If you cancel your Adobe subscription what happens to your photos? Will your work and photos be lost? Whichever version of Lightroom you’re using, are your photos safe if you cancel your Adobe subscription?
Let’s look at the two subscription versions, Lightroom (cloud-service) and Lightroom Classic separately, as the outcomes are different.
Lightroom Classic
While you have all your original photos held locally, all your edits are stored non-destructively in your catalog. Of course you could export all of your edited photos to standardized formats before canceling your subscription, but that’s hardly ideal. So what do you do?
Here’s the good news! If your subscription expires, you can continue to use Lightroom Classic excluding the Develop module, Map module and mobile sync. Photoshop also stops working, of course. Any photos held in the Adobe cloud are automatically deleted after 30 days (so any shares using this stop).
Yes, you read that correctly! You can import new photos, add metadata, organize them, search for specific photos, do rough edits using Quick Develop, apply Develop presets, create books, slideshows and web galleries, email and publish photos on social media, export and print your edited photos… nothing is lost!
And if you later decide you want to subscribe again, then the main Develop module, Map module and mobile sync are unlocked and you can again use Lightroom Classic to the full.
Lightroom (cloud-based)
With the cloud-based service, all photos and edits are held in the Adobe cloud. You can also have a local copy, but should you decide to cancel, Adobe gives you a year to download the photos.
We’d suggest using the Lightroom desktop app and export the photos to another hard drive as Original + Settings format, so you keep your metadata and non-destructive edits too. Flags, versions and album membership can’t be stored with the image files, so you may want to filter for your flagged photos to assign star ratings instead, and export your albums to named folders.
Alternatively, there’s a separate downloader tool to pull everything down from the cloud, but that doesn’t currently include all of the metadata.
Of course we hope that you’ll never need to cancel, but many worry about signing up because they’ve heard their photos will be held hostage. As you can see, nothing could be further from the truth!
I’d love some insight on the following statement on the adobe help page.
“After you cancel your Creative Cloud subscription, you can no longer access your Creative Cloud applications, nor most of the services included in your paid Creative Cloud subscription.”
To me that sounds like Lightroom Classic will NOT work at all after cancelling. Please clarify?
I should clarify I have the “Photography Plan 20GB.”
One more clarification – I don’t use or want to use storage.
The info in this article remains correct; Lightroom is an exception to their general statement. You can confirm in the hidden sections on this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/cancel-subscription.html
Hi Victoria. I’m on the “Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB” and I want to move to the “Photography plan (20GB)” to save some cash. Also, I’ve stopped using the mobile app because I prefer desktop editing. I’m hoping LrC will keep a local copy of everything I originally uploaded via the mobile app, even though 20GB online storage probably isn’t enough for all my images. Can you see a problem?
I’ve got an expired trial realise I don’t really need the edit function, just the catalogue and collections. I don’t need PS either so happy with the fact thing still work. The only thing is here in the comments you say the ‘photo – edit in…’ function still works but not for me. It shows a greyed out photoshop link, but not the additional external editor I set in the preferences (Affinity or Elements). Has this function been disabled?
I have contacted the Chat people about cancelling my Photography Plan and Elements in April of 2022. Do I have to remove my LrC? If not, will it continue to let me access my Catalogues and can I use LrC to import photos to organize and use presets while retaining my original NEF files in a RAW file folder on an external hard drive ? BTW, it took me 1 hour just to get the agent to understand that I wanted to cancel my subscription in April. He continued trying to renew my subscription with a 3 month no fee subscription for a monthly fee or an annual fee which would save m
e $38. I multiplied the monthly fee by 12 and it came to exactly the same price as an annual subscription. ???? Finally, I told him to just cancel my subscription in April, 2022 and I think I finally got through to him by typing all in capitals. I was getting very frustrated as he absolutely refused my declining his first, second and third offer, all which were not what I as interested in. I’m afraid I will not be giving the follow-up survey a very good rating.
Hi Norm
No, you can keep LrC installed and as the blog states, most functions work with exclusion of the main Develop (Quick Develop continues), Map and Sync.
Cancelling – the quickest way is to go to your Adobe Account (account.adobe.com), Manage Plan and there is an option to cancel on that page. Unfortunately sounds like you ended up talking to an enthusiastic sales guy!
