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stop lightroom mobile from syncing all photos

Engaged ,
Mar 30, 2018 Mar 30, 2018

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Is there a way to stop lightroom mobile from syncing all photos on my phone? And to remove all the photos it's already synced without deleting them from my phone?  I only want lightroom to sync photos i specifically tell it to sync. It's already uploaded a batch of photos I didn't want it to, and if i just try and delete them from lightroom.adobe.com it says it's going to delete the photo from all synced devices as well. (who is the genius that thought it's a good idea to delete photos everywhere without giving the option to only delete locally?)

I just turned off auto add in the preferences so I'm guessing that will stop LR from adding any more photos. But how do i remove the ones it's already synced without deleting them from my phone?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Mar 31, 2018 Mar 31, 2018

This is a real design flaw in LR CC mobile. If you enable the auto add feature, it will start uploading every single image you have ever taken with your phone and all phones before if you use an iPhone and use the iCloud photo library feature. You can't just have it automatically upload just newly shot images to Adobe's cloud which is what most people really would want. Worse, if you realize that it is doing this wrong and disable the auto-add feature, it will just keep uploading everything anyw

...

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Community Expert ,
Mar 31, 2018 Mar 31, 2018

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This is how the ecosystem is designed to work, to have access to everything that is stored in the Cloud on any device.

Yep, turning off 'Auto Add' will help. Are the photos that are going up to the Cloud, from the Lightroom Mobile Camera or being imported from the iOS Photos App Camera Roll/Android Gallery (or whatever it is called).

If they are originally coming from the Camera Roll/Gallery and are still present there, then deleting from lightroom.adobe.com will not touch these. Yes, they will be deleted from the Lightroom Cloud ecosystem and you won't see them in the Lightroom App but they should still be in the device operating system's photos location (unless you have cleared them from there).

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 12, 2019 Apr 12, 2019

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This is an ENORMOUS invasion of my privacy!!!!!  By default everything syncs to the web?  I didn't even know this was happening.  IT SHOULD BE TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT WITH AN OPT-IN OPTION!!!! 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 12, 2019 Apr 12, 2019

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jm_colorado  wrote

This is an ENORMOUS invasion of my privacy!!!!!  By default everything syncs to the web?  I didn't even know this was happening.  IT SHOULD BE TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT WITH AN OPT-IN OPTION!!!! 

This is the point of the Cloud Based Lightroom though. Lightroom Classic exists if the Cloud isn’t preferable for you. Also, you can pause sync on the Cloud clients, so you don’t have to sync anything.

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 10, 2019 Nov 10, 2019

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How do you turn off sync on the cloud clients?

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New Here ,
Jan 16, 2020 Jan 16, 2020

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I ONLY use Lightroom Classic and this has still happened to me. I agree that this is an enormous invasion of privacy and intellectual property. I specifically do not use the cloud version of Lightroom to avoid this, and much to my chagrin I just found out that every photo I've ever taken has been uploaded to the Adobe cloud. 

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New Here ,
Jan 08, 2021 Jan 08, 2021

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You're telling me that the "point of the ecosystem" is to upload a bunch of cell phone pictures? I find it difficult to believe that anyone is actually that brainless. What intern thought this feature was a good idea, and which lead signed off on this?

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New Here ,
Feb 02, 2021 Feb 02, 2021

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Right?! It's completely baffling to me why anybody would want this as a feature, let alone a default one. I noticed my Adobe storage was full and thought 'that's weird, I don't remember adding anything to it'. Then notice that it's full of random snaps from my iphone photostream, quietly uploading in the background even when I'm using data.

I have iCloud storage to store my iPhone snaps. I want my Adobe storage for the pictures I take with Lightroom Mobile!

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 10, 2019 Nov 10, 2019

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How do you turn off auto add

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New Here ,
Aug 25, 2021 Aug 25, 2021

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But with out the options to choose what you share or sync. In this model everything gets roped in

 

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Contributor ,
Mar 31, 2018 Mar 31, 2018

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In my opinion, having all photographs everywhere is the beauty of LRCC.   I do not want to have a different collection of photos on my phone than I do on the iPad or Mac.

Many times I am sitting at a coffee bar with friends and a topic wil arise, “Remember when we...”. Seconds later I have searched LRCC and present a photos of the event. 

It has been a long time since I have been as excited about a program as I am with LRCC. 

“Who is the genius....”.   The last thing I want to do is to wonder if “that photo” has been deleted on this device or that device.  What a maniagement nightmare that would be. One catalogue, one set of photographs everywhere.  Thank you Adobe,

Monty

PS, now, when is that next update coming?

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Engaged ,
Mar 31, 2018 Mar 31, 2018

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MontyMontgomery  wrote

In my opinion, having all photographs everywhere is the beauty of LRCC.   I do not want to have a different collection of photos on my phone than I do on the iPad or Mac.

