Onedrive and Lightroom Classic

[Jkingstonlaw]

Here is my problem.  I have 268 GB of photos in folders stored on Onedrive.  I just purchased Lightroom Classic.  I am happy to keep those photos where they are on Onedrive.  I would like to create Lightroom catalogs from those Onedrive photos.  I have the following questions

1.  Import to Lightroom the folders now on OneDrive.  If I do that does that mean that Lightroom will now store them on my local PC hard drive????  Or will Lightroom simply use pointers to the OneDrive folders?  

2.  Do I need to import to Lightroom at all in order to create catalogs???

[Rob_Cullen]

TBMK

1) Files need to be on 'Local Storage' ie. Connected Internal, External, or NAS drives.

In my experience- If you try to Import files from OneDrive that are only in OneDrive Cloud (not a local folder) then Lightroom will download all the files to a 'local' OneDrive folder.

2) Yes. Lightroom-Classic Catalogs are 'Database' files that makes a reference link to the location of the photo files. LrC does not work without a Catalog. (The first use of Lightroom will open an 'Empty' catalog showing no photos)

For Photo files in an existing 'local' folder- The LrC Import process can ADD a reference to the files leaving them in the folder where they are located. (For Imports from a Camera- Lr can 'COPY' the files from the camera card to a 'Local' hard-drive).

For good basic information download the Lightroom-Classic Quickstart Guide from-

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/