# Want to sync existing Classic and Cloudy Libraries....best approach?



## mikebore (May 23, 2020)

I currently have all my photos in both Lightroom Cloudy and Classic libraries, but not syncing. I would like to get them syncing.  I would be very grateful for any comments and advice on what I think are the three possible approaches. I am prepared to research the detail implementation myself but am looking for guidance  about the best major option I should use…..if I any! I may yet decide to stay where I am.

The three major options ( I think) are:

*1.  Dump the current Cloudy Library and create new one by syncing from Classic.

2. Dump the current Classic **Library and create a new one by syncing from Cloudy.

3. Don't dump either:  just turn on sync.*

STARTING POINT
-1TB Photography Plan.
-Lightroom Cloudy with 79,000pics/600GB working well on two Macs and four iDevices.
-Lightroom Classic on both Macs with the catalog and masters on a portable Samsung T5 SSD which can be connected to either Mac. For many years this was my main personal working photo library. Sync is not turned on in Classic.
-When I started with Cloudy nearly two years ago I created the Cloudy library by manually exporting year based catalogs and importing them to Cloudy in turn to preserve the Classic structure in Cloudy, creating folders in Cloudy as I went.
-Since then Cloudy has been my main working library because it automatically collects all the photos my wife takes as well as mine in one place and syncs everything to all devices.
-I have kept Classic up to date with monthly manual exports of “original+ settings” from Cloudy and manually importing them to Classic. I have not really made any proper use of Classic, treating it as a kind of backup and thinking I would one day do what I am now asking about.
-The Classic Library has 76,000 photos. The discrepancy with Cloudy is due to duplicates in Cloudy caused by I believe by some initial problems with the auto import settings in Cloudy.

DESIRED END POINT
-Cloudy Library with 76,000 pics automatically syncing to all devices. No duplicates.
-Classic Library with same 76,000 syncing with Cloudy.
-No monthly manual export and imports
-Ability to use the printing and editing tools in Classic for all photos.
-Ability to do culling and rating on iPad, syncing through to Classic.

MORE ABOUT THE OPTIONS:

1. Dump the current Cloudy Library.  Assume I would have to clear all existing photos from the account for the fresh start. Then I would create year collections in Classic and turn on sync so these appear in Cloudy. This would have Cloudy using Smart Previews, for the existing pics, and originals for on going, since I expect Cloudy to be my main user tool.

2. Dump the current Classic Library (save it in a drawer).  I would create a new Classic library by turning on sync to populate it from the Cloudy. This would have the 3000 dupes in but there are tools to remove dupes in Classic but not for Cloudy. Hopefully deleting the dupes in Classic would propagate to Cloudy? Would all the Cloudy photos appear in Classic with any folder, album or collection structure?

3. Don’t dump either Library, just turn on sync in current Classic. Not sure what the result would be. Probably nothing initially as there are no collections in Classic. Assume I would need to put all 76000 into a whole lot of collections in Classic so that sync would occur? Would it create or eliminate  dupes?

Thanks very much for any comment.

PS This thread reminds me of the joke about a local being asked for directions by a tourist, replying  "If I wanted to go there I wouldn't have started from here".


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## Jim Wilde (May 23, 2020)

mikebore said:


> 1. Dump the current Cloudy Library.  Assume I would have to clear all existing photos from the account for the fresh start. Then I would create year collections in Classic and turn on sync so these appear in Cloudy. This would have Cloudy using Smart Previews, for the existing pics, and originals for on going, since I expect Cloudy to be my main user tool.



This is a good approach if you want to save space in the cloud, but has the disadvantage of losing any of the organisational work that you may have already done in Cloudy.



> 2. Dump the current Classic Library (save it in a drawer).  I would create a new Classic library by turning on sync to populate it from the Cloudy. This would have the 3000 dupes in but there are tools to remove dupes in Classic but not for Cloudy. *Hopefully deleting the dupes in Classic would propagate to Cloudy? Would all the Cloudy photos appear in Classic with any folder, album or collection structure?*



Probably my preferred approach if you intend to maintain Cloudy as the preferred main base. Yes, deleting the duplicates from Classic will also delete them from the cloud. Existing albums in Cloudy would sync and appear as collections in Classic, but any existing folders in Cloudy would not sync as Collection Sets in Classic, you would have to create these in Classic manually.



> 3. Don’t dump either Library, just turn on sync in current Classic. Not sure what the result would be. Probably nothing initially as there are no collections in Classic. Assume I would need to put all 76000 into a whole lot of collections in Classic so that sync would occur? Would it create or eliminate  dupes?



Definitely my least favoured method, as chaos could easily result. It's likely that some at least of the images in Cloudy would appear as Virtual Copies in Classic (maybe all of them, maybe none of them!), so that would throw out the number syncronicity between cloud and Classic. Even worse, the VCs would be the images that would be shown as synced in Classic, not the originals. It'll probably be a mess, so probably best not to risk it.


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## mikebore (May 23, 2020)

Thanks very much Jim.

I will forget about option 3 (dumping both).

Your favoured Option 2 (create new Classic from existing Cloudy) has the big advantage that it if I don't like the end result I can dump the new Classic and revert to my old unsync'd Classic, or try again. Is this correct? Is there any danger that it could mess up my existing Cloudy?  Some renaming of albums in Cloudy might make it easy to create Collection sets in Classic that match my folders in Cloudy.

With option 1 (new Cloudy from existing Classic), would I be able to recreate the Classic structure in the new Cloudy by turning on Collection sets one at a time and moving the newly sync'd albums into a folder in Cloudy before turning on the next Collection set, and so on.


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## Jim Wilde (May 23, 2020)

I can't think of any way that Option 2 could mess up the existing Cloudy, basically nothing is changing there, you'd just be creating a new Classic catalog from the contents of the cloud.

Re the last question, I assume you mean sync the collections in Collection Set A, then create Folder A in the cloud and put the associated Albums into it before moving on to Collection Set B? Yes, that's probably the tidiest way of matching your Collection Sets to Folders.


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## mikebore (May 23, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> I can't think of any way that Option 2 could mess up the existing Cloudy, basically nothing is changing there, you'd just be creating a new Classic catalog from the contents of the cloud.
> 
> Re the last question, I assume you mean sync the collections in Collection Set A, then create Folder A in the cloud and put the associated Albums into it before moving on to Collection Set B? Yes, that's probably the tidiest way of matching your Collection Sets to Folders.



