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Correct answer Jim Wilde

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jao+vdL  wrote

This is by design. Lightroom CC cannot deal with the hierarchical keyword structure that classic can. Lightroom CC only has a flat keyword architecture so they decided to stop syncing the keywords between Classic and CC. It used to be able to but since the release of CC and Lightroom Classic it stopped doing that.

Not really, Jao....it's never been possible to sync keywords between Lightroom (5, CC2015, or Classic) and Lightroom mobile (now including LRCC). The ability to sync Titles and Captions was added sometime during the CC2015 cycle, but never keywords (or Location data).

However , it is currently possible (though this may be a bug or loophole) to effect a one-way, one-time transfer of any existing keywords and Location data in an image from Classic to the mobile ecosystem apps. If you write metadata to XMP in Classic (either automatically or via the Ctrl/Cmd+S keyboard shortcut), before you enable sync on the image in Classic, you should find that any of the cloud-based apps will show that data. But as I said, it's a one-time deal.....subsequent changes to keywords or location data made in Classic will not sync to the other apps, and changes made in the cloud-based apps will only sync to the other cloud-based apps but not to Classic. Because of that lack on ongoing syncing between Classic and the cloud, this "feature" may not be very useful.

8 replies

M
Michael Gähwiler
Participant
February 6, 2020

I was also very surprised that syncing of keywords between Lightroom Classis and the mobile app is not possible. I was keywording a bunch of images on my PC in order to go through them again on my mobile. But without the keywords synced, I cannot just filter out those on my mobile.

    A
    AdvRider329
    Participant
    February 23, 2020

    I agree, i see this as a pretty big miss for integrating cloud and classic.  Being able to browse, flag and rate from mobile are huge benefits, but dramatically handicapped because tags/keywords are not available.  

    I to am using the title/caption workaround, but it seems ridiculous that there has to be a work around for such a basic feature that would not be that hard to solve technically (flat vs hierarchical tags).

      Stuart B Katz
      Stuart B Katz
      Participant
      February 5, 2020

      It makes some sense that Lightroom mobile version can’t handle the hierarchical keyword system of Lightroom Classic.  However, it would seem simple to at least allow a one way transmission of keywords from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom CC sans hierarchy, i.e., a flat set of keywords.  Without keywords, those of us with a large number of images on our mobile devices have no convenient path to finding them.

        D
        dubbelXposure
        Participating Frequently
        December 25, 2019

        not true, it is only since recent upgrades that keywords have stopped syncing. I am now looking at alternatives as  adobe no longer care about the customer experience 

          SpazGenev
          SpazGenev
          Participating Frequently
          April 11, 2019

          Okay, since there is a conflict between hierarchical keywords and flat keywords, can't Adobe just implement an option to turn off the hierarchical keywords in LR Classic and allow synchronization?

          In my case I don't use hierarchical keywords anyway and even though it is a benefit that Title and Caption can be added through mobile device or via the web based LR CC, syncing keywords will make a things even better and will save me even more time, which is crucial.

            Antoine HLMN
            Antoine HLMN
            Known Participant
            April 11, 2019

            They could but they won’t.

            Despite what’s being said, the limitation is not technical but political: Adobe won’t update sync features on Classic because they push towards LR CC.

            To be honest, I don‘t know how long Classic will be maintained when LR CC will (if ever) have sufficient pro features.

              SpazGenev
              SpazGenev
              Participating Frequently
              April 12, 2019

              Well, they should put more functionality into LR CC then, because now it looks like a simple web interface for basic interactions with images. I understand that the vast majority of users have more basic set of needs, but a small group of professionals need much more. I have metadata presets on multiple championship riders and drivers and using them saves tons of time. This is not at all present in LR CC. As far as syncing goes, it would mean a world to me if keywords could be applied via the web interface, because that would mean I get to shoot a session, make a selection, and while I go and shoot the next session, someone else could do the metadata input for me. Now we are only halfway there. Of course there are workarounds. Since the Title and Caption fields sync, I can call group of images by searching for a word that is in there and put the keywords on that selection of images. The other way would be for the other person to fill in all the metadata (title, caption, keywords) and I'll just export the JPG files through LRCC. But does it really need to be that complicated?

                Tyrven
                Tyrven
                Known Participant
                June 5, 2018

                This is an unfortunate limitation. And especially since it's neither expected behavior, nor intuitive to discover.

                I just made the mistake of tagging a few hundred photos in Lightroom CC with the expectations that they would show up in Lightroom Classic. After an hour of troubleshooting why this wasn't working, I came here to report this as a bug—only to discover it's not supported.

