Traveling drive for originals

[mot123]

Lightroom Version Number

LR v5.5

Operating System

1. macOS 12 Monterey

I use Lightroom (the Cloud version not Classic). I want to change the drive that LR saves the originals to from the static drive attached to my Mac to a traveling WD 5TB drive. I don’t want to take the existing originals with me, but merely save the new originals of photos which I take whilst traveling to the traveling drive. Then, when I return, I redefine the static drive as the repository and the new originals are saved to it. This used to work. However a few months ago there seems to have been a change in LR. It attempts to save all originals to the traveling drive. Then it makes an almighty mess of everything because it is trying to sync all the old photos again, without having originals. It took weeks to unpick the mess I made last time. Now I try it again and it wants to do the same. My question: how do I redefine the originals folder without having any of the existing originals saved to it?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

For Cloudy, there is no easy way to define local storage. It’s just not how it thinks. Cloudy knows one main repository - the cloud. Local storage is purely that, a local cache. So the question is what you’re trying to accomplish. Is this a laptop that you use in different locations? What are your local storage preferences?

 

[mot123]

Yes. A laptop. You define the local storage via LR Preferences / Local Storage. That is easy and hasn’t changed. The issue is that LR used to only search for the incrementally added photos when it starts up. Now it looks for all of the photos, including the old, in the catalog and then tries to sync them. If you interrupt the process it messes everything up. What I am looking for is what I wrote: how to define a traveling drive that will store the new originals locally to it, but not attempt to sync the entire catalog of photos every time it starts up.

 

[mot123]

Yes. A laptop. You define the local storage via LR Preferences / Local Storage. That is easy and hasn’t changed. The issue is that LR used to only search for the incrementally added photos when it starts up. Now it looks for all of the photos, including the old, in the catalog and then tries to sync them. If you interrupt the process it messes everything up. What I am looking for is what I wrote: how to define a traveling drive that will store the new originals locally to it, but not attempt to sync the entire catalog of photos every time it starts up.

There is a box to check “store copy of all originals”. Unchecked that but it made no difference

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yeah. It’s not that smart. It doesn’t understand travelling. The best you can do is set the new drive as local storage while the old drive is offline/unavailable so it can’t transfer existing local cache, with Store originals locally disabled. In that scenario, theoretically it should only download originals as it needs them, but there not a lot of control over that. It’s a scenario that isn’t considered in usual workflow, and probably should be, so put in a feature request (link in the menu above)

 

[mot123]

I tried what you suggest. It runs through and then says “unable to move 132k photos”. It gives the option to “Forget volume”. If you click that it says “All your photos will be lost”. What is the real effect of clicking Forget Volume? last time I clicked it it meant that all my 130k pics online didn’t have an original and started to Resync.

 

[clee01l]

I let Lightroom sync from the cloud to my home computer. All of the images will end up in the same common home local storage.

When I travel I use only Lightroom on my iPadPro. Images that I import to the iPad Pro, from the camera card, I also make a separate file copy to an external disk drive from the camer card to have a backup in the field. Everything still syncs to the cloud and Lightroom keeps what I need locally in cache.

I also sync to Lightroom Classic on my home computer but that is not relevant to your issue.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mot123]

I let Lightroom sync from the cloud to my home computer. All of the images will end up in the same common home local storage.

When I travel I use only Lightroom on my iPadPro. Images that I import to the iPad Pro, from the camera card, I also make a separate file copy to an external disk drive from the camer card to have a backup in the field. Everything still syncs to the cloud and Lightroom keeps what I need locally in cache.

I also sync to Lightroom Classic on my home computer but that is not relevant to your issue.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks for the relevant response. So you’re saying that you shouldn’t use LR to store the originals on a drive whilst traveling. This occurs when using a Mac. Rather you load the images to LR on an iPad. The search for originals at LR startup is this avoided. You make separate, physical backups via the file system to an offline drive. Does LR sync the cloud original to your common home local storage when you return home? Second question: do you sync your new photos to your iPad directly from your camera and not remove the SD drive to copy it over?

 

[clee01l]

Someone else will need to address whether Lightroom (cloudy) will sync originals down to the home computer storage location. Even though I have Lightroom on my Mac. I use Lightroom Classic as my primary image repository.
The local storage for Lightroom originals is not tied in any way to the original in the cloud. So if they don’t sync, you can just as easily copy them from the copy you make on the backup you make during travel.

My travel workflow uses a card reader to read the camera card. I found that more effective.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jim Wilde]

Does LR sync the cloud original to your common home local storage when you return home?

If you have "Store a copy of all originals" checked on your laptop, when you return home and launch Lr then yes it should download the new originals created while travelling to the specified location.
If that option is unchecked, then no it won't....a local copy of the original would only be downloaded and temporarily stored locally when/if you start to edit an image (or try to zoom to 1:1). However, it will download Smart Previews if you have the "Store a copy of all smart previews locally..." checked.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Ah, yes, I forgot it would try to move the existing downloads. I haven't tested exactly what happens in that scenario and I bet Adobe hasn't either.

I like Clee's idea. As Jim says, you'd need to uncheck that store originals checkbox while you're traveling, otherwise it'll try to download all of the existing originals onto your travel drive too.