Help syncing Lightroom Classic with Cloud – only want cloud backup, not local duplicates

[Matt33893334ua1l]

Hi everyone,

I could really use some help understanding how to manage my Lightroom setup.

I mainly use Lightroom Classic with all my photos stored on an external hard drive. Recently, I realized my computer’s internal drive was filling up, and I discovered that Lightroom (Cloud) had created a large local folder (~70 GB) of images that I thought were only syncing to the cloud.

Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:

• Continue using Lightroom Classic as my main editing and organization tool.

• Keep my original photos stored on my external drive.

• Have Adobe Cloud automatically back up my photos so I have a safety copy if my external drive fails.

• Avoid Lightroom Classic (or Lightroom Cloud) downloading duplicate full-resolution files to my local drive.

I’ve already:

• Paused syncing in Lightroom Classic.

• Set my “Synced Images” location to an external drive.

• Unchecked “Store a copy of all originals locally” in Lightroom (Cloud).

However, I’m still unclear on:

1. Is there any way to make Adobe Cloud act as a true backup for Lightroom Classic photos?

2. Can I sync Lightroom Classic with Cloud without it downloading full originals from the cloud?

3. What’s the simplest workflow to keep Classic as my main workspace but use my 1 TB of Adobe Cloud storage for backup instead of duplication?

Any guidance from others who’ve figured this out — or from Adobe staff — would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks so much,
Matt

[Aleke]

Hi @Matt33893334ua1l, welcome to the community, and thanks for reaching out!

Just to clarify, Lightroom Desktop (Cloud) isn’t designed to be a full backup solution for Lightroom Classic photos. While it does offer syncing, it doesn’t back up your entire photo library or the original files from Lightroom Classic.

When you import photos into Lightroom (Cloud), it creates its own local copies to upload to the cloud, which becomes the main storage location. Once those uploads are successful, Lightroom may remove the local copies to save space, depending on your settings.

Also, after importing, Lightroom doesn’t maintain any link to the original files in your folders, from its perspective, those originals and the copies it made are completely separate.

Hope that helps clear things up! Let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything else.

Alek