P: Ability to sync Smart Collections with Ecosystem Clients

[nycgeo]

Collection synching / Lightroom Mobile is a great addition to Lightroom 5.4. Please extend this functionality to Smart Collections as well.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

We're paying a monthly fee for this product... the updates we are given are things like "Publish directly to Adobe Stock" ... which is another money making scheme for Adobe. In the meantime.. a simple bug fix like this (you may call it a feature, but come on.. this is a bug) goes unaddressed literally for years... years worth of Creative Cloud fees and not even a peep from Adobe.

This software as a service experiment is heading downhill real fast. Now that more companies are releasing competitors to Lightroom... watch out.

[xinaesth]

One approach would be that the mobile version of a smart collection is relatively dumb, only having its contents updated by the full desktop application. Admittedly, this would not cater to all use cases. Nonetheless, it seems to me that it would be pretty useful, and technically and conceptually clear.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would like this feature as well.Would speed up my workflow.

[ChrisKlaus77]

Smart collection sync is a major missing feature for my use cases. Please implement this feature before I have to use complicated work-arounds.

[dennyriffert]

Great idea! Completely agree

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Just got an iPad Pro and it's great combination with LRM.  Like many others here I use Smart Collections almost  all the time so getting sync for Smart Collections would be a very very great feature and make the iPad Pro and LRM combo even better.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is, by far, the highest-voted request for both Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom. After 3 years, I'm quite surprised this hasn't been implemented yet.

[TheAnji]

I want to use LR Mobile for not to Edit the pictures, but to quickly import the selected edited picture from LR Desktop.

As we can't sync Smart Albums to LRM, It is unusable to me. So, I am using Flickr services where we can publish smart albums. 

If something changed (like unflag), It gives a popup as "These pics will be removed from Album". I have no issues with that.

[danmarker]

Adobe is thing ever going to happen? We could be so much more productive 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

+1 for this! PLEASE!

I make a collection set with my shoot name (eg. 2017.02.03_Shoot_name) and then within that, collection names "All," and another named "Picks." I'd love for this to translate to LR Mobile.

[Phillip H-M]

This would be a really useful addition, +1 here too.

[Photo Taco Podcast]

Not only is this a feature I would love to see added to Lightroom (although not until after my idea of the "Cull" module is added) but I have heard from many of the listeners of my Photo Taco podcast saying the same.  Let's go Adobe, add this one and make a whole lot of people very happy.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Synched Smart Collections would make my life so much easier.
If there is a technical difficulty then please explain it to us. And if it is feasible please tell us when we will see it happen.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would really like this feature also.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This feature request is so very fundamental to the workflow of Lightroom.

By not syncing smart collections, LR Mobile is a cart without a horse. The mobile app is useless because I don't know which photos to be editing until I have access to the smart collections that house the photos that need to be edited.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I concur on this. Also, my tablet is neither iOS or Android. It is a Surface 3. So I would like to be able to sync two catalogues under full-function Lightroom CC: one on a desktop system and one on the Surface 3.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Not  much that I can add other than this would be an extremely valuable capability.  It is perplexing that is not available.

[JohanElzenga]

There are a number of technical problems to syncing smart collections. For example: right now you can add an image to a collection in Lightroom Mobile. It will then sync to the corresponding collection in Lightroom Desktop. But if the collection in Lightroom Desktop is a smart collection, you can't manually add images to it; images are added based on criteria. So syncing a smart collection from Lightroom Desktop would require a change in the collections in Lightroom Mobile too: those collections would have to become 'read only' so you can't add or remove images from them.

Another problem could be if you change some aspect of an image in Lightroom Mobile (like the rating), causing the image to no longer fit the criteria of the smart collection in Lightroom Desktop. What would/should happen in this case? Should the image disappear from the LrM collection immediately? That would require a search capability in LrM (making the collection smart in LrM too) that isn't present right now. In case of a 'read only' collection, the image would remain until sync is done (which can be a long time if one of the two is offline), and then it would suddenly disappear after all. And don't forget: a 'read only' collection does not stop you from changing the rating of an image, because an image can be in more than one collection. You could change the rating of an image in another (normal) collection, only to find that it has mysteriously disappeared from the synched smart collection after some time.

So yes, I would like to see this too, but I do understand that the implementation is not as easy as it may sound.

[johnrellis]

The Any Source plugin has a new command, Sync Smart Collections, that lets you sync smart collections with Lightroom Mobile / Web. It works like Rob Cole’s old Collection Agent (no longer available from Rob, who has passed away), mirroring the smart collections with corresponding dumb collections, which you can then sync with Lightroom Mobile.  

This isn’t nearly as convenient as having the functionality built-in, but many people found Rob’s plugin very useful as an interim measure. Since this is the most popular feature request by far, we can continue to hope that Adobe will implement it soon. Perhaps the upcoming Project Nimbus will have better synchronization with Lightroom Desktop.

[Enchanting_magic15C3]

I would like to do this, but does it seem to everyone else that it's impossible to add a Collection Set to a Collection, as JayEskmentioned in step 3?

[johnrellis]

LR won't let you add add a collection set to a collection -- JayEsk's step won't accomplish the goal. However, I just released a new version of the Any Source plugin that will let you sync a smart collection with LR Mobile / Web: Lightroom: Ability to sync Smart Collections to Lightroom Mobile / lightroom.adobe.com | Photoshop F...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I find myself doing what Bhanu does.  My Flickr Pro account is what I use and will use until Adobe allows Smart collections to sync with LR mobile.  With in excess of 50000 photos in Lightroom, I obviously don't want to sync all of them.  However, after post editing following a shoot, it would be really nice for the chosen edited photos to sync automatically with LR mobile.  I find it disappointing that we can't do this yet as the combination of smart collections and sync with mobile were the primary reason for me purchasing LR CC.  I understand that there are a few complications, but I would think that Adobe has access to the best of the best database technicians and they could certainly and easily figure out a way to make this work seamlessly.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

How about just a warning that the file will be removed from the collection if that change is applied? Then if I say yes, it's what I meant to do and I can live with it.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Any change in the source should be reflected in the sync result. 
(no warning needed).

[Eugene Master]

I am disappointed to find this thread 3 years later without any comments from Adobe staff. Even my old comment is still on here. It would be nice to know if Adobe has even considered this idea yet. Is it in the works? Is it going to be reserved for a future time? The lack of communication is worse than a clear answer, even if that answer is "no".