So Adobes policy HAS changed… my subscription to Lightroom Classic expired a few years ago, initially I was able to continue to access the Library module and export photos.
I recently re-opened Adobe Lightroom ( v11) and when opening Lightroom, now a popup blocks access to the program… the only options on the popup are “Quit”, “Start a free 7 day Trial”, or “Buy”.
I initiated a chat with an Adobe tech support agent and pointed them to their own support article that says I should have continued access – the end result of that exchange was “I would like to you inform you that for access of library of your subscription you need to renew the subscription.”
Renewing the subscription means paying the early termination fee of 50% of the remaining annual subscription when I’m done with exporting to the competitor product (I could try to do this in 7 days free trial but with tens of thousands of images and a busy work life, likely to miss).
I counted on Adobe standing behind their brand reputation by maintaining their policy of open-ended access to Library for those whose subscription has expired…. particularly insidious that this policy change wasn’t communicated nor is their own support article updated to reflect their policy.
I wonder if Adobe leadership are even aware these kind of policy changes are being implemented…
I checked again, nothing changed. They reset the trial from time to time to let people try new features. Go through the trial and it’ll revert to “residual” mode. Chat support rarely has the correct information, they’re primarily sales people.
So to clarify, this user has to initiate a free trial, but once that ends they will be able to use the Library module without paying? Do you have confirmation of this, in writing?
I’m trying to make the decision about whether to commit to the subscription or not, and this whole situation makes me really uncomfortable. Does Adobe have any documentation, contract or written guarantee that it will allow Library access in perpetuity? Or, can they arbitrarily change the policy sometime in the future, and hold all of our libraries hostage?
No company will make a “forever” promise because they can’t foresee the future any more than you or I can. That said, their policy hasn’t changed since the day it was introduced many years ago, and their reason for introducing that policy was because they didn’t want to hold people’s photos hostage.
An operating system could render perpetually licensed software inoperable at any time, so there’s not any more risk in this scenario. If you’re concerned, write the metadata to the files regularly, so that other software can see universal metadata. The files themselves are stored on the hard drive, so no lock in there.
As far as in writing goes, go to https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/cancel-subscription.html, scroll down to What happens when I cancel my Creative Cloud subscription? then Lightroom Classic images. I confirmed yesterday with a manager that this policy hasn’t changed.
Thanks for the quick reply,
I clicked on “Trial” and it took me to the Library module without requesting any credit card. So I’m good to go for now, hopefully my LR install will switch to what you called “residual” mode after 7 days.
As you said Adobe support does not have the latest information, fortunately you were able to help… ! Thank you and and have a Happy New Year !
I recently purchased anew iMac-2021-as well as LR-C. After a computer tech transferred
everything from my 9 yr. old iMac and LR4, to my new setup, I found that over 100 photos
from an Alaska cruise lost. I have a backup, but cannot locate them.
I would appreciate your response. Thank you kindly
Lightroom will be able to tell you where they were when it last saw them (by clicking on the missing photos icon) but you’ll need to find them on the hard drive.
I use Lightroom based on the cloud, and the first method hasn’t worked (because I cannot export the photos, once the app seems to be empty, excepting the number os photos I have there “1584”, but I cannot see them), so I tried to use the Lightroom Downloader, and it hasn’t worked as well. It said I no longer have access to that tool, so I cannot export my photos as I wish. There are two months of daily work that are concerned in here, and I’ll probably lose everything I’ve done. I think there should be more respect for people’s work. Sad :/
Hi Francisco
You cancelled your cloud subscription then you mean? After this they are available on the cloud for a year (then they get deleted, as the blog states).
Yes, I did! But I don’t have access to anything! It is so strange
To clarify, how long ago did you cancel? And you were paying a subscription, not just in a trial period?
I notice that one can apply user presets in the quick develop panel. I wonder if they can still be used after a sub has expired because if they can it opens a huge range of options for working images.
Regards Andrew Hall
I think so, but I don’t have an expired trial to double check.
1. Yes after any subscription, but bear in mind that the Lightroom subscription is an annual contract, even if it’s paid monthly. I’m pretty sure it works after trial, but I haven’t tested that recently.