Excellent! Thanks very much. Will go with Option 2 after a night or two sleep.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Excellent! Thanks very much. Will go with Option 2 after a night or two sleep.



Some next morning thoughts for which I would be very grateful for comment.

With Option 2 (new Classic library from existing Cloudy), when I turn on sync in the new Classic library it will download the originals from my cloud to create a set of 79000 local referenced masters. I understand that by default it puts them in a package called 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata', which appears as a separate disk in the list in Folders. Do these files go physically on the same disk as the new library?

Would this be 79,000 files in a single folder with no structure? I understand I can move files to create a structure and that Classic could create date based subfolders. This is like the Originals in Cloudy. One of the things I like about my current set up is that my Classic masters are organised by subject and date. (my file dates often don't correspond with the actual date due to scans, copies, photos from family etc). I like that my structure does not only exist in the proprietary library. I think I would lose this with option 2?

This thought is pushing me back towards Option 1 (new Cloudy library from existing Classic) where I would keep my Classic masters structure and could recreate the folders in Cloudy by progressively turning on collections as above. (This is similar to how I created my current Cloudy two years ago, except I did it then by exporting catalogs from Classic and importing to Cloudy).

Is there a simple way of clearing out Cloudy to start afresh if I go with Option 1?

Thanks you very much.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

A further thought on the above:

I can re-create my existing Cloudy folder and album structure as Collections and Sets in the new Classic, but the masters structure will not be the same. Would it be feasible to change the Collections sets into folders such that the structure is transferred to the masters?


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Some next morning thoughts for which I would be very grateful for comment.
> 
> With Option 2 (new Classic library from existing Cloudy), when I turn on sync in the new Classic library it will download the originals from my cloud to create a set of 79000 local referenced masters. I understand that by default it puts them in a package called 'Mobile Downloads.lrdata', which appears as a separate disk in the list in Folders. Do these files go physically on the same disk as the new library?
> 
> Would this be 79,000 files in a single folder with no structure? I understand I can move files to create a structure and that Classic could create date based subfolders. This is like the Originals in Cloudy. One of the things I like about my current set up is that my Classic masters are organised by subject and date. (my file dates often don't correspond with the actual date due to scans, copies, photos from family etc). I like that my structure does not only exist in the proprietary library. I think I would lose this with option 2?



Before turning on sync on the new Classic caatlog you would first go to the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab. There you can change the sync download location to whatever location you want (I suggest you first create a parent folder on the desired drive using the file system, then select that parent folder as the target for the downloads in the preferences). Additionally, you can select one of Lightroom's dated-folder structures so that when you turn on sync all the downloaded images will be neatly stored in folders/sub-folders by capture date, all under the one parent folder.



> Is there a simple way of clearing out Cloudy to start afresh if I go with Option 1?


Yes, go to the Lr Web app in your browser, click on your avatar top right, select "Account Info" and you'll see a big "Delete Lightroom Library" button.


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2020)

mikebore said:


> A further thought on the above:
> 
> I can re-create my existing Cloudy folder and album structure as Collections and Sets in the new Classic, but the* masters structure* will not be the same. Would it be feasible to change the Collections sets into folders such that the structure is transferred to the masters?


Do you mean the disk folder structure? Correct, it wouldn't be the same....but why would you want it to be the same? My Classic folder structure is date-based (as that's by far the simplest way to store them on import), my Collections/Collection Sets structure is organised by subject matter....and of course many images appear in more than one collection, so trying to keep folders and collections "the same" would become an exercise in futility.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

Thanks again. I realise my thinking about retaining an originals structure is old school and contrary to the way DAMs work. They can't be the same, but my 79,000 being only date based files feels like a significant step back for me because my photos are a  hotch-potch with many file dates not corresponding to the event dates. 

In the 20 odd years I have been involved in digital photography I have used Bridge, Lightroom Classic, Aperture, Photos and Lightoom Cloudy as my main tool. I feel that having some kind of structure to the masters has facilitated moving between these and would again if I had to start afresh. 

It may be time to let that go. I can't have it all ways, Something has to give!


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2020)

Cloudy doesn't store the images either in the cloud or on your local hard drive in anything but date-based folders, and you've presumably been coping well with the album organisation model for the past couple of years. If you stick with Cloudy, but re-introduce Classic back into the ecosystem, you'd just work the same way in Classic as you do in Cloudy. Get your Classic Collection Sets and Cloudy Folders into line, and just hide the Folders Panel. You need folders in Classic simply as a place to store the images, but all categorisation/organisation takes place within Lightroom using more efficient methods.

I understand that some users will always want to keep their carefully crafted folder structure, just in case they ever decide to leave Lightroom for some other DAM. Personally, I long ago decided that I would not continue with what I considered to be a less efficient organising system "just in case" I eventually decide to exit Lightroom for something better. If that day comes, I'll deal with in then.....especially as I have no idea today what that "something better" might be, and what would be needed for migration.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

Thanks again Jim.

As you say the carefully crafted originals structure is only important if one decides to move to something new. When that doesn't apply (as during the two years I have been on Cloudy) the originals structure is irrelevant and I haven't used it. However it still exists in my manually updated Classic as insurance.

I may be overstating the mismatch date factor so I am going to do option 2 (new Classic from existing Cloudy) and then take stock. It is easy to do and easy to revert from. I am just doing some album renaming in Cloudy to make creating Collection sets in Classic easier.

Thanks for all your help. I have learned a lot.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

So far so good but some small questions have arisen please:

1. My Cloudy albums have appeared in my new Classic as expected. They are all in the "From Lightroom" collection set, also as expected.  When I create new collection sets to organise my collections do they need to be within the "From Lightroom" collection set or not?

2. In Cloudy I have an album "ALL PHOTOS" which makes it very easy to have smart previews of all pics in my iDevices. That was a trick you told me about a  while back. But there doesn't seem much point in syncing it as a collection to Classic so I have turned off sync for that.

3. About 4000 of my photos have no date, so these appear at the top level in the new masters folder along with the date name folders. I guess there is no great harm in this as discussed above but it would be 'tidy' to create a folder "undated", but then they would lose their connection with the library, and would need reconnecting individually....or is there a trick? Do I just need to accept this?

