image a team of 10 in the same building doing the same thing, productivity goes out the window. It should be so easy to put to a tick box like before to remove from the mobile device.  I think Adobe want to take over the world and just cater to the consumer rather than the professional as if they wanted to be nice to professionals they would just include a simple tick box!

Rant over 😄

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

>...photos in All Sync Photos take up very little space...

I don't consider 8.5 GB to be "very little." And LR Mobile is always telling me syncing is stopped because there's no space left. And if it was a design decision that made sense, we wouldn't all be in here complaining.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

You've just cleared cache, and you don't have the collections set for offline use? How many photos synced?

(Although I agree there should be a checkbox anyway.)