Struggling with large 169GB Mobile Downloads.lrdata file after moving from CC to classic

[dkarkar]

Lightroom Version Number

11.4.1

Operating System

1. macOS 12 Monterey

I had previously used Lightroom CC (and still have an active subscription for it). I moved over to using Lightroom Classic a few months back. Everything worked out (albeit, a mess. I have a large 250gb unstructured folder of jpeg/raws on my external that I can't figure out what to do with).

Now, I have a 169GB "Mobile Downloads.lrdata" file sitting along with my catalogs. I don't know what to do with this file. Is it safe to delete? Lightroom Classic says everything is synced, but this file will not go away. Lightroom CC says everything is synced too. My mobile phone does NOT upload anything to the cloud (if that would even be a reason for this problem).

Can someone help tell me what this huge file is, and if it is safe to delete?

As a bonus, how do I fix my unstructured 250gb "Lightroom" folder that was created when moving from CC to Classic. Even if I could get dated folders (2022-01-05) or whatever, that would be amazing. Right now, it's a list of ~5800 photos in a single folder.

 

[johnbeardy]

No, don't delete it.

It's probably Lightroom Classic's default download folder for originals which came down from Adobe's cloud, in other words the files you previously imported to Cloudy Lightroom. That seems to be confirmed by your third screenshot and the Location for Synced Images.

Now, in your first screenshot I see it's dated in May, but I also see you've been using the catalogue called Lightroom Catalog-v11.lrcat.

So first can we have a screenshot showing the Folders panel. I want to see if Mobile Downloads.lrdata shows up as a drive, and what's in it. I suspect we will see that file and subfolders of photos.

if you don't want the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file, I'd suggest first changing the setting for Location for Synced Images. In my own case, I have pointed this to the drive/folder where I import photos normally, so mobile photos arrive in the same folder as those from my main camera. Secondly, in LrC you can move subfolders from the Mobile Downloads.lrdata "drive" to elsewhere on your system. But first let's see that Folders panel .

 

[dkarkar]

I'm not quite tracking what you're saying, but I'll provide the info and maybe you can explain if you see an issue.

So the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file lives in my `/Users/{username}/Pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata` folder. This folder is also where my Lightroom classic catalog files live. This is my local machine's SSD.

While the massive 250gb dump of my old Lightroom Cloud pics is on my external at `/Volumes/Darshan K E/Lightroom`. This volume is my external HDD (which is not connected 99% of the time).

if you don't want the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file, I'd suggest first changing the setting for Location for Synced Images. In my own case, I have pointed this to the drive/folder where I import photos normally, so mobile photos arrive in the same folder as those from my main camera. Secondly, in LrC you can move subfolders from the Mobile Downloads.lrdata "drive" to elsewhere on your system. But first let's see that Folders panel .

If I move my synced image folder to where I import images, that would be my local machines SSD. If I move that to my SSD, won't it transfer the contents of my external HDD's "Lightroom" folder into my SSD? That would create space issues. I don't want all of those photos on my local machine wherever I go.

What I've been doing ever since moving to Lightroom Classic is importing my photos onto my SSD at /Pictures/Fuji/YYYY-MM-DD. And then importing those into Lightroom Classic... although now that think about this I have no idea how to move those /Fuji folders onto my HDD. Eventually that Fuji folder will become too large to maintain on my local machine.

This is a mess. Moving from Cloud to Classic has been a just an all around mess.

 

[johnbeardy]

When you sync a LrC catalogue, it automatically downloads everything from Adobe's cloud. This all goes into Mobile Downloads.lrdata by default, or into another location if specified.

You also mention "the massive 250gb dump of my old Lightroom Cloud pics". So how exactly did this get onto your system? What did you do? It sounds like you used Adobe Downloader, a "lifeboat" to escape Adobe's cloud with all your files.

This implies you have the cloud files twice.

So please post a screenshot showing Lightroom's Folders panel.

 

[dkarkar]

So a few months back when I switched from Cloud to Classic, I think I created a new catalog and turned on the Classic's sync feature. This is where it decided it wanted to download all of the cloud pictures onto my machine. So initially it had created this 250gb dump on my SSD. I let the sync complete 100% -- meaning I could view every picture on Classic without any internet.

I realized I did not want 250gb dump of pics on my local machine, so I used Lightroom Classic's option under Preferences -> Lightroom Sync -> Location -> Specify location for Lightroom's Synced images and set that to my external HDD (the E drive where that 250gb folder now sits).

At this time I had no knowledge of this Mobile Downloads.lrdata. I probably did not even notice it at the time.

It sounds like you used Adobe Downloader, a "lifeboat" to escape Adobe's cloud with all your files.

I have no clue what Adobe Downloader is, but I didn't download anything extra. If I remember correctly, all I did was download LrC -> new catalog (don't remember exact details) -> start syncing -> lightroom begins to download 250gb of files to my machine -> finish syncing 250gb -> move 250gb folder (through LrC) to my external.

I'm hoping that helps provide some context.

As a side note, this 250gb dump is an absolute mess. There is no folder structure inside. It's literally 6000 files sitting at the top level. I don't know why Lightroom did create a proper dated folder structure.

 

[clee01l]

As a side note, this 250gb dump is an absolute mess. There is no folder structure inside. It's literally 6000 files sitting at the top level. I don't know why Lightroom did create a proper dated folder structure.

The Lightroom Classic app has no knowledge about any drive or folder outside of the folder containing the catalog. For this reason It places a “Mobile Downloads.lrdata folder inside the Lightroom folder containing the catalog file to receive any sync’d images from the Adobe Cloud.
In Preferences you can designate another folder to instruct Lightroom Classic to create date named folders inside a folder that you designate.

I agree the Mobile Downloads.lrdata folder is a weak choice but it is based upon the information that it has at the time of the Cloud sync.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[dkarkar]

For some reason my image from my last past did not attach. Here it is showing where I moved that 250gb folder from (Lightroom catalog folder on local to external drive)

Edit: here's a link because for some reason I can't upload images now. https://imgur.com/a/sYVnU7H