The June 2026 release adds the long-awaited ability to sync Keywords between Lightroom Classic and the Cloud Ecosystem. But there are a few things to be aware of before you start….
What does this mean?
Keywords can now sync with the Lightroom cloud ecosystem. This means you can add keywords on your mobile devices and have them sync back to Lightroom Classic, and any keywords entered in Lightroom Classic are searchable in the cloud ecosystem apps (e.g., mobile/web).
There are some potential issues to note: keywords in the cloud are a flat tag list, whereas Lightroom Classic can use hierarchical keywords. Here are the basics of what happens:
• If you add a root keyword in Classic, it syncs up as a flat keyword.
• If you add a flat keyword in the cloud, it syncs down to Classic as a root keyword. (It doesn’t obey the Put New Keywords Inside this Keyword command, just in case you’re wondering.)
• If you add a hierarchical keyword in Classic, it appears as a series of flat keywords in the cloud apps, but it also (behind the scenes) syncs up the hierarchy information, so it stays in the right place in the hierarchy.
• If you type a hierarchy in the cloud with arrows (e.g., NATURE > Plants > Flowers > Bluebells), it’ll sync down to Classic as the full hierarchy. When it syncs back up to the cloud again later, it appears as flat keywords in the cloud apps, but it retains the hierarchy information, so they stay in the right place in the hierarchy.
• If you delete a keyword in the cloud, it gets removed in Classic. If it was a parent keyword, any child keywords become root keywords in Classic.
• If you delete a keyword in Classic, it gets removed from the cloud.
Beyond that, it gets a little more messy. Or a lot more messy. For example, if you’ve already added NATURE > Plants > Flowers > Bluebells to a photo, and then you use a cloud app to add another keyword that already exists under the same parent (such as Daffodils), just typing Daffodills will put it in the right place in the hierarchy. But that only works if Classic has already touched the keywords and synced up that part of the hierarchy. You have no way of knowing that’s already happened, so we’d suggest avoiding those scenarios and typing the full hierarchy, as it can be unpredictable.
What we would suggest:
• If you’re primarily a cloud user, stick to flat keywords everywhere.
• If you’re primarily a Classic user but you want to do most of your keywording on a cloud app, stick to flat keywords everywhere.
• If you’re primarily a Classic user but you do most of your keywording in Classic, you can use hierarchical keywords and just let them sync to the cloud so you can search them. If, on an odd occasion, you need to add keywords in the cloud, either type the entire hierarchy with arrows, or type the flat keyword and then merge it into the right place in the hierarchy on your return to Classic.
As with any new sync, there is potential to create a mess, so there are a few things you need to know before you blindly agree to sync keywords:
• Back up your Classic catalog before you enable keyword sync.
• If a catalog has never been synced with the cloud, it’s easy… keyword sync is enabled automatically for new cloud sync, just like the other metadata.
• However, if a catalog has previously been synced with the cloud, the keywords won’t sync unless Preferences > Lightroom Sync tab > Sync keywords is checked. Even then, nothing happens automatically. Keywords only sync when there’s a metadata change that would make the photo sync anyway. If you want to force-sync keywords for other photos, select all the photos you want to sync (perhaps a folder or a year at a time), go to the Keywording panel, and click the Sync Keywords to Cloud button. This button runs a one-off sync to update the keywords, and then disappears.
How do I do it?
Before you rush into it, let’s talk about what happens on first sync. The keywords merge. That can create a big mess, especially if you’ve done some keywording in Classic and some in the cloud over the years. Or perhaps, like us, you migrated your catalog to the cloud some years ago and have since deleted a load of parent keywords there, which will all reappear the moment you merge the Classic catalog back in. There is potential for mess here.
There are a few options:
• If you want to retain all your Classic keywords without introducing mess from the cloud, you could delete all the cloud keywords and let it finish syncing before you enable Classic keyword sync.
• If you want to retain all of your Cloud keywords without introducing a hierarchy from Classic, you could delete all of the Classic keywords before you enable Classic keyword sync.
• You could just bite the bullet and let them merge. That’s what we did, and although we were initially horrified by the mess it made of the Classic hierarchy as it created a stack of new root keywords, it didn’t take that long to clean up in the end.
This is a significant change with potential for bugs, so feel free to wait for feedback from others before taking the plunge. And let us know how you get on!
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
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For extensive information on Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of this book includes the first year’s cloud-based Premium Membership, giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the cloud-based Lightroom apps if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
I am moving from LR5 to LR/LRc. Per the Migrating From Desktop Photo Apps section of your Lightroom-Edit On The Go book, I understand that my first step will be to move from LR5 to the current version of LRc. So, would it be better for me to make changes to my keywords in LR5 or in LRc?
What is the easiest way to remove the hierarchy from my keywords? Say I have “CATS>Boots” and “CATS>Buddy”; I see how to edit the names to “Cats-Boots” and “Cats-Buddy” but I don’t see a way to move these two keywords to the top level–is this possible?
