Android - still confused about storage types and limits

[Sashina]

Greetings!
I thought I was clear on how LR Mobile uses smart previews to reduce demand on local mobile storage.

I have just received a warning on LR Mobile (exclamation mark on the top right cloud symbol): You are nearing the storage limit for your account and uploading new files may not be possible.

I have checked two different types of Adobe storage:
* Device Info & Storage (local space available) - 24.3GB of 119.1GB used. This will be my 128GB SD card in my phone.
* Account > Cloud Storage: 16.1GB of 20.0GB used. Looks like this is the 'nearing limit' storage.

My workflow has typically been camera > desktop > LR Collection > sync with LR Mobile. None of my LR Mobile collections are set to allow Offline Editing.
I have recently returned from holiday where I copied about 650 RAW (NEF) files taken on my camera to my phone and imported them into Lightroom. I started editing these while I was on holiday. When I returned, I synced the folder to LR desktop and kept editing. (I'm still going!)
I thought these original NEF files are still clogging up the 20GB Adobe storage? That would be about right size-wise. I don't know how I can tell - when I look at 'info' for any of my photos in LR Mobile, they all appear to be the size they were shot, ie 6000x4000 these days.
* I've now unsynced the recent Collection to 'test', though I realise that is probably not what I need to do! I have gained 600MB storage, but all the photos are still there in "All Photos". There are 12302 photos in All Photos.
* I cannot tell (or know) which photos need to be deleted (?) from my ohone to free up this space.
Sorry to be asking this same old question, but it's so unclear! Help please!

Many thanks in advance

Sashina
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Mobile Operating System: Android v3.1
Desktop Operating System: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): CC 2015-12

 

[Sashina]

Aha... I think this thread answers my question: syncing with classic and cloud storage
Very clunky, but it works... ... and more importantly, I think I understand! ;-)

 

[Jim Wilde]

Hi, sorry we missed your first post!

If I understand your story, it would seem that the issue is likely to be those 650 NEF files. The thing you need to be aware of, especially when trying to manage within a 20GB space limit, is that:

1. If you have images already in LR CC2015, or import new images into LR CC2015, and then start syncing any of those images, only Smart Previews of those images are uploaded to the cloud, and thus synced down to your mobile device(s).

2. If you import images into LR mobile (as you did), the full original file is always uploaded, not just a Smart Preview.

3. And the punchline....the Smart Previews from LR CC2015 do not count towards the 20GB limit, but any full original does.

So that likely explains your problem. Unsyncing a collection won't immediately fix the issue if you unsynced from LR CC2015, as the files are not deleted from the cloud as they are likely still in the All Synced Photographs collection in LR CC2015. You can fix the problem by either deleting those 650 NEFs from LRmobile (which will remove them from the All Synced Photographs collection in LR CC2015), or select them all in LR CC2015 and go to the ASP collection and remove them from that collection. If working from within LR CC2015, only use the "Remove from Collection" option, do not delete the images from the catalog! If they have been successfully synced into LR CC2015 (which downloads the full original) you can safely delete them via LRmobile.

Hope that helps.

 

[Sashina]

Thanks so much Jim!
I'm part way through seeing the results of following the workaround in that second post.
I deleted all the photos from the phone, then when I saw that the synced Collection in LR CC2015 was empty, dragged all the photos back from the catalogue into the collection. The smart previews (only) are starting to sync again with mobile/CC again now. Phew! I now need to weed out all the other locally-uploaded photos on my phone and repeat the process...
None of this is clear or easy! I just had a lightbulb moment, thank goodness.
Cheers!
Sashina

 

[Sashina]

One more thought... Since I seem to have many other full-size photos synced to the cloud, it might be best just to remove all synced photos and start again from my desktop... I think?

OR

Would it be better to turn of syncing from the desktop and see what is left on the phone?

I have 12,000 synced photos at the moment...

 

[Jim Wilde]

Removing 12000 sounds a bit extreme to me! Do you need to find and remove the remaining originals? What's your space usage looking like now?

 

[Sashina]

I had to go to bed before it had finished syncing but it's down to 2.4GB now. I don't need to clean up the rest, but I have a strong desire to tidy!

 

[Jim Wilde]

I'm trying to think of an easy way to identify those originals that have been synced. First thought:

If there are originals in the cloud, they can only have been uploaded from either your phone/tablet or LR Web (or the new LRCC desktop app), they can't have been uploaded from CC2015. In which case, they could be listed separately in the Folders Panel if you haven't changed the default preferences. Look below your normal hard drive(s) in the Folders Panel and you may see a "Drive" with the synced double-arrow icon and with a name indicating which of your devices the images came from (e.g. any pictures uploaded from my iPad would be under a "drive" listed as "Jim's iPad"). If you can find such a listing, under that "drive" would be an "Imported Photos" folder, which should allow you to identify those originals. Then you can deal with them in a few ways, such as selecting all and applying a unique keyword or colour label, then with them still selected go to All Synced Photographs and remove them from that collection (right-click menu). That will delete them from the cloud. Then you can filter for them and add them back to either a synced collection or to the ASP and it will then upload the Smart Previews.

 

[Sashina]

Thanks Jim.
Good plan. I should have done this before doing what I did, which was actually to start moving all the [photos uploaded from phone] to the main drive. Felt good doing it! I can also filter by camera - that will still weed out the potential bigger files.
I'm just glad I understand how it works!
BTW, worth noting that LR Android 3.1 has a much improved way of showing the status / file type on the device and in the cloud; it's very clear.
Cheers!
Sashina