                Perhaps that's fine (adding keywords on a mobile device isn't ideal) but if the mobile app displays keywords then it's a reasonable expectation that they will be synchronized correctly. If keywords are going to be supported in Lightroom CC but not synchronized with Lightroom Classic then it'd be useful to set that expectation in the interface—e.g., as a popup warning when a user first tries to edit keywords in a synchronized collection. Without that, this is a recipe for confusion and, ultimately, frustration.

                I do understand the issue if they use different keyword systems, as suggested above. But that doesn't seem to make much sense here given that 1) to my knowledge, Lightroom Classic doesn't even support hierarchical keywords by default anymore, and 2) even if you enable them, it's easy for them to be treated as interchangeable since Lightroom Classic can be configured to treat keywords with periods or slashes as hierarchical.

                Jeremy

                  iwaddo
                  iwaddo
                  Inspiring
                  December 22, 2017

                  So I used Lightroom Mobile on my iPad to edit a few snaps before posting online, whilst doing this I added a few keywords which have not synchronised back to Lightroom Classic.

                  I am now wondering why I'd bother adding keywords to images using my iPad, what is the use case?

                  Thank you for your help.

                    K
                    klemensMS
                    Participating Frequently
                    December 22, 2017

                    absolutely none (IMO)! I have switched to using the caption/title field to sync the important bits of information between CC / Classic /Windows&Mac files as these two fields are metadata fields that I hope are future proof (fingers crossed!).

                    J
                    jonas013
                    Known Participant
                    January 5, 2018

                    This is not a matter of iPad ! I'm a photographer, not the guy who takes pictures with a smartphone ! I do not intend to use LR CC on a smartphone or a tablet (except for lookin to the photos), but I intend to use LR CC on my laptop when I am not at home.

                    Keywords are definitely necessary to handle efficientaly a 100 000 photos library. Using caption/title field is indeed a palliative, but compared to the LR Classic keyword organization, this is really very poor, slow and inefficient. LR Classic offers a lot of help to manage keywords : LR CC none ; there is even no keyword list to help !

                      stewartlogie
                      stewartlogie
                      Participating Frequently
                      November 6, 2017

                      Seems like a huge wasted opportunity for Adobe. Their Sensei automatic keyword tool needs training, like any AI function. Allowing it access to the vast keyword database from users, with the appropriate permissions, would speed up the training immensely. I, for one , would be happy to support this, except the private keywords that don’t get published either. The most important mobile function for me is keywording, but it’s useless if not linked to Classic. Baffling failure.

                        J
                        Community Expert
                        Jao vdLCommunity Expert
                        Community Expert
                        October 28, 2017

                        This is by design. Lightroom CC cannot deal with the hierarchical keyword structure that classic can. Lightroom CC only has a flat keyword architecture so they decided to stop syncing the keywords between Classic and CC. It used to be able to but since the release of CC and Lightroom Classic it stopped doing that.

                          Jim Wilde
                          Community Expert
                          Jim WildeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
                          Community Expert
                          November 6, 2017

                          https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jao+vdL  wrote

                          This is by design. Lightroom CC cannot deal with the hierarchical keyword structure that classic can. Lightroom CC only has a flat keyword architecture so they decided to stop syncing the keywords between Classic and CC. It used to be able to but since the release of CC and Lightroom Classic it stopped doing that.

                          Not really, Jao....it's never been possible to sync keywords between Lightroom (5, CC2015, or Classic) and Lightroom mobile (now including LRCC). The ability to sync Titles and Captions was added sometime during the CC2015 cycle, but never keywords (or Location data).

                          However , it is currently possible (though this may be a bug or loophole) to effect a one-way, one-time transfer of any existing keywords and Location data in an image from Classic to the mobile ecosystem apps. If you write metadata to XMP in Classic (either automatically or via the Ctrl/Cmd+S keyboard shortcut), before you enable sync on the image in Classic, you should find that any of the cloud-based apps will show that data. But as I said, it's a one-time deal.....subsequent changes to keywords or location data made in Classic will not sync to the other apps, and changes made in the cloud-based apps will only sync to the other cloud-based apps but not to Classic. Because of that lack on ongoing syncing between Classic and the cloud, this "feature" may not be very useful.

                            J
                            Community Expert
                            Jao vdLCommunity Expert
                            Community Expert
                            November 6, 2017

                            Thanks Jim, never realized that keywords never synced. Apparently I never needed it or used it as the interface to keyboarding in the mobile apps was and is so unwieldy anyway.

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