Thanks very much.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

Relevant to my Q2 in last post I should have said that all my photos in Cloudy are in albums, so all should be sync'd to Classic. The 'ALL PHOTOS' album will not mop any outside albums.


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2020)

mikebore said:


> So far so good but some small questions have arisen please:
> 
> 1. My Cloudy albums have appeared in my new Classic as expected. They are all in the "From Lightroom" collection set, also as expected.  When I create new collection sets to organise my collections do they need to be within the "From Lightroom" collection set or not?
> 
> ...


1. No, you can move those collections out from the "From Lightroom" collection set to the new Collections Sets tha you create to mirror the Cloudy folders. Going forward, any new album that you create in Cloudy will always initially appear in Classic's "From Lightroom" collection set, but can be moved elsewhere if you wish.

3. Not quite following you....are you saying that the undated photos are not in any sub-folder, and are only "loose" in the Parent Folder? I'm surprised if that's the case, as usually in the absence of a valid capture date Lightroom defaults to the file modification date....so I would still have expected them to be placed into a dated sub-folder.
But if they are indeed actually in the parent folder, you could *uncheck* the option in the Library menu>Show Photos in Subfolders, which would change the photo count of the Parent Folder to be that of those undated photos, e.g about 4000. Then right-click on the Parent Folder and select "Create Folder inside "_parentfoldername_", give the new folder an easily identifiable name. That new folder will appear below the Parent Folder, then you can select the Parent Folder and that will populate the grid with those ~4000 images. Cmd+A to select them all, then drag from the centre of one of the selected images (not the border) and drop onto the newly created sub-folder. That will move all those images out from the Parent Folder and put them in the new sub-folder for your later attention.


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## Jim Wilde (May 24, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Relevant to my Q2 in last post I should have said that all my photos in Cloudy are in albums, so all should be sync'd to Classic. The 'ALL PHOTOS' album will not mop any outside albums.


If you unsync that album in Classic, it will be deleted from Cloudy.


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## mikebore (May 24, 2020)

Thanks for those clarifications.

About the originals with no date: what seems to be happening is that in the Lightroom interface they are being put in a modification date subfolder, but in Finder they appear as ordinary files at the top level in the Masters folder on the drive, alongside the capture date subfolders. In the spirit of not worrying about masters I am not going to do anything about this, but will try your suggestion if something changes.

It is early days in the download and sync process but at the moment it is difficult to make sense of the numbers in different places, but I won't worry about that until it has finished in a few days. eg the blue "syncing" number above my name plus "All Photographs" do not add up to 79000. And "All Photographs" is different from "All Sync'd Photographs".

The ALL PHOTOS album did indeed disappear from Cloudy but I resync'd it in Classic and it has reappeared in Cloudy. I don't think it affects the short term availability of the smart previews in Cloudy as I think when you delete that album the space they used changes to cached but the SPs stay.

Thanks again.


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## mikebore (May 25, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> If you unsync that album in Classic, it will be deleted from Cloudy.



Thinking more about this I am surprised, and find this non intuitive. Because it is a more general issue than this specific thread I have started a new thread about it. Hope this is OK


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## mikebore (May 25, 2020)

New thread is Question about sync'd collection in Classic and corresponding album in Cloudy.


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## mikebore (May 25, 2020)

Sorry to keep pestering with questions which arise with my new Classic library exercise.

1.  I am about 30 hours into downloading my 580GB in Adobe cloud to my new Classic Library and have downloaded 105GB. I have 350Mbps download speed which is testing at 380 at the moment, but Lightroom is not using it. What I notice is that if I stop the sync and quit Lightroom for a few minutes, when it restarts it uses up to 250Mbps for a few minutes then slows right down to under 1. This is consistent and repeatable.  It occurred to me that it might be Adobe policy to give fast sync for a few minutes, which will satisfy many people's most common usage, and then slow down the long heavy lifting so their servers are not bogged down.  If so, is there any way to defeat this!?

2. Can I start organising the collections into collection sets at this stage, or should I wait until it has finished downloading?

3. Is there an obvious reason why "All Photographs" currently at 13275, is greater than "All Synced Photographs" at 13136 ? they should be equal since everything in Classic is coming from the cloud. Maybe it will be the same at the end.

Thanks for all the help in this project!


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## Jim Wilde (May 25, 2020)

1. None that I can think of. Doesn't matter how fast your download speed is, you're constrained by how fast the Adobe (Amazon actually) servers and the interweb can get the data to your ISP.

2. In theory, you can start now, though I'd persoanlly wait until the dust has settled on that big download.

3. Videos? Classic doesn't sync videos, though it will download them from the cloud, but on arrival in Classic they are "unsynced"....so they're included in All Photographs, but not All Synced Photographs. One other thing to note....even though they technically aren't synced, they still retain knowledge of their source, so if you delete a video from Classic you'll find it will also be deleted from the cloud (if that was the source).


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## mikebore (May 25, 2020)

Thanks for quick reply. Videos is probably the explanation.


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## mikebore (May 26, 2020)

mikebore said:


> 1. I am about 30 hours into downloading my 580GB in Adobe cloud to my new Classic Library and have downloaded 105GB. I have 350Mbps download speed which is testing at 380 at the moment, but Lightroom is not using it. What I notice is that if I stop the sync and quit Lightroom for a few minutes, when it restarts it uses up to 250Mbps for a few minutes then slows right down to under 1. This is consistent and repeatable. It occurred to me that it might be Adobe policy to give fast sync for a few minutes, which will satisfy many people's most common usage, and then slow down the long heavy lifting so their servers are not bogged down. If so, is there any way to defeat this!?



Just to update this....from further observation over longer period I can see that it has bursts of high speed without restarting the app, and that the average download speed is extremely consistent, an exact straight line on a graph. Slope is 80GB per day, so my 580GB should take 7.25 days.


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## mikebore (May 31, 2020)

Sometime later today my big download should complete, and I can start using the new sync'd Classic.

Since I have already made one mistake (unsyncing All Photos collection) I have created a set of quick reference short rules from what you and others have told me. I would be very grateful if you could tell me if any of these are wrong. These are top level reminders only.

