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mihalykoles
mihalykoles
Inspiring
December 23, 2018
Answered

After migrating Apple Photos all the albums are empty

  • December 23, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 1348 views

I've migrated my Apple Photos library to Lightroom CC, it all went fine, all images were uploaded to the cloud, all the albums and folders I created in Photos were transferred but the assignment of images.

Now I have all the albums empty in my Lightroom CC library.

How can I retransfer/remigrate my photos, so I should not have to move my photos into albums again?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer mihalykoles

I had to restart the migration process by removing all the images from my Lightroom CC cloud library and redownload my Photos lib too. Now I can see my albums with photos in them.

2 replies

HudsonGirl
HudsonGirl
Participant
January 2, 2019

Hi Mihalykoles,

You said "I had to restart the migration process by removing all the images from my Lightroom CC cloud library and redownload my Photos lib too. Now I. An ser my albums with photos in them."

Hi - I have the same exact problem as you but I do not understand the solution you came up with. 

Before and during the 24-hour migration for 35,000 photos, LR constantly reminded me that THE MIGRATION CAN ONLY HAPPEN ONCE.  After the migration, albums did show up on my Mac with an external disk holding all my Photos.  Then I began uploading everything to the cloud and could not see albums but assumed they would be there after all photos were transferred early this morning.  But now, no albums exist.  Since I cannot migrate again, and there are no albums in the main Library, I'm not sure why redoing anything would help.  So could you explain these steps:

1) remove all images from Lightroom CC cloud library - how?

2) redownload my Photos Library too - how?

It took me 1 full day to migrate and 4 full days to upload all the photos in LR to the cloud.  I'm in Day 7 of a 7-day trial so it would be great if I understood the solution and could test it before.  Otherwise, I'm back to Apple iCloud. 

Note: I followed all the directions very carefully so Sahil's answer was just repeating what is online.

Thanks,

Karen

mihalykoles
mihalykolesAuthor
Inspiring
January 2, 2019

When I started the migration, I checked the "Download originals" in Apple Photos/iCloud settings, so I had to use an external drive to hold my Photos library, for the migration I had to attach another external drive to hold the Lightroom CC originals. Right after the migration assistant finished copying the images and started uploading the Lightroom CC lib I quit Photos and removed its lib from the external drive... that's why I had to redownload everything again in Photos.

The frightening message of "You can migrate once" is a lie

1. In Lightroom CC select all the images and delete them, it basically empties your library and removes everything from the cloud storage.

2. Make sure Apple Photos downloaded and processed all the assets: Under Photos preferences the "Download originals" is checked. (afaik the Lightroom migration assistant warns you otherwise)

3. Start the migrating again...

It will take another X days to reupload everything, so you might have to consider starting a new trial with a new adobe user...

Does the above make sense?

mihalykoles
mihalykolesAuthor
Inspiring
January 2, 2019

I don't know what caused the problem in the first try and what helped in the second...

The only thing I can suspect is that there might have been an IO issue on the external drives which prevented the Lightroom migration to read or put the photos into the proper albums. But I didn't find any proof of that.

Sahil.Chawla
Adobe Employee
Sahil.Chawla
Adobe Employee
December 24, 2018

Hi Mihalykoles,

Sorry to hear that the albums are empty after migrating, could you please try the steps mentioned here and let us know if it helps: Migrate photos and videos from Apple Photos to Lightroom CC

Also, please try the steps here for any errors you face with the migration process: Resolve issues while migrating Apple Photos to Lightroom CC

Regards,
Sahil

mihalykoles
mihalykolesAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
January 2, 2019

I had to restart the migration process by removing all the images from my Lightroom CC cloud library and redownload my Photos lib too. Now I can see my albums with photos in them.

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