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Managing raw files from CC in LR desktop app

Community Beginner ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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hi all.

ive just got back from India and have 6,500 raw files in my cc which I uploaded whilst away via an sd card reader and lightroom mobile iOS.

when I opened lightroom desktop on my Mac I noticed all the files started syncing and downloading taking up hundreds of GB of space I don’t have.

i wanted to leave them in the cloud, and only have a smart preview or something on the Mac.

can someone help me to understand why this started happening and what’s the best solution?

Thanks!

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Adobe Employee ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Hi Benjamin,

As images are taking up too much space on the Mac, could you please try unchecking  "Store a copy of all originals at the specified location from Lightroom's Preferences, then relaunch Lightroom and let us know if it helps?

Regards,
Sahil

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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thanks.

before I try this out can I confirm it won’t affect anything else?

will it remove any copies of local files I have on my external hard drives for example?

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Community Expert ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Which lightroom on the desktop did you open? Classic or CC?

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Lightroom Classic

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Community Expert ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Benjamin, I had a feeling. When you sign into Lightroom CC with Classic, all of your photos will start to download. There is nothing you can do to turn that off. Lightroom Classic requires that images reside on a local drive, not the cloud. It's going to suck down copies of every image it finds in the cloud. You could however change the location of the download to an external hard drive if you are out of space.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Hi.

Have you seen Sahil’s suggestion in this post?

Before I try it have a look and please let me know your thoughts.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 18, 2019 Apr 18, 2019

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Yes I saw that post. Sahil thought you were using Lightroom CC on your desktop because you posted your question in the Lightroom CC - Cloud based app forum. It's confusing. We see lots of users posting their questions in the wrong forum, that's why I asked which app you were using.

If you want to keep everything in the cloud, then Lightroom CC is a better solution for you. However Lightroom CC is still missing many of the features that you may depend on in Classic.

This might help https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-cc-vs-classic-features/

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 19, 2019 Apr 19, 2019

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Ok thanks.

So in this case either I need to download those files locally or upload my entire library to the cloud and use lightroom CC?

There is no way to have some files in the cloud and some locally? Such a shame!

If if I wanted to download them and delete from the cloud is this possible?

At the moment they are downloading to a mobile downloads folder on my Mac. Can I move them to the respective date organised folders on my Lightroom Library which is on an external hard drive? 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 19, 2019 Apr 19, 2019

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So in this case either I need to download those files locally or upload my entire library to the cloud and use lightroom CC?

Not necessarily. The photos that are already managed by Lightroom Classic, and not in the cloud can stay where they are.

There is no way to have some files in the cloud and some locally? Such a shame!

If you use the cloud version of Lightroom, everything is managed in the cloud. There is no way to selectively put images in the cloud and manage others on a drive. That would be nice though

If if I wanted to download them and delete from the cloud is this possible?

After Lightroom Classic finishes syncing, and downloads all of the images, you can delete them from the cloud. They will will still remain part of Lightroom Classic.

At the moment they are downloading to a mobile downloads folder on my Mac. Can I move them to the respective date organised folders on my Lightroom Library which is on an external hard drive?

Yes. I recommend doing this. Then you can change the preference for where you want future images downloaded to. Here's a screen capture of my Lr Classic preferences. Click the choose button to tell Classic where to download the files too. By default they are in your pictures folder.

2019-04-19_21-36-04.png

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 20, 2019 Apr 20, 2019

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Thankyou for this comprehensive and helpful answer.

I dont have enough space on my internal hard drive to let them finish syncing.

If if I change the cc images location to the external hard drive will it:

1. Move the previous files?

2. Organise the files into the LR libraries date folders?

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Community Expert ,
Apr 20, 2019 Apr 20, 2019

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1. No

2. Yes if you turn on the preference as I have in the screen capture above.

Here’s how you can fix the situation you currently have. Turn off Lightroom sync in Classic. Delete all of the photos in the pictures folder that download from the cloud. Change the location for the downloaded files to your external drive. Turn back on the sync options. The images will begin to download again to the new location.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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Thanks.

So I've tried this and it seems the remainder photos are syncing from the point of the last deleted but back into the original lightroom mobile download location on the internal hd.

I've attached the screenshots so you can see whats happening and ive re-started lightroom twice now.

