How to add photos to Lightroom CC library without importing them ?

Question

Hello,So far I have been using old Lightroom 5.7.1 version and I am now thinking about switching to Lightroom CC. However, I can see one major problem: I have large libraries of photos on my external hard drives which I do not want to be copied to my Mac's internal hard drive. In Lightroom 5.7.1 there was an option to add photos from an external directory without importing it (it kept the photos in the original location). In Lightroom CC there is no such option - when I press import photos it creates a new directory and creates the duplicates of the photos which I already have and this way reduces significantly space on my hard drive. Is it possible to add photos in Lightroom CC in the same way as in Lightroom 5.7.1 (without copying and creating duplicates, just keeping them in the original location) ?Thank in advance for the answer,Rafael.

Theresa J · Accepted Answer

Simple answer is that you should upgrade to Lightroom Classic, not Lightroom.

selondon · Answer

Hi Rafael,

The Cloud Based Lightroom does not work like the traditional Lightroom (now called Classic and still available).

It stores the photos in the Cloud (and holds some locally in the cache, the percenatge of which can be set in the Prefs).

You can also store of a copy of the originals on a local or external disc, although this mirrors what is in the Cloud and is mostly used for quicker accesss and offline work.

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