Perhaps you could expand a bit on what you mean by “it didn’t take that long to clean up in the end” (after you discuss the “mess it made of the Classic hierarchy” :-)? I do have a moderately large number of keywords and may just have to accept the mess in order to migrate in a timely fashion.
Thanks for your help!
Just in case anyone else has the same questions, here are the steps I took after switching from Lightroom 5 to Lightroom Classic v14.1 (oldest that will run on my old Xeon-based PC). Caution: I have NOT completed the migration to Lightroom so use at your own risk! Of course, you’ll want to create a backup of your catalog before starting this task.
Note: When I started this work, I was thinking I’d try to flatten all my keywords. After learning more about this feature, I decided to leave most of the hierarchy in place. I’m still glad that I went through this because I think the changes I made will make the migration to Lightroom go more smoothly. And who knows, maybe a future version of Lightroom will support keyword hierarchies?
1. Create a spreadsheet of your current keywords
a. Metadata > Export Keywords > Include Keyword Tag Options (creates a .csv file)
b. Import into Excel
c. View as Table
2. Look for problems that need to be fixed
a. 11 (of my 125) keywords had Include On Export set to N
b. 5 (of my 125) keywords had blank include On Export
3. Decide how to handle problems
a. Some appear to be duplicates of folder or collection names: delete these (don’t need both)
a. Others appear to be keywords I want:
Open Library. Go to the keyword list. Search for the keyword.
Right click and Edit Keyword Tag. Check “Include on Export” and if desired, “Export Containing
Keywords” and “Export Synonyms”.
NB: I checked all three to match majority of keywords.
b. These all appear to be unused. I *guess* these were added at one point and later deleted? [I’ve been using Lightroom since ~2010 so changes do creep in!] I ignored these.
4. Flatten Keyword Hierarchy as desired
For Each keyword that has a parent:
a. If want to make it a root keyword:
i. Right click it in the Keyword List panel & “Edit Keyword Tag…”
ii. Rename if desired
iii. [Save] changes
iv. Manually drag nested child keywords out of their parent categories and drop them into the
top-level main list. [1]
5. Add support for the “People” view (if you’re moving from an old version of LR that didn’t have this functionality).
a. For each keyword that is a person:
i. Right click it in the Keyword List panel & “Edit Keyword Tag…”
ii. Check the “Person” box
iii. [Save] changes
–?OR? this may be equivalent
i. Right click it in the Keyword List panel & “Convert Keyword To Person Keywords”
6. Verify changes [optional]
a. Metadata > Export Keywords > Include Keyword Tag Options (creates a .csv file)
b. Diff this csv with the one created in step 1 to verify you haven’t missed anything
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks for sharing your steps. LR5 to current versions of LRC is a huge jump so I can imagine that was quite a job to clean up ready for migration to the Lightroom Cloud! It must feel lovely and tidy now!
As I’m trying to completely move over from Classic to the newer Lightroom this is a great step in the right direction. I have thousands of keywords in Classic which I want to transfer to Lightroom, and now it is possible.
However, in Classic I have several parent keywords which I want to get rid of when moving to a flat structure in Lightroom. It seems though that Lightroom doesn’t have a dedicated keyword manager? So would you suggest that I remove the parent keywords in Classic before syncing everything to Lightroom?
I should note that I have already synced my catalog a few years ago.
Yes, Lightroom doesn’t have a dedicated keyword manager. Are you planning on going entirely flat, because Lightroom will be your primary tool, or are you wanting to keep Classic as your primary but with a simpler hierarchy? Either way, yes, I’d be inclined to sort them out in Classic and making sure it’s fully synced before running the migration tool.
I’d like to delete all my keywords from the cloud but have way too many (465GB) and a long scrolling list of keyword that are kind of defunct. I fully managed from Classic and sync collections to Cloud for mobile use. I think I’ll just delete the lightroom library from the web interface then resync collections I need (which is a lot less then the 465GB as lots were just current projects over the years). I understand the danger and this is not for everyone but I thought I’d share in case others were in my situation or have feedback for me.
I should mention, I’m super excited about this feature and looking forward to see what it does with the two different Faces features from Cloud and Classic.
Sounds reasonable. I guess the only caution would be if a proportion of the synced photos are originals in the cloud, where you would then need to upload the originals again (rather than just Smart Previews). Also, any videos you may have held in the cloud won’t be synced up from Classic.
Not the first feature on my wishlist but still very helpful (and encouraging). I use both platforms heavily, and any improvements to syncing are a Good Thing. Keyword sync also enables workarounds for other features—for instance, I can add image information that is unavailable in LR to a LrC keyword.
“If you want to retain all your Classic keywords without introducing mess from the cloud, you could delete all the cloud keywords and let it finish syncing before you enable Classic keyword sync.”
How do you delete all the cloud keywords?
Good question. In Lightroom Desktop, go to All Photos, select them by Ctrl+A (PC) / Cmd+A (Mac), and click the Keywords icon (the one that looks like a luggage tag in the bottom right of the screen).
Wait for the ‘Applied to Some’ which lists all the keywords you have in the cloud. Click each one to delete it. You end up with a clean (empty) list in the cloud.