*1. Albums in Cloudy* are equivalent to Collections in Classic, and auto sync.
*2. Folders in Cloudy* are equivalent to Collection Sets in in Classic, and do not sync.
*3. Deleting a photo in Cloudy* leaves the photo in Classic but it becomes unsync’d.
*4. Deleting a photo in Classic* deletes the photo from Cloudy completely.
*5. Deleting an Album in Cloudy* leaves the Collection in Classic, but it becomes unsync’d
*6. Deleting or unsyncing a Collection in Classic* deletes the Album in Cloudy.
*7. Deleting Albums and Collections* does not delete the actual photos in them.
*8. Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic but are then treated as not sync’d.
*9. Edits, Ratings and Flags* sync between Cloudy and Classic both ways.
*10. Keywords* do not sync.
*11. Photos imported in Cloudy* have the full original uploaded to the Cloud and sync’d down to Classic, including a local original.
*12. Photos imported in Classic* are up loaded to the Cloud as editable smart previews, which sync to Cloudy.
*13. Smart Previews in Cloud* do not count towards Plan space.

Thanks


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## johnbeardy (May 31, 2020)

One can always add detail, but I'd just polish up a couple of rules:

8. *Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic and while they are not listed in All Synced Photos, they are included in synced collections and metadata syncs
12. ...in Classic and added to synced collections or directly to ASP are...


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## mikebore (May 23, 2020)

I currently have all my photos in both Lightroom Cloudy and Classic libraries, but not syncing. I would like to get them syncing.  I would be very grateful for any comments and advice on what I think are the three possible approaches. I am prepared to research the detail implementation myself but am looking for guidance  about the best major option I should use…..if I any! I may yet decide to stay where I am.

The three major options ( I think) are:

*1.  Dump the current Cloudy Library and create new one by syncing from Classic.

2. Dump the current Classic **Library and create a new one by syncing from Cloudy.

3. Don't dump either:  just turn on sync.*

STARTING POINT
-1TB Photography Plan.
-Lightroom Cloudy with 79,000pics/600GB working well on two Macs and four iDevices.
-Lightroom Classic on both Macs with the catalog and masters on a portable Samsung T5 SSD which can be connected to either Mac. For many years this was my main personal working photo library. Sync is not turned on in Classic.
-When I started with Cloudy nearly two years ago I created the Cloudy library by manually exporting year based catalogs and importing them to Cloudy in turn to preserve the Classic structure in Cloudy, creating folders in Cloudy as I went.
-Since then Cloudy has been my main working library because it automatically collects all the photos my wife takes as well as mine in one place and syncs everything to all devices.
-I have kept Classic up to date with monthly manual exports of “original+ settings” from Cloudy and manually importing them to Classic. I have not really made any proper use of Classic, treating it as a kind of backup and thinking I would one day do what I am now asking about.
-The Classic Library has 76,000 photos. The discrepancy with Cloudy is due to duplicates in Cloudy caused by I believe by some initial problems with the auto import settings in Cloudy.

DESIRED END POINT
-Cloudy Library with 76,000 pics automatically syncing to all devices. No duplicates.
-Classic Library with same 76,000 syncing with Cloudy.
-No monthly manual export and imports
-Ability to use the printing and editing tools in Classic for all photos.
-Ability to do culling and rating on iPad, syncing through to Classic.

MORE ABOUT THE OPTIONS:

1. Dump the current Cloudy Library.  Assume I would have to clear all existing photos from the account for the fresh start. Then I would create year collections in Classic and turn on sync so these appear in Cloudy. This would have Cloudy using Smart Previews, for the existing pics, and originals for on going, since I expect Cloudy to be my main user tool.

2. Dump the current Classic Library (save it in a drawer).  I would create a new Classic library by turning on sync to populate it from the Cloudy. This would have the 3000 dupes in but there are tools to remove dupes in Classic but not for Cloudy. Hopefully deleting the dupes in Classic would propagate to Cloudy? Would all the Cloudy photos appear in Classic with any folder, album or collection structure?

3. Don’t dump either Library, just turn on sync in current Classic. Not sure what the result would be. Probably nothing initially as there are no collections in Classic. Assume I would need to put all 76000 into a whole lot of collections in Classic so that sync would occur? Would it create or eliminate  dupes?

Thanks very much for any comment.

PS This thread reminds me of the joke about a local being asked for directions by a tourist, replying  "If I wanted to go there I wouldn't have started from here".


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## mikebore (May 31, 2020)

johnbeardy said:


> One can always add detail, but I'd just polish up a couple of rules:
> 
> 8. *Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic and while they are not listed in All Synced Photos, they are included in synced collections and metadata syncs
> 12. ...in Classic and added to synced collections or directly to ASP are...



Thanks very much John.
So does that mean that videos added in Classic would appear in Cloudy? My list doesn't have item for videos added in Classic but I had thought they would not sync since they don't appear in ASP, but if they are included in sync'd collections sounds like they would sync to Cloudy?
Would it be true to say:

*8. Videos added in either Classic or Cloudy* are sync'd both ways like photos, but do not appear in ASP in Classic.


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## mikebore (May 31, 2020)

After reading these two threads I find I am very confused about how video syncing between Cloudy and Classic works.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/phot...eo-from-desktop-lightroom-to-mobile-lightroomhttps://feedback.photoshop.com/phot...-mobile-allow-videos-to-be-shared-like-photos
The general impression is that videos sync from Cloudy to Classic but not vice versa, so my modified item 8 is wrong.


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## johnbeardy (May 31, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Thanks very much John.
> So does that mean that videos added in Classic would appear in Cloudy? My list doesn't have item for videos added in Classic but I had thought they would not sync since they don't appear in ASP, but if they are included in sync'd collections sounds like they would sync to Cloudy?
> Would it be true to say:
> 
> *8. Videos added in either Classic or Cloudy* are sync'd both ways like photos, but do not appear in ASP in Classic.



No, I was trying to split your "*Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic" away from "but are then treated as not sync’d." The second part is not really right. They are treated as synced, just not listed in Classic's ASP, and metadata is synced both ways just like any other synced file.


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## mikebore (May 31, 2020)

johnbeardy said:


> No, I was trying to split your "*Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic" away from "but are then treated as not sync’d." The second part is not really right. They are treated as synced, just not listed in Classic's ASP, and metadata is synced both ways just like any other synced file.



OK thanks.  I will use your original suggestion:  "*8. Videos in Cloudy* sync across to Classic and while they are not listed in All Synced Photos, they are included in synced collections and metadata syncs"..... and experiment a bit to understand. what actually happens in practice.


