Need help with catalogs on ipad pro

[default2rq0t8rzhgwk]

Hello! 

My sister is trying to send me her lightroom catalog with smart previews to edit for her. We have had no problems doing this on my computer but i recently picked up a new ipad pro and would like to start using that to cull/edit. When i open the dropbox folder with her lightroom catalog in it, it is grayed our and wont let me open it on the ipad. but works fine on my desktop. is there a way to get the catalogs/smart previews to work on the ipad pro without loading them into my desktop Lr then syncing it to the ipad. This is way to time consuming. 

[JimWilde]

No, it can't be done. Lightroom Classic can only be run on either Windows 10 or MacOS....it is not possible to run it on a mobile device such as an iPad.

[defaultrg97k2b2jjou]

Were you ever able to figure out how to get LR catalogs to work in LR CC on your ipad?  Or is it still not capable?

[JP Hess]

If you are referring to opening Lightroom Classic catalogs with the version of Lightroom on the iPad, that cannot be done. The catalog associated with that version of Lightroom is in the cloud, not a local catalog and cannot be made local. Additionally, LrC catalogs cannot simply be integrated with the cloud version. ONE LrC catalog can be migrated and therefore integrated as a starting point for a cloud library, but that is it.

[Jim Wilde]

ONE LrC catalog can be migrated and therefore integrated as a starting point for a cloud library, but that is it.

Any number of Lightroom Classic catalogs can be migrated to the Lightroom cloud, but each catalog can only be migrated once (though it is possible to work around that restriction).

[Conrad C]

Lightroom Classic is mostly separate and designed differently than the ecosystem of cloud versions, which are Lightroom for desktop, tablet, mobile phone, and web.

Only Lightroom Classic uses a catalog. None of the cloud-based Lightroom variants use catalogs; they all use the cloud as the single main repository of original photos, and all of the clients (desktop, mobile, web) are simply terminals to the cloud storage.

[Jim Wilde]

Only Lightroom Classic uses a catalog. None of the cloud-based Lightroom variants use catalogs; they all use the cloud as the single main repository of original photos, and all of the clients (desktop, mobile, web) are simply terminals to the cloud storage.

It's probably an over-simplification to say that the Lightroom clients don't use catalogs. Apart from LrWeb, all the client apps do use a local catalog (how else could they be used when the device is offline?), but it's a different type of catalog to the format used by Lightroom Classic, and thus they are not inter-operable, i.e. Classic cannot open Cloud catalogs, and the cloud clients cannot open Classic catalogs. Only the Lightroom Desktop app has the catalog migration function which allows the contents of a Classic catalog to be converted (once) and added to the Cloud catalog. Unlike Classic catalogs, the local catalogs do not need to be backed up by the user as they are subservient to, and can be recreated from, the master cloud catalog if needed.