2. No, Camera Raw requires subscription.
3. https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/cancel-subscription.html
Hello Victoria. More details on this issue if you could, please…
1. How long need I to pay my subscription before I retain rights to the Library Module after cancelation? Would that work after just one month of subscription? What about canceling after just the trial period?
2. Can Camera Raw be used with Bridge after cancellation?
3. Could you please provide an actual Adobe document with legal terms, describing such situations? For some photographers, this is a really important matter with serious consequences. So it would be better to get some assurances beyond loose comments from Adobe employees over the phone.
Thanks a lot….
I bought a downloaded version of Photoshop and Lightroom years ago. They allowed me to upgrade Lightroom a few years ago, but when our computer crashed recently and I tried to access the programs, and they asked for my serial number; it was not long enough. I am a teacher and have students in my home. I use both Photoshop and Lightroom, but that’s it. What is the best (and most inexpensive) path to move forward? Do I have to get a subscription, and I so, which one would be best for me?
The Photography Plan includes both Photoshop and Lightroom (now called Lightroom Classic) for around $10 a month.
This is such a useful article and set of Q & As. Two more.
If the library mode is retained after lapsing sub does that mean face recognition and keywords continue to be able to be applied to new photos.
Second, if one is using dng files, which as I understand it, contain the adjustment status (and perhaps history though that is less critical) and keywords, does that mean they could then be returned and scanned into LR6 and would retain settings and keywords.
> does that mean face recognition and keywords continue to be able to be applied to new photos
Yes on both counts.
> if one is using dng files, which as I understand it, contain the adjustment status
DNG’s only contain the adjustment settings if you’re written them back to the files. But yes, they would be readable in LR6 as long as the tools existed in LR6. Newer things like Texture would be ignored by LR6.
Thank you so much Victoria, what a great resource and community this site is
Thank you Paul, much appreciated. Greg
Can I still use the book module to make new books after I cancel my Adobe subscription? Are existing books created with the book module still available to edit?
Yes, and the Print module works too. It’s Develop, Map and Sync that are no longer available once you stop your subscription.
My husband used LrC for editing of and organizing his 24,644 photos. They are all keyworded, so anytime anyone would ask, “Do you have that picture of …,” he would do a search, find it, and say, “Why yes. Yes I do.” He was paying for the Photography plan, $9.99 a month. He passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I am trying to figure out whether *I* need to keep paying $9.99 a month. I would like to move LrC to my computer (the photos are on an external drive) and only use it to find photos when someone needs one or to flag photos for some grouping, like if someone wanted to choose photos to create a photo book or something. I don’t need the editing functions or anything else. It sounds like I should be able to do this without keeping the subscription active–is this true? Any other tips I should know about? Thanks in advance. 🙂
Sorry to hear about your husband’s death. If you don’t need editing and you don’t need to sync photos to the cloud, then no, you don’t need to keep paying. The Library module (for finding/grouping photos) carries on working even when the subscription ends. I’d move it to your computer before you cancel, but there’s a free eBook in the Members Area that walks you through how to do that. It’s an annual contract so there might be cancellation fee if he’s not near the end of his annual term, but that’s still cheaper than continuing to pay the full price.
Thank you so much for such a speedy reply! I was hoping that would be your answer. I thought it would be a good idea to move before I cancel, so that will be my chore for this weekend. Thanks for directing me to the eBook–that will be a big help! <3
Victoria, I moved my husband’s Lightroom to my computer today, following your ebook instructions to the letter, and I didn’t have a single problem. I just opened the catalog, and all the pictures popped up just as they should have. You made what would have been an overwhelming task–one that I may not have even been able to accomplish–just another item on my to-do list. I cannot thank you enough.
I’m so pleased we could help Patty!
Thanks for confirming.
I am just checking if this article represents Adobe’s position with respect to LrC 10.3 if I cancel my Adobe subscription?
It’s the continued policy of Adobe for Lightroom Classic (so yes, 10.3 included)
After I cancelled Lightroom Classic and my month ran out, when I opened the program, a pop-up said that this was the last time I could launch the Lightroom. Did I miss something? I paid the monthly fee continue to have access to my photos.
I’d need to see the pop-up to be able to figure out what happened, but the policy hasn’t changed.