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## mikebore (Jun 2, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Sometime later today my big download should complete, and I can start using the new sync'd Classic.



Bit of a self inflicted delay here. My new Classic had nearly finished downloading, and I was browsing the Classic Catalog Prefs settings. I realised I had not turned on "Automatically write changes to XMP" which I have always had checked in Classic in the past.

I didn't realise that the XMPs then have to be uploaded to Cloud from Classic. Now expecting that to complete later today. They also have to be sync'd down in Cloudy but don't seem to be changing anything.

I realise writing to XMP is controversial and I chose a bad moment to do it!

Classic is showing five pics with sync errors. It has downloaded them. Any suggestions for dealing with sync errors?

Apart from that all is as expected, except that Classic has 79251 pics and Cloudy has 79249 on all devices and the web. Sync Activity in Classic prefs has  been showing 2 downloading for a long time with no change to the total. Any suggestions about that? Maybe that 2 will resolve and the total drop from 79251 to 79249 to match Cloudy.

Thanks very much.


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## mikebore (Jun 2, 2020)

mikebore said:


> I didn't realise that the XMPs then have to be uploaded to Cloud from Classic. Now expecting that to complete later today. They also have to be sync'd down in Cloudy but don't seem to be changing anything.



The download of XMP files to Cloudy is only happening on devices  where I have the ALL PHOTOS album set to store locally. XMPs only apply to RAW and the numbers tie with the number of RAW files in the library


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 2, 2020)

One of the quirks of Classic>Cloudy syncing is that when the original is in the cloud (as in your case), Classic is aware of that fact. Thus if a synced (original) file is physically changed in Classic (such as when updating XMP) the changed file has then to be re-synced to the cloud to replace the original (i.e. in this situation, Classic will sync originals, not just smart previews). For proprietary raw files that's not such a big deal as only the small XMP sidecar is changed. But for all other files types, writing to XMP will invariably mean a new upload of the complete file. That can get to be a royal PITA if you have a lot of large Tiffs and Photo Merge DNGs. And even more of an issue is that some of those Tiffs and Pano/HDR DNGs can easily exceed 200mb in size, and Classic cannot upload any file larger than 200mb in size and so they get "stuck" trying to upload (that might actually explain your 2 stuck uploads). Because of that I've actually dedicated a colour label for >200mb files, to easily warn me not to do an XMP write for such files.
Although I've never been an afficionado of the auto-write to XMP option (it's always disabled) I do occasionally update existing XMP where I want to keep Classic and Cloud metadata fully in sync, so I've learnt the hard way to be really careful about doing that with large files.


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## mikebore (Jun 2, 2020)

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation. 

I was about to reply that I don't have any files over 200MB, but then looked at the five sync error pics, and they are all TIFFs over 200MB. I don't know if I have other TIFFs over 200MB or if these are the only ones, but might this explain why they are showing as sync errors? I can't be sure but fairly certain that these errors only appeared after I turned on write to XMP.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 2, 2020)

mikebore said:


> I can't be sure but fairly certain that these errors only appeared after I turned on write to XMP.


That's logical....everything was fine until you turned that option back on, as that updated those files which in turn causes a re-sync (from Classic to the cloud), but because the files are >200mb the sync fails. Nothing you can really do now, other than remove them from Classic (but not deleting them from disk!) and re-import them to cloudy (but you'd have to turn off Auto-Write to XMP in order to stop the issue immediately recurring), or just remove them from ASP in Classic then re-sync them from there as smart previews. Personally, I'd rethink having that Auto-write XMP option always enabled.....

Welcome to the frustrating world of trying to do what Adobe suggests we shouldn't!


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## mikebore (Jun 2, 2020)

Thanks again Jim.
I will have a think. There is no good reason for these five to be so large. They can be flattened now. Or I may turn off XMP.

Only mystery now is the 2 downloading. If they succeed in downloading the total in Classic will go up from 79251 to 79253, but Cloudy only has 79249.  It would be better if the resolution is that Classic has already wrongly counted them, so that the Classic number goes down by 2 to 79249, same as Cloudy.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Good morning! All syncing has finished and just one problem to solve.

The 2 downloading are still stuck. Clicking on the blue entries  for these in Sync Status in Prefs shows exactly what the problem is:

_"Sync has not finished for file "image010.jpg". Open Lightroom on Lesley iPhone 8"_

My wife no longer has the iPhone 8 so the suggested action is not possible. The two photos were not taken on the iPhone 8, they were taken years earlier.

The two photos exist full size in Cloudy with no apparent problem (ie fully sync'd and backed up) and also in All Syn'd Photos in Classic . So far I have done the following:

I exported them from Cloudy and renamed them. 
Deleted them from Cloudy and Classic. 
Reimported the renamed ones to Cloudy and they have sync'd across to Classic.

So all is well except Sync Status still shows the original ones as "downloading".

I am pretty certain these two are the reason why Classic shows 79240 and Cloudy shows 79238 pictures.

The only thing I can think to do is "Rebuild the Sync Data" from the prefs window. Is this another 10 days syncing and downloading? or is it quicker? Would it solve it?

Can you suggest anything else?

Thanks very much.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 3, 2020)

If you've effectively duplicated them, and synced the duplicates, why not just delete the two stuck originals? Have you checked that they're not already in the Deleted items album in Cloudy? It's quite common for a stuck syncing situation to occur after a file has been deleted in the cloud but which hadn't finished downloading. In which case deleting them completely from the Deleted album usually clears up the problem.

Rebuilding the Sync Data file is doable, and no it doesn't mean another 10 days re-syncing....it just resets the file containing data about current syncing, i.e. those 2 images, and restarts the sync process for those images.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Thanks again.
I have already deleted the two stuck originals from Classic and Cloudy, but I hadn't deleted them from the recently Deleted album in Cloudy, which I have now done,  but the two miscreants are still showing as downloading. I can't see a recently deleted album in Classic.

Any other thoughts before I try Rebuilding Sync data?


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Reading your comments about Rebuilding I decided to do it, but it has not solved the problem.

I attach the screenshot I took before Rebuilding, and notice that the Assets Path/Link was a web address, not a file location. I have just been (since rebuilding)  to the web page and the two problem files are not there (only their renamed replacements).





