Managing raw files from CC in LR desktop app

[benjamingordon]

hi all.

ive just got back from India and have 6,500 raw files in my cc which I uploaded whilst away via an sd card reader and lightroom mobile iOS.

when I opened lightroom desktop on my Mac I noticed all the files started syncing and downloading taking up hundreds of GB of space I don’t have.

i wanted to leave them in the cloud, and only have a smart preview or something on the Mac.

can someone help me to understand why this started happening and what’s the best solution?

Thanks!

[Jao vdL]

It is very important to realize that Lightroom CC is not a backup service. There is no undelete for example, no trash can or any other safety feature. Deleting from it is final. This is widely misunderstood probably because Adobe's marketing on this is somewhat misleading. You should not use the CC cloud as a backup service. You should make your own backups whether through simple external disks or an online backup service.

I just thought that the edits were linked to the DNG files, because in the past its been like this.

But perhaps because i didn't 'export' them as originals and instead deleted them this is the reason it happened.

The edits have never been linked to the dng files. Edits in Lightroom (whether Classic or CC) are stored in the catalog files, not in the actual source files. You can have Classic save edits to the files by doing a "Save metadata to files" operation, or by setting the preference that stores all edits in xmp sidecars (which are stored inside dng files). You can also export to originals and than it will indeed store the edits in the dng files that it exports.

I would suggest to Adobe if you're reading to not automatically delete the files from the cloud when deleted from LR classic or at least have a backup or restore feature for these kind of situations for people in the future.

The lack of a backup feature is a glaring problem indeed. However, you can contact Adobe through the support web site and they will often be able to restore your cloud condition to a certain date and time. They do have internal backups that they sometimes are able to use in cases like this. I've seen many people that lost their CC cloud images get them back through contacting Adobe so I'd suggest you try this.

[benjamingordon]

Thanks again.

I spoke to adobe support who told me there is no recovery of my files at all. Adobe doesnt keep a backup and was therefore not able to restore my files.

If I export a DNG as ‘original file’ then re-import it the edits are copied over too, no xmp file or metadata settings.

This whole issue started because I didn’t have enough space on my internal hard drive to let the 6.5k photos finish downloading. I ‘thought’ I followed Theresa J‘s Advice but actually I just paused the sync and i could see my CC storage emptying as the files continued to download. They deleted themselves as they were placed on my Mac.

The next time i go away and need fool proof way of getting my CC raw files and edits back onto my external hard drive, organised by date how do I do this?

Please list the steps as simply to follow as possible so there is no room for mis-understanding.

Thankyou.

[Jao vdL]

Was worth a try. They have been able to restore other folks on this forum before so I know they actually do have backups.

If I export a DNG as ‘original file’ then re-import it the edits are copied over too, no xmp file or metadata settings.

the xmp is saved inside the dng file in the metadata area if you export as original so this is consistent. The xmp will not be there if you simply copy the files from their location on your hard disk. You have to export or save metadata in advance.

The next time i go away and need fool proof way of getting my CC raw files and edits back onto my external hard drive, organised by date how do I do this?

Make sure that you set up the cloud sync to happen to a hard disk that has enough space and to set it up to file according to date as shown above. You simply have to make sure in advance you have enough space there. Most important advice is to make sure your machine has a large enough main internal hard disk. If you can't afford that, use an external hard disk with enough space as the sync destination. You can buy external SSDs nowadays for almost nothing that connect to USB-c or USB 3 and that you can simply double-sided sticky tape to your laptop. Sandisk has a nice 500gig SSD for $90 for example. A 1TB version of this is $179 on amazon.

There is no fool proof, no advance preparation way. You have to figure this out in advance.

[benjamingordon]

Thanks for your suggestion.

I think that is the best option for next time.

I wasn’t keen to take a laptop and hard drive with me tbh. I wanted to keep a copy of the files online as a backup but I guess I could manually back the photos up into Dropbox each time I do an import to lightroom.

Shame CC doesn’t have a backup or data recovery feature. Does anyone know how how to make a suggestion to them about this?

[Jao vdL]

Make a suggestion at feedback.photoshop.com not the first time this has

been suggested however, so search first and add your voice to one of many

threads asking for this

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 4:00 AM benjamingordon <forums_noreply@adobe.com>