Problem sync'ing between LRCC and LRClassic

[rarecat]

Lightroom Version

11.3.1

Operating System

1. macOS 10.15 Catalina

I have 121 photos in LRCC that I want to move to a specific folder in LR Classic. There are only those 121 photos in my LRCC. When I click on sync in LR Classic, it started moving files from a totally unrelated folder in my LR Catalog into the folder I created specifically for this. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Nothing, probably. You cannot selectively sync from Lightroom cloud to Lightroom Classic (only vice versa). Everything that’s in the cloud will be downloaded by Lightroom Classic when you sync its catalog.

 

[rarecat]

Maybe I'm not being clear. I am trying to move photos from LR Classic on my Macbook Air (which I use for travel) onto my Mac desktop. I only have 20 GB cloud storage. I started with moving photos in one folder on my Macbook into LRCC, then I tried sync'ing to LR Classic on my Mac. I think I clicked the sync in LR Classic on my Mac yesterday and it somehow moved files from another file in the LR Classic catalog into the file I created. I had to move everything back. This morning I realized I probably should have clicked the sync in LR CC instead, but it sync'd with the Macbook and created a set of duplicate files in the Macbook. How do I get it to move the photos to LR Classic on my desktop iMac?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

You are indeed not clear, and still aren’t, but it sounds like you are doing this totally wrong. If you want to move photos from Lightroom Classic on the the MacBook Air to Lightroom Classic on the Mac desktop, then you should not use syncing at all, because you can only sync one single Lightroom Classic catalog. If you try to sync a second catalog, then you disconnect the first catalog and make Lightroom Classic download all the images in the cloud as new photos into that second catalog. If you then sync the first catalog again, then you‘ll repeat this and so you create duplicate downloads.

Instead of using sync, you should use ‘Import from Another Catalog’ and import the MBA catalog into the Mac desktop catalog. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/merging-catalogs-overview/

 

[Victoria Bampton]

How did you get on with Johan's suggestion @rarecat? I have to agree sync is probably making a relatively simple task a lot more complicated, although I can see why you were trying to do it that way.