The sync status window after rebuilding is the second screenshot, no location data.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

I have lost control of this project....close to abandoning.

After the failed sync rebuilding I generated a diagnostic report in case I was able to see any clues, which I wasn't. 

As something else to try without much hope I deleted the replacement photos for the two non-downloading ones. It didn't solve it so I reimported them.

As something else to check I clicked Synchronise Folder for the top level, not expecting to find anything but as a check. Something I have done from time to time in Classic in past.

To my surprise it found 12 to import so I clicked OK.

When it had finished importing the 12,  the total number of photos in Classic had reduced by 1167 from 79,240 to 78,073. There was no indication in the post synchronise window that it was going to delete 1167 photos and they are not in the trash. 

Thinking I didn't want this to propagate to Cloudy I went to my name plate in Classic to pause sync, and found that sync was already paused. Does creating a Diagnostic Report turn off syncing?  

Cloudy is still showing the full house 79,238 pictures. 

Don't know where I am now! While some the things I have done may not have had much relevance to the problem I was trying to solve, they were not 'risky' things that should cause a problem.

Does anything I have said make sense?

I have a Lightroom created catalog backup from 2 days ago. But I am wary of doing something that will mess up my Cloudy which at this point is all in tact.

Grateful for any advice, but also conscious there is only so much you can do in a forum dialogue.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 3, 2020)

I really don't know what to suggest. Obviously, I wish you hadn't done that folder synchronisation, but that can't be undone. I suspect that the original dialog (which told you there were 10 images to import....but where did they come from?) also told you that it would remove 1167 "missing images". But why would they be missing? I wonder if they are images that you originally synced from Classic, so there would only have been smart previews in the cloud when you created the new catalog.....in that situation, the smart preview IS downloaded, but the original will be flagged as missing. You could check that by selected All Photos in cloudy and use the Filter to select "Sync Status"....does it give you a number for "Synced from Lightroom Classic"? In a perfect world it would tell you that there are 1167....

Let's just focus on that for now, can I suggest you stop "fixing" as there's a risk of making matters worse.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Indeed the Folder sync was a mistake, but given that everything in Classic had just been downloaded fresh onto a new Catalog nothing should have happened.



Jim Wilde said:


> I wonder if they are images that you originally synced from Classic, so there would only have been smart previews in the cloud when you created the new catalog.....



The pre history of this exercise is that two years ago I started with an established but unsync'd Classic and tried to create a Cloudy Library from it. This  went wrong so I trashed the Classic which was messed up by the failed attempt and used a Classic library from a backup and never turned on sync. 
I created my current Cloudy by exporting catalogs from the restored Classic and importing them to Cloudy. 
For two years I have been using this Cloudy independently of Classic without noticing anything left over from the original Classic. Cloudy currently says all 79000 are synd and backed up with originals in the Cloud, none are smart previews.
However when I started this project two weeks ago with a new Classic Lib and I first turned on sync I got a message that Adobe Cloud was currently syncing with "two yrs old trashed lib" ...did I want to use this new one instead?. I didnt think anything of it, but could that cause what you are suggesting. Could 1137 smart previews exist in the cloud without my Cloudy lib seeing them during these two years?

To try what you suggest I assume I will have to turn on sync....isnt there a risk that the 1137 will be deleted from Cloudy?

Can I make any use of the two day old backup?

Thanks for all the help, promise not to try anything else even if it seems safe.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Snippet of info....I have just realised I don't need to turn on sync in Classic to check what the Sync Status in Cloudy is. The "Sync'd from Lightroom Classic" number two pics. Which are both ones I resized to bring them under the 200MB limit.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 3, 2020)

OK, scratch that theory then. In which case I have absolutely no idea why those images were removed by the Folder synchronisation....and I'm not even sure of how to proceed. The nuclear option is to start over with another fresh Classic catalog (though that's probably the cleanest and least risky thing to do), but before that you could try using the backup catalog I suppose. Something's just not right, I wish I knew why those images were removed. Trouble is, you're in largely unchartered territory here, and there's no Adobe support likely to be had either.

If it was me, I'd go with a fresh catalog again, but before doing that I'd make sure there's nothing in the cloudy deleted items album, and I'd make sure that all the cloudy apps are seeing the same totals....and I wouldn't do anything while waiting for the sync to complete.

But you've really got to want this method of working, it can get out of control real quick and can be a real time sink when things go wrong. I probably know as much as most people about how it all works, but I got badly burned last year and it took a couple of weeks to recover.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.


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## mikebore (Jun 3, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> But you've really got to want this method of working, it can get out of control real quick and can be a real time sink when things go wrong. I probably know as much as most people about how it all works, but I got badly burned last year and it took a couple of weeks to recover.
> Sorry I can't be more helpful.



I think you have summarised my current feeling perfectly in that paragraph. It has been a very valuable exercise in which I have learned a lot thanks mainly to you. I think it was Johan who said in a spin off thread from this that when Classic and Cloudy are syncing Classic is the boss. This is not really what I need as Cloudy is where I will do most of my day to day photo management, and there are too many pitfalls for the unwary if they are syncing.

(A small positive PS, if I hadn't done that Folder sync, the underlying problem that caused 1137 photos to disappear would been a ticking time bomb likely to go off at some less convenient point in the future, so with hindsight maybe it was as well I did it!) 

Thanks again for all the massive help.


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## mikebore (Jun 13, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> If it was me, I'd go with a fresh catalog again, but before doing that I'd make sure there's nothing in the cloudy deleted items album, and I'd make sure that all the cloudy apps are seeing the same totals....and I wouldn't do anything while waiting for the sync to complete.



After a few days recovery I felt I wanted to have one more go, so did as you suggest above.

After another week of syncing I have 79,259 pics downloaded to Classic from the Cloud and all totals line up on all devices, Classic and Cloudy. Hurrah! I have not done a folder synchronisation or turned on XMP.

Prefs>Sync Activity says nothing is happening anymore as expected, so I took some baby steps in using Classic and Cloudy together. I created a new sync'd collection in Classic and it appeared quite quickly in Cloudy. Then I created a new album in Cloudy, but it has not appeared in Classic. Moreover, when I started looking for it in the "From Lightroom" Collection set in Classic, I saw that most of the collections were empty.  As far as I can see all the Cloudy Albums are showing as collections but most have 0 as the number of pics.  Although Sync Activity shows no activity, Classic is uploading steadily according to Little Snitch network monitor, and it is also using a lot of CPU.  Do I just need to wait it out or does something sound wrong to you? 