Each time i open it starts the sync again as if it doesn't recognise that I've both changed location and need to re-download the first 2.5k photos that are now in the trash.

Any ideas what to do?

Screen Shot 2019-04-21 at 16.52.22.pngScreen Shot 2019-04-21 at 16.52.33.png

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Community Expert ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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This is indeed what it will do. The images that have already synced before will always sync to the location where they originally synced even if you delete them from there. Only new synced images will go to the new destination. The only way to fix this is to manually move the images that had already synced inside of Lightroom Classic to the new destination. They will from then on sync from and to the new destination.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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But they are not syncing to the new location (External ssd).

They are still syncing to the old location (internal ssd).

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Community Expert ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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Just move them manually inside lightroom to the new location and that's where they will sync from after that.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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The trick is to do the move inside lightroom by dragging to the new place. If you move outside Lightroom will not know where the image is now located and simply replace the image in the old location.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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LR hasn't replaced any images in the old location.

it just carries on syncing from where it left off but in the old location, despite the prefs being changed to the new location.

its not recognising the changes ive made.

do you see what im getting at here?

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 21, 2019 Apr 21, 2019

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I deleted them from the lightroom folder in finder as Theresa J suggested and then from inside lightroom as they were showing as missing files.

The deleted files are now in my trash. (i don’t have enough internal hd space to let the sync finish.)

When i open lightroom the sync carries on where it left off to the OLD location.

Am I missing something here?

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Community Expert ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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Did you turn off the sync function and restart Lightroom before you deleted the images?

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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No, i wasn't aware that i should do that.

What ive done is deleted all the files and moved them manually to the external hard drive.

Im now re-importing them but it seems all my edits have been lost somewhere.

I always thought they were saved alongside the DNG file.

What have i got wrong here?

Also it seems since the sync started with LR classic all my CC files have gone.

I thought they would only be deleted if i actually deleted them?

Is there a way to get them back?

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Community Expert ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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If you deleted them in Lightroom CC (on your iPad) then they are gone, along with the edits. If you deleted them from Classic, then they are still in the cloud. The files that Classic downloads are just copies of what is in the cloud.

I originally suggested that you stop the syncing by turning it off in Classic. Then you could remove all the files that were downloaded. After that you change the location of sync to the external drive, and turn the sync back on. That should have worked.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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If you deleted them from Classic, then they are still in the cloud.

I believe that if you delete them from Classic while sync is still on, they get deleted from the cloud too so be very careful with this approach!

I originally suggested that you stop the syncing by turning it off in Classic. Then you could remove all the files that were downloaded. After that you change the location of sync to the external drive, and turn the sync back on. That should have worked.

For this to work you have to turn the syncing off completely, not just pause it. If you pause it from the small triangle menu, all it does is delay the edit (in this case delete) from propagating to the cloud. When you then turn the sync back on by unpausing, I am pretty sure it will start deleting all the images you deleted in Classic from the cloud. If a catalog is set to sync, you can't turn off syncing to it. This is the conundrum which is why one should move the images that have already synced by hand inside Lightroom.

I just tried this by pausing syncing, deleting an image in Classic that was synced from Lightroom CC and then unpausing sync in Classic. The image immediately got deleted from CC as soon as I turned sync back on. So this is NOT what you want to do.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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Jao vdL​ That is really helpful information. I should have tried it myself first. Long ago I changed the location for my mobile sync and all syncs after that change went to the new location. I know that you can break the sync by removing images from Lightroom CC after they have downloaded, but I did not know that removing them from the downloaded location would remove them from CC as well. That is a conundrum for sure.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 22, 2019 Apr 22, 2019

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Yep well ive learnt my lesson here BIG TIME.

I've lost every single edit on about 1k photos.

I didn't realise that pausing sync or deleting the files from LR classic would also delete them from the cloud.

I thought the CC had my back but it doesn't.

As much as i appreciate the technology its let me down massively.

Ill have to remember all of my edits and do them again manually.

I just thought that the edits were linked to the DNG files, because in the past its been like this.

But perhaps because i didn't 'export' them as originals and instead deleted them this is the reason it happened.

I would suggest to Adobe if you're reading to not automatically delete the files from the cloud when deleted from LR classic or at least have a backup or restore feature for these kind of situations for people in the future.

Good luck and thankyou all for being so helpful and responsive.

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