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Question

I need help migrating my Lightroom Classic library to Lightroom CC

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 15, 2020
2 replies
1663 views

So Im considering switching from Classic to CC as I do a ton of editing on my ipad. I like the idea of my photos being in the cloud (full res). But I will still occasionally use Classic.

So far the info I have found has told me to simply migrate the catalog to CC. I already have all my images in Classic in collections. This will simply upload them to the cloud.

Now my question is on local storage. One person mentioned that when you open Classic, any synced collections will be dowloaded locally. Within the preferences there is a spot to select the location, and even the folder structure. I like this. So there is also a local option in CC. Should I have this turned off to avoid doubles locally? Or should I not let Classic do it?

I tried exporting a small folder as a catalog to test. The thing I don't get, is when I opened classic back up, the images all doubled in the folder within Classic. If I use my finder, the folder shows just single images.

My plan was to open Classic, let them download to the new folder structure, then erase the old folder. If there is a way to not redownload images that are already on my hard drive, thats ideal. I have 3 TB of images and that will put me over my data cap with my ISP.

Thanks for any tips on this workflow!

This topic has been closed for replies.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

If you have 3 TB of images, then migrating the Lightroom Classic catalog means you need 3 TB of cloud space. Migrating is all-or-nothing, there is no selective sync like you have in Lightroom Classic with synced collections. The entire catalog will be migrated to the cloud!

-- Johan W. Elzenga

phototocanvaspdxAuthor

Known Participant

Yes I know, I would get 5tb of cloud space.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Thanks for the info. All of my images are already in CC synced in Classic collections. Because of this are the sidecar files still necessary?

Oh! That actually changes things considerably. In that case you shouldn't migrate and you don't need to write sidecars since all the edits are already synced. You can simply import batches of images from your external RAID into Lightroom Cloud and it will recognize it already knows about these images and it will just upload the raw files and associate them with the already existing entries in the cloud catalog that were synced from Classic. It will need to upload the raw since Classic only syncs smart previews.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Syced collections are collections of images that are in Lightroom Classic that have been synchronized to Lightroom. That means smart previews are in the cloud but the master images are on your computer. When you import images directly to Lightroom (for the cloud) you can choose an option to store a local copy, but it is a copy and is not part of the Lightroom ecosystem. Images imported to Lightroom should also be added to Lightroom Classic, and in that case you would have master images in both places. In my opinion, you should think twice before migrating your catalog to Lightroom. When that choice is made you pretty much make the choice to pretty much abandon Lightroom Classic and commit yourself to using Lightroom as your primary version. It isn't practical to try to use the two versions together.

phototocanvaspdxAuthor

Known Participant

My intention was to use CC for the primary version. There are a few reasons I still need to access my photographs in Classic, most importantly its how I upload to my website, through a plugin.

I have been using them together for years, with Classic as my primary. Im aware of how and where the smart previews are done. My question is in regards to the local files.

When I migrated the test catalog to CC, it created the folder structure it was supposed to in Classic, but the images did not appear. They remained in their previous location.

Every day I take photos on my iphone. They are automatically uploaded to LR mobile, which in turn downloads them to my specified folder when I open Classic. This is an excellent way to transfer all of my mobile images to my desktop.

So my question is do I need the local location setup in Classic, CC, or both, if I'm using CC for my primary editing. If you explained this in your answer, I'm sorry but I didn't understand.

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