Thanks again for all the help.

PS the two stuck downloading files (reconnect old iPhone....)  from first attempt reappeared as I feared, but I was able to delete them on the web interface.


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## mikebore (Jun 14, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Prefs>Sync Activity says nothing is happening anymore as expected, so I took some baby steps in using Classic and Cloudy together. I created a new sync'd collection in Classic and it appeared quite quickly in Cloudy. Then I created a new album in Cloudy, but it has not appeared in Classic. Moreover, when I started looking for it in the "From Lightroom" Collection set in Classic, I saw that most of the collections were empty.  As far as I can see all the Cloudy Albums are showing as collections but most have 0 as the number of pics.  Although Sync Activity shows no activity, Classic is uploading steadily according to Little Snitch network monitor, and it is also using a lot of CPU.  Do I just need to wait it out or does something sound wrong to you?



Cancel that. All has come good overnight.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 14, 2020)

Good.....I meant to post last night to the effect of "give it a bit more time"! It can take a while to get itself fully synced after doing a large "catalog restore" from cloud to Classic.


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## mikebore (Jun 14, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> Good.....I meant to post last night to the effect of "give it a bit more time"! It can take a while to get itself fully synced after doing a large "catalog restore" from cloud to Classic.



I have  tendency not to give things enough time to sort them selves out!

Thanks again for all the help and encouragement.


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## mikebore (Jun 14, 2020)

A couple of follow up questions I meant to ask please:

1. This new Classic Catalog and its masters are on an external Samsung T5. Is there any reason why I should not use it attached to my MacBook, and switch between iMac and MacBook? I do this regularly with my old non-syncing Classic without apparent problem. Catalog settings obviously travel with Catalog on the T5 but different Lightroom app settings in Classic on the MacBook might cause a problem perhaps?

2. I am intrigued that you had a problem syncing Classic and Cloudy which took two weeks to sort out. Was the cause of this something you could share and hence help me to avoid?

Thanks


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## mikebore (May 23, 2020)

I currently have all my photos in both Lightroom Cloudy and Classic libraries, but not syncing. I would like to get them syncing.  I would be very grateful for any comments and advice on what I think are the three possible approaches. I am prepared to research the detail implementation myself but am looking for guidance  about the best major option I should use…..if I any! I may yet decide to stay where I am.

The three major options ( I think) are:

*1.  Dump the current Cloudy Library and create new one by syncing from Classic.

2. Dump the current Classic **Library and create a new one by syncing from Cloudy.

3. Don't dump either:  just turn on sync.*

STARTING POINT
-1TB Photography Plan.
-Lightroom Cloudy with 79,000pics/600GB working well on two Macs and four iDevices.
-Lightroom Classic on both Macs with the catalog and masters on a portable Samsung T5 SSD which can be connected to either Mac. For many years this was my main personal working photo library. Sync is not turned on in Classic.
-When I started with Cloudy nearly two years ago I created the Cloudy library by manually exporting year based catalogs and importing them to Cloudy in turn to preserve the Classic structure in Cloudy, creating folders in Cloudy as I went.
-Since then Cloudy has been my main working library because it automatically collects all the photos my wife takes as well as mine in one place and syncs everything to all devices.
-I have kept Classic up to date with monthly manual exports of “original+ settings” from Cloudy and manually importing them to Classic. I have not really made any proper use of Classic, treating it as a kind of backup and thinking I would one day do what I am now asking about.
-The Classic Library has 76,000 photos. The discrepancy with Cloudy is due to duplicates in Cloudy caused by I believe by some initial problems with the auto import settings in Cloudy.

DESIRED END POINT
-Cloudy Library with 76,000 pics automatically syncing to all devices. No duplicates.
-Classic Library with same 76,000 syncing with Cloudy.
-No monthly manual export and imports
-Ability to use the printing and editing tools in Classic for all photos.
-Ability to do culling and rating on iPad, syncing through to Classic.

MORE ABOUT THE OPTIONS:

1. Dump the current Cloudy Library.  Assume I would have to clear all existing photos from the account for the fresh start. Then I would create year collections in Classic and turn on sync so these appear in Cloudy. This would have Cloudy using Smart Previews, for the existing pics, and originals for on going, since I expect Cloudy to be my main user tool.

2. Dump the current Classic Library (save it in a drawer).  I would create a new Classic library by turning on sync to populate it from the Cloudy. This would have the 3000 dupes in but there are tools to remove dupes in Classic but not for Cloudy. Hopefully deleting the dupes in Classic would propagate to Cloudy? Would all the Cloudy photos appear in Classic with any folder, album or collection structure?

3. Don’t dump either Library, just turn on sync in current Classic. Not sure what the result would be. Probably nothing initially as there are no collections in Classic. Assume I would need to put all 76000 into a whole lot of collections in Classic so that sync would occur? Would it create or eliminate  dupes?

Thanks very much for any comment.

PS This thread reminds me of the joke about a local being asked for directions by a tourist, replying  "If I wanted to go there I wouldn't have started from here".


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 14, 2020)

1. It should work, emphasis on "should". When you try it for the frst time the shstem will either detect that it's the same catalog, in which case syncing should continue to work normally, or it will think it's a different catalog, in which case you would get a warning messsage (do you want to switch sysncing to this "different" catalog) but with the option to cancel.

2. It's a bit of a comedy of errors, but here goes:

At the time I had a couple of collections containing only those photos which weren't in any other collection/album (i.e. "to be organised"), about 11k images in all, two collections in a single collection set. Following the expansion of the Lightroom search function, which included the ability to search All Photos for "Not in any album", those collections and collection set became redundant....so I deleted the Collection Set in Classic. Normally, that would produce a warning message with the option to "leave the photos in All Synced Photographs", which is checked by default. Now it's possible that I unchecked it, though I doubt it, but several days after doing the deletion I discovered that the 11k images had been deleted from the cloud. 