Many times I am sitting at a coffee bar with friends and a topic wil arise, “Remember when we...”. Seconds later I have searched LRCC and present a photos of the event. 

It has been a long time since I have been as excited about a program as I am with LRCC. 

“Who is the genius....”.   The last thing I want to do is to wonder if “that photo” has been deleted on this device or that device.  What a maniagement nightmare that would be. One catalogue, one set of photographs everywhere.  Thank you Adobe,

Monty

PS, now, when is that next update coming?

That's good for you, but it's not what I want. I don't need or want all my camera photos uploaded to adobe. I prefer maintaining control over what gets uploaded and what doesn't. I particularly dislike when apps like this seem to try and force you into uploading all your data to their servers. They need to give you more control over whats uploaded - and more obvious ways of managing things that have already been uploaded.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 01, 2018 Apr 01, 2018

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merkk  wrote

That's good for you, but it's not what I want. I don't need or want all my camera photos uploaded to adobe. I prefer maintaining control over what gets uploaded and what doesn't. I particularly dislike when apps like this seem to try and force you into uploading all your data to their servers. They need to give you more control over whats uploaded - and more obvious ways of managing things that have already been uploaded.

LRCC is a totally cloud-centric system, i.e. any image you add into that system from whatever source is automatically uploaded to the Adobe cloud. That is currently non-optional by design, so if that's not what you want then you're probably using the wrong product (or turn off auto-add and then you can manually import just the photos that you do want to upload). But if you want the ability to add all your images to Lightroom on your phone, but have the control to only upload some of them, then you probably ought to head over to the main Adobe feedback site and add your vote to the "Selective Sync" feature request that exists over there: Lightroom CC: Selective Sync | Photoshop Family Customer Community

FWIW, I've never encountered the problem that Jao describes, and I've been using LRmobile (on various iPhones and iPads) since it was first released, though I have seen a few reports about it. I suspect it's related to iCloud, which I've disabled for photos (can't see the point in using two competing cloud products on the same device), and I also suspect that I could produce the problem if I now enable iCloud on my iDevices, i.e. photos taken on my iPhone would appear on my iPad and if I have auto-add enabled they'd be added to LRCC on the iPad. But that's just a matter of learning how things are intended to work, and then working around any such issues.

I'm of the same view as Monty....I don't want my photography separated by capture device, I want all my images in one centrally managed place, and the LRCC system allows me to achieve that totally automatically for all my iDevice captures. I still use LR Classic as my main image management application (iDevice captures are automatically downloaded into my preferred folder system from the cloud), but I increasingly use LRCC for "wherever I happen to be reviewing and sharing". 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 01, 2018 Apr 01, 2018

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Jim,

the problem is that setting the "auto add photos" feature in LR CC mobile will import every single image on the mobile device's photo roll (the one in the operating system of the device) into LR CC, not just every new image you shoot with the built-in camera app which would be logical behavior seeing the name of the slider option in LR CC mobile. It doesn't matter whether iCloud library is on or off, it just exacerbates the problem if it is. For some people with only a few images on their device's photoroll that's not a big deal but for people like me that have been shooting with their phone for years and have 10's of gigs of shots on their device that is a big problem and will take days of uploading (it doesn't work in the background so every time you open up Lightroom mobile it uploads only a few). Once this has been started you can't stop it by turning off the option - it will just keep going. You can only stop it by deleting the app from your phone and reinstalling it. The feature should have two parts - one to import the entire photo library from the device and another to automatically add any newly shot images.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 01, 2018 Apr 01, 2018

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Jao, that's never happened to me, I only ever get new captures. The only thing I can think of that may explain it is if I've been using LRmobile (as was) before I started using my iPhone for snaps. Possible I suppose, but I've trashed the app and re-installed the app many times, restored the phone from backup etc., but never had the sort of problem you describe.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 27, 2018 Oct 27, 2018

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I'm with Jao...

This is UNBELIEVABLE..

I can't believe this is part of a package that I continued to pay for on a monthly basis:-/

  As soon as I recognized what was happening, I turned the enable auto-add feature off, yet it just keeps continuing to try to add photos!!!

Whats worse (and what I have not read in this thread,)   is that the app is not only continuing to  attempt to auto add photos, but it is doing so every few minutes, often it is several times in a row within a matter of minutes. It seems to be doing so unsuccessfully now, showing out-dated time stamps.  Sometimes the time stamps linked with the LRCC Auto-Add is from hours earlier, even the day prior..   Almost as if it is just failing to auto add, Therefore trying repeatedly every several minutes,  But never updating the time stamp as it's never having success.. In other words non stop hoggin of my device resources, and the freezing of The lightroom cc app,  Rendering it completely useless for a matter of 5 or a 10 seconds until it frees the phone up again.. only for 5 mins or so until its hijacked yet again, jeez..

At least with Jao's input, I know that I can uninstall and reinstall, and will never click that auto add button again!