PS: I’m running Mojave and have Lr4 installed without issue.
I’m a semi-pro and an old user of Lr4 and still find it sufficient with Luminar as a develop module (I don’t like Luminary’s Library function).
I am thinking of trying out a subscription of Lr Classic to see if I find value in what’s now being offered. I am wondering if use the subscription and end it later, if I could still move freely between Lr Classic Library and Luminar’s develop module, as well as my older version of Ps6.
Yes, that should work.
I spent hours on Lightroom to edit my pictures just to find out that everything is owed by Adobe and that I have to be grateful that they allow me to recover part of my work… If I want to keep it I need to pay for the rest of my life… I moved to Capture One Pro… This way all my work is safe…
I’m sorry to hear you signed up for a subscription without reading the terms. The only thing owned by Adobe is the software, you retain your photos and ALL of the work you’ve done. That’s the same as renting any tool.
With Capture One, it is possible to own the software, however it’ll go out of date as you upgrade your operating system, so you’ll need to pay for an upgrade at some point. With Adobe, you’re paying a small amount monthly, whereas with other software, you pay in larger chunks less frequently. You get to choose which suits you best.
Like the now famous “Fact Checkers” would say… “Partially True” Your own software (Lightroom and Photoshop CS that I have) will work on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and it is working fine in Windows 10. So, no, just changing Operating System will not make the editing software “out of date”.
Permanent software DOES update for free. Your own LR 5 was updated all the way LR 5.7 for free. And so is any other software that you buy. Only major updates requires a new purchase and usually at reduced cost.
It was your software latest update that forced many of my friend to upgrade their computer or get new ones because the video cards were not up to par…. how funny… one day everything is fine, the next day after an update and without notice computer crashed every time LR was used.
I love Adobe LR and Photoshop and still use it (older versions) plus other editing up-to-date software, but I never will go with the rental idea. And to use your tool rental note…. it is like taking away your tire removing tool…. you can still use your current tires but no longer able to replace or change the tires if it goes flat.
An idea that may get me back is a “rent to own” model…. if you stop your subscription an older version of the software will remain in your computer, maybe not the latest but something useful.
Thanks.
I’d have to respectfully disagree about OS upgrades making software out of date, although it is true that it happens more frequently on macOS than it does on Windows. For example, Lightroom 6 will no longer install since macOS 10.5 was released, and older versions haven’t run for a long time.
You are both right. On Windows, forward compatibility is typically not a problem. Older software still runs with newer OS versions.
On macOS, now and then (but not with every OS update), compatibility breaks.
In my view it is much better to reward the software company when useful features are added to a tool, compared to always having to pay a subscription, even when development proceeds in unwanted directions.
Like Pedro A., I have been mad at LR since they stopped allowing me to buy a “forever” program. I still use LR 6 and LR 5.7. I have put off the subscription version because it seems like LR is taking advantage of their customers. BUT, if you consider the subscription as the costs required to get the latest edit tools from LR and you don’t use the program as a storage file for your photos it makes the idea of paying a little more tolerable. At least for me. This means that I store all original RAW files on a hard drive and once also moving the fully edited version of the photo back to the hard drive system. If I ever lose access to the LR system I have the original and the final version. I can always choose another photo editing system if I want to re-edit the photo from its RAW form.
I know this is an antiquated way of storing and editing images, but it helps me sleep at night knowing I have access to my photos no matter what happens to a LR subscription.
Is this something that a casual photographer wants to go through? Probably not. I have triple redundancy and it can be a pain. A casual photographer might consider Elements or another editing software that doesn’t require the expense of a subscription.
I realize this is an older article but hope you can still answer my questions.
So if after I cancel my Lr Classic subscription and then replace my computer, would I still be able to install Lightroom onto the new computer use the same Lr features such as printing, library, etc, even though I no longer have a subscription?
I checked with a member of staff at Adobe and he believes that’s fine, however I’ve never actually tested that myself.
If I were to cancel and revert to LR 6, could I continue to edit (in LR6) those images created in CC?
What do you mean by CC (there is no such product now)
If you mean Classic, then the catalog won’t be compatible, so you’d have to save any edits and either import afresh or read metadata to a Lr6 catalog.
If you mean Lightroom Desktop (so cloud) then you’d need to export the photos anyway then import.
