Clear Everything From CC (Sync'd) And Stop Syncing - How?

[nogoodnamesleft]

Lightroom Version Number

14.4

Operating System

1. macOS 15 Sequoia

(Sorry, a long detailed question)
LrC is my main Catalog where I do all editing, it's the "master". But I have for some time setup Collections and sync'd stuff to Lr Mobile (iPhone & iPad) just so I can look at my pics when away from Laptop/LrC).

LrC syncing still seems buggy but in the past it has been a lot worse and I've just discovered that despite never editing on mobiles, no changes made on mobiles my develop history for vast numbers of images now show as "From Lr mobile" in the develop history. Those I've checked some and they don't seem to show any actual changes but it's random and large numbers.

I have a fair number of Collections set to sync with CC Cloud. If I stop a collection from syncing then seems the images remain sync'd just not the collection ie my impression everything is sync'd it's just the structure from Collections that is sync'd with a sunc'd Collection.

I've thus decided I no longer want any Lightroom syncing, it's too dangerous.

Question: How do I safely clear all my images from CC Cloud and mobile devices and stop any further syncing in future?

I'm a bit scared that deleting images on mobiles or anywhere will sync the delete and I'll clear the image (or its edits) from my LrC Master.

My Catalog is 21000 images and sync'd is 17000 (there are a fair number of videos in my main catalog so I assume the difference is those but not a concern).

Sorry for long explanation. Do ask for any missed details or clarification - just 'cos I understand what I'm asking doesn't mean I've properly explained it!

Thanks
Ian

 

[clee01l]

I've thus decided I no longer want any Lightroom syncing, it's too dangerous.

Question: How do I safely clear all my images from CC Cloud and mobile devices and stop any further syncing in future?

I would not say that it is dangerous at all from a Classic perspective. Stopping Classic from syncing is simple enough.

1. In the module picker panel Click on the cloud icon to then click on the {Pause Syncing} button
   
2. This will stop all syncing until you click to resume.
3. Next, select ALL images in the "All synced Photographs" special collection in the Catalog panel.
4. Right click on any of the selected images in the grid view to open a context menu
5. 
6. From that context menu choose "Remove from All Synced Photographs"
7. In the context menu of Each syncing collection in the collection panel uncheck the menu item "Sync with Lightroom"
   
8. This takes care of Classic and as long as Syncing is paused nothing will sync down from the Adobe Cloud or up from Lightroom
9. If you want to delete all photos from the Adobe Cloud, you need to open Lightroom (Desktop, Mobile, or Web) and select ALL of the images and Delete all from the Adobe Cloud. This will not prevent future photos from the Mobile devices from being added to the Adobe Cloud. But because of the action you took in Step one Classic will not be affected. Also when you delete from the Adobe Cloud the images will be sent to a Deleted Album for 60 days in case deleting was a mistake After 60 days they will be deleted permanently/

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

Many thanks.

One question about this: After having done that, including using Lr Mobile to delete all sync'd photos (from CC Cloud), if I ever re-enable syncing in LrC will this just send everything back into the CC cloud or will it sync delete and clear those images from my LrC Master (ie deleted in the cloud reflects that back in the LrC Master.

I suppose that's my main worry is if LrC syncing gets re-enabled (not hard to do with the top right LrC cloud icon) and suddenly images might start disappearing from my LrC Master?

Also, there seems to be a Preference setting (Mac) under the Sync settings "Delete All Synced Data" (to worried about losing masters to press, or just resetting everything so it starts re-syncing all 17000+ images.

Adobe don't seem to provide much help on this and without wanting to be critical, LrC Syncing does seem like a "Dog's breakfast" in terms of what format files are and are not sync'ed depending on source ..."

Sorry for further questiona.

Thanks
Ian

 

[clee01l]

I ever re-enable syncing in LrC will this just send everything back into the CC cloud or will it sync delete and clear those images from my LrC Master (ie deleted in the cloud reflects that back in the LrC Master.

You can only sync one catalog at a time with the Adobe Cloud. As Long as you have one master catalog then resuming Sync in LrC will cause two things to happen.

1. Any photos already in the Adobe Cloud will sync down to your master catalog full size.
2. Any Collections designated "Sync with Lightroom" will sync up as Smart Preview DNGs into equivalent Albums of the same name and will not count against your plan limits. If you still have an "All Synced Photographs" Special collection. Any images there will also sync up to the Adobe Cloud unassigned to albums.

 

[Califdan]

If you want your images to remain in your current collections, you need to Unsync those individual collections BEFORE removing them from the All Synced Photogographs special collection. If you remove them from "all synced photographs" first, that action also removes them from all the synced collections they happen to also be in and if you totally clear the "all synced photographs" special collection that would completely clear all the images from all your synced collections.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

You can only sync one catalog at a time with the Adobe Cloud. As Long as you have one master catalog then resuming Sync in LrC will cause two things to happen.

Which gives me an idea: If I create another LrC catalog eg called eg "CC Sync" and set that to sync to Lc CC Cloud then Master could no longer sync under any circumstances.

So yet another aspect question: If I create a new empty catalog in LrC how do I set that catalog to be the single syncing catalog rather than my "master" (which is just the one catalog I keep everything in, my main repository).

Sorry for yet more questions and everybody's help very appreciated.

Ian

 

[Califdan]

You are over thinking this.

As I understand your current goal is to not sync anything but at some future time you may want to sync some things.

If you follow the instructions so far, you will not be syncing anything but will still have stuff in Lr/Cloud. If you want to clear LR/Cloud as well, open LR/Desktop (Cloud app, not Lr/Classic) and delete everything in the "All Photogrpahs" section. For good measure you can also delete everything from the "deleted" album and remove all your albums.

On the LrC side, (with LrC closed) delete the "<catalog-name> sync.lrdata" file which will clear all pending sync actvites. If you un-pause sync at this point nothuing will sync either way as there is nothing in the cloud to sync to LrC and nothing in the "All synced Photographs" special colleciton to sync to the cloud.

However at any future time of your chossing if you desire to have some images sync up to the cloud, unpause synce, create a collection in LrC, set it to sync with Lightroom and place any images you want into that collection. They will sync to the cloud. If, in the in the mean time you had added any images to any of the cloud apps, when you un-pause sync those images will sync down to LrC.

 

[clee01l]

I agree with Dan, you are overthinking this. Remember the KISS principle. If you follow the instructions that I set out in my earlier post you will accomplish everything that you stated in your initial post.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

Many thanks all.

Following your "what to do" worked well.

Just bit of weirdness/finger trouble at end is all cleared fine, clear synced to iPhone & iPad fine ... then 20 mins later noticed couple of hundred images had reappeared. Turned out one mobile device had "Alto-import from Apple Photos" enabled so what was reappearing in CC Could was the Apple Photos from that particular device. So nothing to do with cleardown and easily cleared out and corrected.

Again., many thanks for you time ad help.

Ian