Lightroom mobile presets not syncing with desktop

[alexk26829329]

Hi.  I've seen this mentioned a few times, but I wanted to add a few comments.

so, yeah, my Lightroom iOS app ... presets don't sync with my desktop Lightroom CC NOR my Lightroom classic cc.

HOWEVER, they do SYNC across desktops!  my MacBook and PC... the presets sync! 

I am logged in with same account.

mobile never syncs.  even if I make changes to mobile presets.  never shows on desktop or vice versa.

I have tried 3 mobile devices.  one I even completely reset the whole device (factory reset iOS.... erase all contents / system)

help!

[alexk26829329 · Accepted solution]

ok... I kinda got it to work... though I hate it for now and I won't be using this. 

there's basically 3 places Lightroom is keeping presets.

1. Lightroom CC classic presets location (could be a mix here but this is one )

2. Lightroom CC desktop imported presets

3.  Lightroom mobile is on the cloud... and somewhere locked on your computer.

basically you have to mess with 1 and 2... until 3. kicks in. since Adobe is locking that 3rd one behind a curtain... and just moving it into the Lightroom CC desktop app as per their instructions doesn't work.  (though you have to start there).

steps :

1. don't bother with the initial attempt to "import presets".  on the Mobile app or your Desktop CC app.... create a PRESET group.... and a test preset.  maybe call this the "mobile preset group" then sync until that group and the preset appears in BOTH your mobile and Desktop CC.  without this it'll never work.
2. go find where these presets are now in the Lightroom CC library.  use this link to find it http://natephotographic.com/import-presets-new-lightroom-cc-2017-2018/#delete
3. next import your presets FROM Lightroom classic CC >>> Lightroom CC.  these instructions help https://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2018/06/syncing-profiles-and-presets-from-lightroom-classic-to-lightro...​
4. as you would surmise.. they still aren't syncing... but just shoving them into that "secret" folder up above in step 2... won't work.  because the xml metadata has them in a different grouping.  soooo... at this point you can do 1 of 2 things :
   1. right click each one you want to have on mobile --- and move to the mobile group you created .
   2. you can also edit the xml to change the name of the grouping in your explorer/finder via notepad.... make sure it's in the mobile group you created, and ensure that Lightroom CC is closed when you do this.
      1. while this is annoying, I used Automator on Mac to find and replace all the groupings.  I have about 3,000 presets. so that's not gonna work for me to manually do this.
5. reopen Lightroom CC... and the sync should work. 

basically the point of this is that currently, Lightroom CC has a bug where it's not "designating" your presets as needing to be in the Mobile version via grouping.  I'm guessing eventually they'll fix it... but yeah it's not working for now... so this . well it worked for me.. but it was a headache.

[mattdell29]

Thank you so much for writing this up. I still had to jangle it a bit to make it work (e.g. - I couldn't simply move the ones I wanted into the User Presets) but the XML edit seemed to work for me. I just had to create them on my phone, wait for it to sync, then edit the file it created locally.

In the XML I had to retain the sections

   <crs:Group>

    <rdf:Alt>

     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default"/>

    </rdf:Alt>

   </crs:Group>

and

   <crs:Look>

    <rdf:Description>

    <crs:Group>

     <rdf:Alt>

      <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">Profiles</rdf:li>

     </rdf:Alt>

    </crs:Group>

    </rdf:Description>

   </crs:Look>

Here's hoping Adobe can make this a tad easier in the future...