I know this is old news, but I still feel that after some number of years of subscribing to LR/PS one should be able to keep using the last paid-for versions after canceling one’s subscription. It might be reasonable to charge a cancellation fee to enable this capability, and I’d be OK with that. I gather from research elsewhere that the Library module still works and that one can edit elsewhere via Photo->Edit In->Edit in Other Application… after setting up such an application in Preferences, yes? But when finishing such an edit, one would have to save the results in a JPG or TIFF, or some other external format. The external edits would be permanent. Also, I assume that there would be no way to go back to a point before the last Develop module changes before editing externally, right?
Yes, Library still works, as does the Quick Develop panel for simple edits, and the Reset button to return to the original too. Editing in another program would work, but yes, you’d need to save it as a JPG or TIFF if you wanted to see those edits in Lightroom. If the other editor was non-destructive, then the edits would just be saved as settings, so you couldn’t see the changes in Lightroom but you could go back and edit them in the other software.
Regarding the download tool… You said the tool does not include the metadata, can you be more specific. Prior to the last LR cloudy version debacle I had downloaded the tool and installed on my Windows PC. I am new to all this so I didn’t have 1000s of images so I decided to give it a go. Honestly I thought it did a marvelous job and gave me confidence my work would be captured. I got a order download of all my images organized by \YEAR\YYYY-MM-DD\*.NEF which also included the sidecar(?) XMP files. When I open one of those directories in BRIDGE all the edits are applied and it shows my ratings as well. I haven’t started key wording yet so can’t speak to that. Eight images did not make it down and it told me which ones they were. I am pretty sure all got corrupted when I was learning about conversion to DNG files thinking that might be the safest way to store images in the cloud since the edits are included in the file but I gave up on that after corrupting some images. So the only question for me is whether or not there are any none Adobe applications out that can combine my Nikon NEF and XMP data so that the work is not lost. The software that came with my Nikon ignores the XMP files.
Have a look at Jim’s comments here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/thoughts-on-backing-up-lightroom-cloud.40693/post-1269804
I own Lightroom 5. If I stop my subscription to rent a program from Adobe, is there any way to convert my LR Classic library so that I can use it in LR 5? Thank you!
Short answer, no. The Catalog has been through several upgrades since Lr5.
You could save metadata to the files then import to a fresh Lr5 catalog, but not all data is saved that way, Collections are lost…
Inclusive of Smart Collections as in all photos i starred? 5, 4, 3 etc stars? i have over 20K pics and would like to keep stars intact if possible.
Yes, star ratings do save to standardized metadata. Flags don’t.
Clarification, please. Before I signed on to the Adobe subscription for Lightroom I of course had access to all its features. If I now cancel my subscription I lose some of them? namely the Develop Module?
Thank you.
On any subscription, if you keep paying, you have access, and if you stop paying, you don’t. Adobe’s allowed continued access to some features even after you stop paying. So yes, if you stop paying, you’d no longer be able to use the software to Develop photos.
Still not clear…if one were to quit subscribing to LR Classic, would all history of an image still be available and editable or only the last version of the image? All the way back to the original import available? Sounds as if it would NOT since history is under Develop!!!!
You would have the developed photo but no, you couldn’t then go back to different history steps as that’s in the Develop module.
But what about archiving forever? So, your images could be passed on to your heirs? Should you archive as TIF?
Most people would chose JPG (highest quality) for long-term archive. TIFF of course is lossless so top quality, but file sizes increase. Depends on the content of the photos!
If you cancel the LR Classic subscription, will you still have access to any edits made within the Develop module, or will it revert your images back to their original, unedited state?
Edits are still there, but you can’t change them (although as mentioned you can still use Quick Develop)
Thank you!
Paul,
If I stop my subscription to Lightroom, can I still import photos into Lightroom, then to edit them choose “edit in” (another editing software) another program, and then when I save my edit in the 3rd party software, they come back into Lightroom after editing.
In other words, I’m only using LR to store the photos, not edit them. This is the way I use Lightroom. I don’t use it for edits.
Yes, that works.
Actually Lightroom classic does NOT store your photos. They are on your storage unit, hard drive or SDD.
The catalog knows where the files are and the edits and other information.