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For those following along on the internet - I found that Lightroom will delete the photo on the second restart of lightroom. So your collection is in sync, just slightly delayed. Not sure if this is a bug or intentional.
Happy Editing!
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As a cloud file system engineer, I take "exception" to your statement: "And obviously it can't happen if the local storage is unavailable." 🙂 (Trust me, we've solved this many times in other products.)
"Unavailable" to me means offline/powered off/disconnected/dismounted (pick one), and in that state it is obvious (to me at least) that it's not possible to selectively delete images from the drive. However, if you say you've solved that challenge then all I can say is that technology sure has moved on since I was last involved with it.
The wider issue seems to be that you want something other than the Lightroom desktop app to manage the Lightroom desktop app's local storage, though quite what that would be I don't really know. The overall Lightroom system is designed as a central cloud-based hub with a bunch of synced clients on disparate devices. The cloud hub "owns" the cloud-stored assets and is responsible for ensuring all the client apps are kept up to date with changes made by any other of the clients. Each client can, and does, store data locally, and the local user has some control as to the amount and (in some cases) the location of that locally stored data. But it's the local client which is responsible for "managing" that local storage, not the cloud hub (which makes a lot of sense from a performance perspective and also when you consider that it allows the travelling photographer to access their data even when their computer may be offline). It logically follows that, in terms of the Lightroom desktop app, only the local app can effect changes to the locally stored data in response to changes made elsewhere in the system, i.e. if an image is deleted on a mobile client, the next time the Lightroom desktop app syncs with the hub it will be advised of the deletion and so will then effect the deletion locally (if a copy of that image had previously been stored locally on the desktop). If at the time of that sync the local storage is unavailable, the local deletion of the copy is delayed, though in all other aspects the image is removed from the local catalog.
If you want to delete an image from Mobile and then have the copy, which may or may not be stored locally on your desktop, deleted from the local storage pool on that desktop, without the desktop client being active, then I suggest you make a feature request using the official feedback site: https://feedback.photoshop.com/topics/lightroom-desktop-cloudbased/5f5f2093785c1f1e6cc40874
BTW, the Lightroom Downloader is a utility primarily designed as a lifeboat for those users who have decided to exit their Lightroom subscription (or have deceased), but at the moment I'd describe it as a leaky lifeboat. I certainly wouldn't depend upon it as my only copy of my cloud images, there are too many issues with it for my liking (or at least there were when I last tested it). YMMV.
... now i'm confused. this is exactly what i'm saying. In my testing, the local delete is NOT delayed. It is skipped entirely. I am fine with delay - the only thing I want managing my local copies is Lightroom CC. Nothing else. However, Lightroom CC is not correclty managing deletes - although it correctly handles ADD in all cases.
I'll see if I can setup some tests of this tomorrow. What I describe is the way I think it should be working, but I can't recall if I've tested that specific case in the past. If it's working as you describe, then I would think that may be a bug (or just an edge case that hasn't been fully implemented). I'll let you know what I find out.
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