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mbdrake
mbdrake
Known Participant
July 9, 2021
질문

Moving contents of the original photos in Local Storage in Lightroom to another drive/computer

  • July 9, 2021
  • 3 답변들
  • 1491 조회

Hello,

 

I'm currently moving away from iCloud Photo Library on a Mac and onto Lightroom on Windows.  I've currently added to and synced all my photos to Adobe cloud via the Lightroom desktop app, having imported them from an external portable hard drive first and then setting the Local Storage "Store a copy of originals at.." to my internal SSD.

 

My question is: if I were to install Lightroom on another PC (or Mac) from scratch, set the location of Local Storage to wherever I want it to be - will it download all the originals from Adobe Cloud, or will I need to use the special downloader that I've seen mentioned in a few articles?  And if I were to move the original photos that are already set up on my first computer to an external SSD - will that affect anything?

 

My apologies for the newbie questions, but I'd like to be sure that I'm able to back up all my originals and altered works locally wherever possible (I also realise that Lightroom Classic is an option, but Lightroom itself feels more like how iCloud Photo Library used to operate).

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3 답변

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Jim WildeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 15, 2021
quote

My question is: if I were to install Lightroom on another PC (or Mac) from scratch, set the location of Local Storage to wherever I want it to be - will it download all the originals from Adobe Cloud, or will I need to use the special downloader that I've seen mentioned in a few articles?  And if I were to move the original photos that are already set up on my first computer to an external SSD - will that affect anything?

 

Taken in isolation, the answers to your two questions are:

 

1. Installing Lightroom on another system: yes, it will download all the originals, provided you have checked the option in Preferences to "Store a copy of all originals at the specified location". If you don't check the option, Lightroom will temporarily download originals on an "as needed" basis (i.e. when editing or zooming to 1:1). You most definitely do not need to be using the Downloader (even if you used it the downloaded assets would not subsequently be referenced by Lightroom).

 

2. No, nothing is affected. If you change the location for storing originals in Lightroom's preferences, Lightroom will automatically try to move the assets from the current location to the new location. No need to move them yourself.

 

The only query is whether you intend to try to share the local copy of the originals between the two systems, rather than maintaining a full copy on each system? If you are thinking of doing that, be aware that it might work, and it might not. I tried it myself in the early testing days and it seemed to work out OK, but others have reported less successful attempts.

john beardsworth
Community Expert
john beardsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 14, 2021

Think of the downloader as a lifeboat, just a way to get your files off Adobe if you choose to leave. It is not a way to move local storage.

I think your idea may work, providing you are careful. But I would suggest it will be easier to let your Windows installation download the files to the PC. Remember that the files in the cloud are the key ones - whatever is in local storage is more like a cache, just a convenient way to process at full res.

 

    melissapiccone
    Community Expert
    melissapicconeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 14, 2021

    Moving your originals from one hard drive to another doesn't make any difference. LR uploads all of your images to the cloud and doesn't reference them on your hard drive. You can control where LR stores a local copy in your preferences. I think you need to download the LR downloader.

    thttps://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/kb/download-lightroom-photos.html

    Melissa Piccone | Adobe Trainer | Online Courses Author | Fine Artist
      mbdrake
      mbdrake작성자
      Known Participant
      July 15, 2021

      This is the situation I'm hoping to avoid:

       

      https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/20/21377411/adobe-lightroom-ios-ipados-app-update-pictures-photos-presets-deleted

       

      and would dearly love Adobe to address this by at least allowing exports to different cloud services/object storage, so if they muck up, there are fewer opportunities for permanent data loss. 

      john beardsworth
      Community Expert
      john beardsworthCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 15, 2021

      If I understand what you mean by "the situation", it was about the loss of pictures which only existed in the cloud. Adobe fixed that specific problem, but obviously there is a more general risk.

       

      Cloudy LR's local storage and targetting it with your own backup may help mitigate that dangers. But remember what I said about local storage being more like a cache - it's not designed as the kind of safeguard you want. For example, when you delete a file in Cloudy LR it is cleared out of from local storage too, and you then have 60 days to notice before it's cleared from the Deleted album. That's only a small scale, less-catastrophic case, and one should protect oneself against more systematic eventualities.

       

      To mix a few metaphors, the Downloader is a lifeboat and a black box. It's for when you want to get off the Titanic before it enters iceberg territory and lets you pack up all your belongings and row to shore. But because of that role, it's also opaque, barely-documented and hard to validate. I've tested it in its proper role - a one-time escape - and it does rescue everything that I would expect. But I couldn't be so sure when I tested it more routinely as a daily/weekly way to store my stuff locally. You just have to trust it....

       

      Classic Lightroom resolves this problem, of course. While I am not a fan of Cloudy LR, if I were forced to use it I would be ensuring that any imports are backed up independently. One idea might be use the OS or another tool to import from cards to a folder which gets uploaded to some cloud service, and then import into Cloudy from that folder. That misses anything shot on a mobile device, so I'd then routinely download using the Export > Original + Settings command. Maybe I'd use this Export command for everything, as it offers some way to preserve one's work. Not sure. But most of all I'd be relying on my own procedures rather than Local Storage or the Downloader.

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