Skip to main content
T
tomfoto
Participating Frequently
April 12, 2022
Question

Sync between LrC and Cloud a Mess, Need help.

  • April 12, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 564 views

A while back I jumped into sharing between the Cloud and my LrC without really understanding it all. I decided later that I didn't want to do this, but now I can't seem to straighten out the issue. Here's what I did:

 

LrC has 29k photos & originals that are my professional catalogs.

LR CC has 29k photos of family photos for the past 40+ years. This enables my wife to work on and add to these.

 

I had the bright idea to make a folder/collection on my LrC to sync all of these Family photos (LR CC) into my LrC. It worked great and I had it saving the synced images to a folder on my computer.

 

I later decided to stop doing this so I turned off the SYNC. Then I deleted that folder/collection from my LrC catalog. Later I went and deleted the files stored on my computer for those synced files. All is good so far.

 

Then I decided to share one collection on my LrC to the Cloud so I could work on it while away from my computer and LrC. I set it up, set it to sync and turned sync back on RESUME. It said I have 29k photos to sync and I can't tell what is syncing or where. 

 

I turned off the sync and realized that all of the 29k photos that I had originally synced to my LrC and subsequently deleted, with sync turned on are now being deleted from my Cloud, currently my only copy! And the 3000 deleted before realized what it was doing are not in the "Deleted" items folder.

 

So questions are:

1) how can I separate LrC and LR CC completely without deleting all of my family photos?

2) Is there any way to recover these 3k+ photos that already seem to have been deleted?

3) How can I share extremely selectively a few folders from LrC to LR CC?

 

Thanks for any input.

 

~ tommy 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Jim WildeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 12, 2022
quote

So questions are:

1) how can I separate LrC and LR CC completely without deleting all of my family photos?

2) Is there any way to recover these 3k+ photos that already seem to have been deleted?

3) How can I share extremely selectively a few folders from LrC to LR CC?

 

 

1) The only way to do that is to NEVER enable sync again in that specific LrC catalog. If you ever resume sync in that catalog it will again initiate the slow deletion of the remainder of those 29k images that you deleted from LrC. That's the way it works...delete, or even just unsync, a synced image in LrC and the corresponding original in the cloud is also deleted.

You can sync a different catalog, of course.....but when you do that all 29k images in the cloud will again sync down into that new synced catalog. There is not a "selective sync" option from Cloud to LrC, it's all or nothing. Syncing from LrC to the Cloud, however, IS selective, i.e. the user gets to decide what images will be synced to the Cloud.

 

2. Resolved now, yes?

 

3. As per 1), you cannot sync from LrC to the Cloud from the existing LrC catalog without resuming sync, and that will cause the 29k originals in the Cloud to be deleted again. You can sync stuff from a new synced LrC catalog to the Cloud, but only by accepting that the existing 29k images in the cloud will download into that new LrC catalog.

 

Basically the system is not designed to maintain completely different sets of images in the Cloud and in LrC, and then to allow selective syncing between the two.

    T
    tomfotoAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 12, 2022

    Thank you for taking the time to explain. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I think its getting clearer.

     

    I am in the process of creating a full copy locally of the cloud images. Once I have it, I am planning to make a second copy elsewhere, then resume the sync and just let it delete everything. Once everything is synced (deleted), I am hoping thaty I can re-import that 2nd copy I made. It should be "new" and not get deleted, I hope.

     

    At that point, I'm hoping I'm free and clear and can then only sync selectively from LrC to the Cloud.

     

    ~ tommy

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 13, 2022

    Well, that seems wrong to me. I don't want what is in the cloud to mix with my local LrC catalogs. I guess the only solution is to export anything I want from my LrC catalog and import it into the Cloud and NEVER sync, EVER.

     

    ~ tommy


    I see your situation this way-

    1) Use Lightroom-Classic with photos stored in 'local' drive folders specific and dedicated to LrC. Never turn on 'Sync'

    2) Use Lightroom-Desktop to Add/Import photos (from folders specific and dedicated to Lr) to the Adobe Cloud and mobile devices. (Never the photo files that have been imported to Lightroom-Classic). Use copies in separate folders if you must have the same photos in both systems.

    If that makes sense?

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    T
    tomfotoAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 12, 2022

    After initial panic, the "deleted" photos in point 2 above did end up in the deleted folder and I restored them, so no files lost.

    Just need to learn how to be able to sync without it deleting everything from that old sync.

     

    ~ tommy

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices