Syncing and Migrating. Whats the Difference?

[maguayo6]

My question is whats the difference between just syncing photos from Lightroom Classic(LC) to Lightroom Mobile(LM) and migrating my catalog from LC to LM?

which is better to do? I have migrated my master cat to LM but I found out that you can just sync collections between the two lightrooms. I cant seem to find any clarification on this anywhere else.

A side question I have is; for importing now? should I continue to import to LC or just do all my importing through LM? does it matter?

[john beardsworth · Accepted solution]

Migrating is moving over from real Lightroom, "Lightroom Classic", to the cloud-dependent version of Lightroom that Adobe now call "Lightroom" which has fewer and weaker features but is great at uploading files to the cloud. This Lightroom Cloudy stores originals in the cloud, so migration uploads your originals.

Syncing from Lightroom Classic is simply sending compressed versions or "smart previews" to the cloud. You can then edit these files on mobile devices or in the cloud-dependent version of Lightroom. These edits or changes to collections then sync throughout the system.

If you import new photos into Lightroom Cloudy, the files go up to the cloud and copies of them are downloaded by Lightroom Classic and stored on your hard drive. Yes, sounds odd, and Adobe don't actually recommend it.

Unless you have a good reason to use Lightroom Cloudy, I would stick to Classic and forget about Cloudy. Install it on a laptop, maybe, and use it just like Lightroom Mobile on your laptop.

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

I believe John has explained it pretty well. To know more about Migration and Syncing, you may have a look at the articles below:

Migrate photos and videos from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom

Sync Lightroom Classic with Lightroom CC Ecosystem |

Here's another article stating the differences between Lightroom and Lightroom Classic: Go from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom CC |

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Sahil

[maguayo6]

thanks guys! this helped a lot