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P: Ability to sync Smart Collections with Ecosystem Clients

Community Beginner ,
Apr 08, 2014 Apr 08, 2014

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

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macOS , Windows

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Community Expert , Sep 15, 2021 Sep 15, 2021

While you are waiting for Adobe to implement that suggestion, you could have a look at this plug-in from Jeffrey Friedl: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/smart-collection-sync

 

As Jeffrey himself admits, it's a bit kludgy....but it does work.

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New Here ,
Nov 02, 2021 Nov 02, 2021

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Hi everyone,

 

I'm fairly new to the game, so forgive me if this a basic question, but I'm not being able to sync any Smart Collections in Ligtroom Classic.

 

I've already created the collection, I have the sync turned ON, but I don't see the option to sync any Smart Collections. I've seen a bunch of videos on how to do this, but I can't find those settings on my software. Any suggestions?

 

I'm using Lightroom Classic v11 on Windows.

 

nijacha92_0-1635849953310.png

 

Thanks in advance!

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Enthusiast ,
Nov 02, 2021 Nov 02, 2021

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Hi,

Smart collections cannot be synchronized, unfortunately. Only normal collections (where you add pictures manually).

Hope that helps,

Michael

_____________

Michael Niessen - Photographer, photo-editor, educator ([moderator deleted the URL from the signature. Kindly note that URLs in the signature may be considered as spam])

Photo-editing (Ps/Lr/LrC) and photography workshops & one-on-one training (off- and online)

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Community Expert ,
Nov 02, 2021 Nov 02, 2021

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You could however look at Jeffrey Friedl's "Smart Collection Sync" plug-in: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/smart-collection-sync

 

In his own words, it's a bit kludgy but it does work.

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LEGEND ,
Nov 03, 2021 Nov 03, 2021

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The Any Source plugin also provides syncing of smart collections.

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New Here ,
Apr 14, 2022 Apr 14, 2022

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Currently it is apparently (feedback from Adobe helpdesk) not possible to share a subset of a collection (filtered by starts, keywords etc) in lightroom CC on mac without first haveing to create a new collection that contains only the filtered results. If you filter a collection, then click the "make public", the resulting url will still point to an album with ALL the pictures rather than the filtered ones only. The filters are powerful tools to discect large collections. To extend this functionality to sharing would be extremly helpful. 

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LEGEND ,
Apr 14, 2022 Apr 14, 2022

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A collection filtered by various criteria is a smart collection. Syncing smart collections with LR Cloud is one of the most popular feature requests for LR Classic:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-ability-to-sync-smart-collections-with-desk...

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LEGEND ,
Apr 14, 2022 Apr 14, 2022

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Also, when Adobe released LR Cloud and renamed the traditional LR to LR Classic, they announced there would be no more enhancements to the syncing between LR Classic and LR Cloud.  A workaround is to use the Any Source plugin to synchronize smart collections with regular collections and sync the regular collections to the cloud.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 14, 2022 Apr 14, 2022

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New Here ,
Sep 12, 2022 Sep 12, 2022

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That link no longer works. Where can I vote now?

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New Here ,
Sep 12, 2022 Sep 12, 2022

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Does anyone know if Adobe has any plans to allow Smart Collections to be sync'd?

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LEGEND ,
Sep 12, 2022 Sep 12, 2022

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quote

Does anyone know if Adobe has any plans to allow Smart Collections to be sync'd?


By @OlaGarp

 

We are not Adobe here, we are just other Lightroom Classic users, who have no clue what Adobe plans to do.

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Mentor ,
Sep 12, 2022 Sep 12, 2022

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This has been requested for many years already, so it's a near certainty that it probably never will be.

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Contributor ,
Sep 29, 2022 Sep 29, 2022

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You can use Jeffrey Friedl's excellent little plug-in.
It'll automatically sync your smart folders to LR Mobile.
I've used it for years. It's donation ware.

Install and set-up is simple and he provides a video-link with step-by-step instructions.
(His explanation of how it works seems a little daunting, but that's more so you can understand what it's doing in the background)
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/smart-collection-sync

 

Like many pros, I have far too big a shot library have all my photos syncing to the cloud (nor would I want to).
So the whole "everything on the cloud" mantra is a non-starter.
But I still need an efficient way to make sure specific project shots as well as my 5-Stars are always synced to my iPad.
Jeffrey's plug-in delivers a much needed capability in a simple, elegant way.

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Explorer ,
May 06, 2023 May 06, 2023

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9 years later and still waiting. There must be some BIG, HARD thing about this...

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Community Expert ,
May 06, 2023 May 06, 2023

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I think about this question and scenarios that complicate the problem.

Imagine a Smart Collection that assembles all your 5-star images (hundreds or thousands)- If this were synced, and you changed all photos star rating to '4' -then the smart collection would change drastically- (NO photos if all photos at 4-stars!).

It is easy to see how Smart Collections can change (depending on criteria) and a Sync of the SC could be drastically changed by a simple key press.

OTOH- Standard Collections are relatively stable. Photos in a Standard Collection can be synced- no question or ambiguity.

 

Regards. My System: Lightroom-Classic 14.0, Photoshop 26.0, ACR 17.0, Lightroom 8.0, Lr-iOS 9.0.1, Bridge 15.0.0, Windows-11.

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LEGEND ,
May 07, 2023 May 07, 2023

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"9 years later and still waiting. There must be some BIG, HARD thing about this..."

 

When the Lightroom cloud ecosystem (mobile, web, desktop) was announced (Lightroom Classic 7, not called Classic then), Adobe publicly announced there would be no more improvements to the sync between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Cloud.  It's not hard technically -- Adobe just decided not to invest much in Lightroom Classic except for Develop and other improvements directly related to image quality.

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Participant ,
Dec 27, 2023 Dec 27, 2023

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LATEST

1.3K upvotes, and nearly 10 years later, there's still no movement on this. Lightroom Classic seems to be a dead end with regular Lightroom as the future.

 

To shape that future, everyone here should vote for 👇 this idea:

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