Use Creating Cloud as actual cloud

Report · Oct 13, 2022

Hello,

I'm using Lightroom CC, and I don't want to store my files locally on my harddrive (because of space issues). How can I use Creative Cloud as actual cloud solution, instead of just a synching mechanism (with local storage)?

Thanks!

Report · Oct 13, 2022

If you are discussing the Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem, the default behavior is to only cache files on the local machine.

All files are kept in the cloud (well when loading new images they are copied locally until synced with the cloud).

For example, on one travel work laptop I have a 256GB SSD only. My account has around 800GB of images. When loading images, I only have rooom to load one 64GB card at a time. But after it syncs, my free space on my laptop goes back to ~100GB.

Note: I am using a Sony A7RIV with large files, so I need a good internet connection to work images on that underpowered laptop. But I have done it for some short trips.

Tim

Report · Oct 24, 2022

Thanks Tim.
I copy the photos from my SD card onto my computer (into the Creative Cloud folder). That takes up full space. I then add the photos to my Lightroom (Classic) catalogue on import. Is there a setting I'm not aware of?

Report · Oct 25, 2022

You really need to clarify which version of Lightroom you are wanting to use. You've mentioned LrClassic and you've also mentioned Lightroom CC, however, the "CC" suffix was removed from all Adobe apps several years ago, and is now called just Lightroom.

Irrespective of the Lightroom version, however, using the Creative Cloud Files folder is totally the wrong way to go about this:

Lightroom Classic can only work with images that are stored locally, it cannot directly reference images stored in the cloud. It CAN access the images that are stored on the local system in the Creative Cloud folder, but that then means they will still be using the local hard drive space AND the images will also be uploaded to the Adobe Cloud, taking up (costly) space there as well. Note that if you are wanting to continue to use LrClassic, the simple solution to your local space needs is to put your images on an external drive attached to your computer. LrC can handle as many external drives as you can connect to the system, and with storage costs being very low that would be the most effective solution to your problem.

If however you want to use the cloud-centric Lightroom app, and you've placed your images in that Creative Cloud folder, you'll now be using twice as much cloud space as you need to (the Creative Cloud folder and the Lightroom cloud image storage are separate entities which share the same overall cloud space allocation), plus the images are still stored on the local drive (twice over). Just not an efficient solution at all.

So best to decide which Lightroom app you want to use, then let us know and we can better advise how to set things up.

Report · Oct 25, 2022

Hi Jim.

Let me thank you for your insightful input!

Please excuse my mistake in my initial post.

I'm using Lightroom Classic. I want to find a solution where I can store my photos only in the cloud (as the word cloud in creative cloud suggests) instead of locally. External hard drives I tried, makes Lightroom extremely slow.

Report · Oct 25, 2022

I'm using Lightroom Classic. I want to find a solution where I can store my photos only in the cloud (as the word cloud in creative cloud suggests) instead of locally. External hard drives I tried, makes Lightroom extremely slow.

By @julibexkens

Sorry, there's no solution which allows LrC to access photos which are stored ONLY in the cloud, all images in LrC have to be on locally attached drives.

When you tried external drives, did you keep the catalog folder on the system drive, or did you move that also to the external drive? In most cases, with the catalog on the system drive, you should not see much performance difference if the images are stored on an external drive. I have all my own images on an external drive (portable SSD), with the catalog on internal SSD, and there are no performance issues at all. Depending on the speed of the external drive, and the connection protocol, you might see some difference during import (i.e. copying images to the external drive might be a bit slower than copying them to an internal drive), but after that there shouldn't be an issue.