I can honestly say I've never enjoyed using a program in any platform or industry sector, as much as Lightroom Classic + CC (when it is working anyway. ) The unfortunate  Fact is That it rarely ever works properly .. And it doesn't just fail in the typical manner which other programs or applications may,  Where you may need to restart, or reconfigure, losing a few minutes of work.. Nope. It fails royally,  in a way that forces you to backtrack , losing hours of your day  to get back on track , and that's if you're lucky!  In some scenarios, the Lightroom eco-system has set me back for days AND done so in a way that forced me to remove and re-sync tens of thousands of photos from my synced collections in the cloud (all while Clients are expecting to be able to access them!)

IMHO Adobe has pushed this way too far beyond their ability to control and maintain their own product...  Sync issues every day.

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 04, 2018 Nov 04, 2018

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Jao is correct. This is a flaw. If every photo on one's camera roll was a 'serious' photo then the idea of every photo being available everywhere would be fine. Many people, myself included, use their camera roll as a catch-all for all manner of media (e.g. photos I take for work that don't need to be synced to my personal LR cloud, memes, all manner of stuff I only wish to share on social media and not have in my LR cloud). Automatically grabbing EVERYTHING from a mobile devices photo storage is a miscalculation by Adobe.

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Community Expert ,
Nov 05, 2018 Nov 05, 2018

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bryceh5062428  wrote

Jao is correct. This is a flaw. If every photo on one's camera roll was a 'serious' photo then the idea of every photo being available everywhere would be fine. Many people, myself included, use their camera roll as a catch-all for all manner of media (e.g. photos I take for work that don't need to be synced to my personal LR cloud, memes, all manner of stuff I only wish to share on social media and not have in my LR cloud). Automatically grabbing EVERYTHING from a mobile devices photo storage is a miscalculation by Adobe.

What exactly is the flaw? You have the choice of having the LRCC app auto-add any new photos added to the camera roll, or not. If you don't want all the images you capture with your phone synced to the LR cloud, simply turn off the auto-add option. Then you can manually add/import only the photos that you do want to sync. How is that a "miscalculation by Adobe"?

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Community Expert ,
Nov 05, 2018 Nov 05, 2018

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Jim, if you set the preference, lightroom will not just add new images. It

will auto add every single image in your phone’s image library going back

years. This is the flaw. It should just add newly added images.

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Community Expert ,
Nov 05, 2018 Nov 05, 2018

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And for me, and I suspect most users, it does just add new images....as it's supposed to. I'm not saying that there isn't a bug which may have affected a minority of users (which I suspect is iCloud related), but what you describe is not the intended behaviour, which I think you know. If you can reliably reproduce that behaviour, have you filed a bug report?

But it's not clear to me that that's the issue that bryceh5062428​ is actually complaining about. My interpretation of his post is that he simply doesn't want LR adding all his camera roll images to the cloud, which is fair enough. If instead he wants to decide what does and doesn't get added/imported to LRCC, then of course he can. That's what I was responding to.

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New Here ,
May 23, 2021 May 23, 2021

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It's NOTHING whatsoever to do with iCloud! LR Mobile is a crap app NOT well though out. I've uninstalled and reinstalled it ensuring I turn off that evil option to "auto add photos", and still, it rolls on and keeps syncing every photo I take on the phone. Or at least it did until I removed the app for the last time. It won't be going back on my phone anytime soon. I'll just do without it - it's not life and death. Each to their own, I agree, but you can't say this is a great app if it's displeasing SO many people and Adobe won't even look at it.

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 05, 2018 Nov 05, 2018

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https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jim+Wilde  wrote

What exactly is the flaw? You have the choice of having the LRCC app auto-add any new photos added to the camera roll, or not. If you don't want all the images you capture with your phone synced to the LR cloud, simply turn off the auto-add option.

Not to mention (although we have mentioned this, several times in this thread,) that simply turning off the auto-add option, simply does nothing! The option doesn't turn off at all (with any degree of simplicity.) The app must be fully uninstalled, and reinstalled again (THANKS for that info Jao,) in order for us to use it without the auto-add feature constantly engaged and consistently attempting to download. This alone, is a significant design flaw...  which was likely the result of a series of miscalculations by Adobe.

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Explorer ,
May 04, 2020 May 04, 2020

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Not only does it add ALL my photos including the crappy ones I dont want, which I could tolerate, it adds everything that anybody else sends me on Whatsapp etc etc. If I want to look at their photos, I will open Whatsapp thanks. Lightroom is for MY photos!

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 19, 2020 Jan 19, 2020

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Who is the fuxxxing idiot behind the automatic upload of photos Adobe? Please update this everybody is annoyed by that. 

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 14, 2019 Sep 14, 2019

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And this is a feature that's totally insane for anyone that uses a phone as a quick note taking device, or screen captures get uploaded, or social media posts that don't matter getting uploaded.

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