But no big deal, as the cloud trash can had recently been introduced, so all 11k images were there.....just restore them and job done, right? Unfortunately not.....the restore worked correctly, so cloudy was back to normal, but sadly there's yet another disconnect between Classic and the cloud in this situation. If you add images to the cloud which already exist in Classic but are not currently synced from Classic (as was the case here), then when the cloud makes them available to Classic for downloading Classic's duplicates detection kicks in and realises that the 11k images are duplicates.....in this situation it doesn't know if the user wants/intends that the downloading duplicates are meant to replace the original non-synced files, so it doesn't. Instead it creates VCs, but that leads to the situation that the VCs are the synced files, the original masters are still unsynced (plus of course the photo counts between Classic and the cloud differs by 11k).

OK, so easy enough to make the VCs the masters (so the masters are then synced) and then remove the unsynced VCs, right? Again, not so simple, as some users here recently discovered you cannot select a bunch of images and use the "Set copy as master" command and have that action done to all the selected images....only the most selected single image gets switched. Even worse, assuming I was prepared to do that 11k times even the "Auto Advance" function isn't available when using the "set copy as master' command. I quickly decided I need an alternative route.

If I had realised that the VC issue was going to occur, I guess I could have removed those 11k images from Classic before restoring them from the deleted items album in Lightroom, but I didn't. So the next thought was to rebuild my Classic catalog completely from the cloud (as you have just done), though that also isn't without its challenges.

Because I'm pretty anal when it comes to keeping Classic and cloud in sync (yes, even keywords and location data are the same in each library) I wanted to keep things that way.....the problem is that doing the catalog restore doesn't bring down the keywords and location data (the Adobe Downloader does, but that doesn't retain the collection/album structure). 

Here's where my normal "anal" workflow helped, as I routinely import initially mainly into Classic and I process the images to completion. I can, and do sync them initially as SPs and so can work on them from any app....however, I ensure that keywords and location data are only done in Classic. When the images are "done" I (now) convert any raw files to DNG, then I select all and Cmd+S to write all the metadata to XMP. Then I remove the images from Classic (they're in a "holding" folder outside my normal date-based folder structure), and import them to Cloudy. Cloudy reads the XMP and applies it, so my keywords are then available (though flattened) as well as the location data, and of course all other metadata and edits. These then sync down into Classic, and are automatically stored in the normal date-based folder structure.....but because of storing that XMP into the DNGs before they are imported to the cloud, they are still in the file when it downloads into Classic....and Classic reads that metadata like any normal import, so the keywords and location data are available after the import.

Now, if all my images in the cloud were all either DNG, Jpeg, Tiff, etc., the catalog restore would have been a breeze. But they are not yet (I switched to DNG conversion back in 2017 when I realised the potential of having them in the cloud for situations such as this), all my raw files prior to that are still proprietary....so the catalog restore would lose the originally added keywords and location data. However, the original Classic library DOES have the XMP sidecars, complete with the up-to-date saved metadata, for all the proprietary raw files, and this opens up possibilities. So the restore went like this:

a) In old Classic catalog, make sure current XMP was updated.
b) Create new Classic catalog, change Lightroom Sync prefs to download to a separate drive but using the same date-based scheme as used in the old Classic catalog.
c) Turn on sync and wait for the download to complete. At this point the DNGs, Jpegs, Tiffs etc. would have the correct keywords (including hierarchy) and location data, but the proprietary raw files would not.
d) When it has, and all syncing has finished, use the "Update Folder Location" to switch the new Classic catalog back to the original files, then for the raw files do Metadata>Read Metadata from files....which restores the keywords and location data.
e) When the dust has settled, delete the library from the new drive.

I ran into some unexpected post-recovery issues, relating to re-syncing of files from Classic to cloud, i.e. for reasons I still haven't pinned down (but likely related to the fact that no previews are built automatically by the recovery process) Classic will do that whenever scrolling the library and an image without a preview appears on screen. That's a pretty standard function, but in this particular  situation Classic appears to think the metadata has changed when a preview is built and so re-syncs the file.....and when the file in the cloud is an original, Classic DOES sync the original (not a smart preview) if it thinks it has changed. This is where having those DNGs is a disadvantage.....change metadata for a proprietary raw and only the contents of the XMP sidecars are synced, but change metadata for a DNG/Tiff (and when Classic thinks the file has been changed on disk, such as by a CMD+S) the whole file gets re-synced. In the early days after the recovery I would routinely find hundreds of files syncing (very slowly) to the cloud.

I don't know if you'll be affected by that last issue, but something to be aware of if you start to notice some unexpected syncing happening between Classic and the cloud.


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## mikebore (Jun 14, 2020)

Wow! Thanks for taking the trouble to write all that down. I am also somewhat anal about these things, so prone to doing things that may have unexpected consequences when trying to nail down the last .01%.  I will file your saga away in case I get in a similar situation. I guess the take away for me is not to make any assumptions about what will happen between Cloudy and Classic, and stick to doing things I am confident about (my 13 basic rules from earlier in the thread). The other take away is backups and recovery options.

As I said at the start one of my objectives in doing this was eliminate duplicates in Classic, hence Cloudy. That is next on the agenda.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 14, 2020)

One thing I forgot to mention, which may be pertinent to you, is that my method of rebuilding my Classic catalog - in order to retain all my original Classic-generated metadata including hierarchical keywords and all location data (and also face recognition data) - will only work (easily) if you were using a standard date-based folder structure which you can then replicate using the options on the Lightroom Sync tab. If you have your own proprietary named-folder scheme you cannot automatically relink the new Classic catalog back to the original Classic folders.


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## mikebore (Jun 14, 2020)

Thanks Jim, I took on board your earlier advice about letting go of personal structures for masters and am using the standard date based folder structure.


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## mikebore (Jun 28, 2020)

This is all going very well, but I have a question about working practice using them together. 

I understand that if I delete a sync'd image in Cloudy will simply unsync it in Classic not delete it. So my standard practice, as you suggested, is to flag as rejected in Cloudy and then delete all the rejected ones in Classic.

Because Cloudy is set to auto import our iPhone Camera Rolls, quite a lot of junk gets into Cloudy, and therefore up to the Adobe Cloud.

Currently I have been opening Classic and letting the Classic sync complete, then deleting in Classic as above.

My question is: Can I delete the junk in Cloudy before before Classic has been opened, without Classic ever seeing them?   Or does Classic still see them because they will be in the Cloud in recently deleted for example.

Thanks


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 28, 2020)

mikebore said:


> Because Cloudy is set to auto import our iPhone Camera Rolls, quite a lot of junk gets into Cloudy, and therefore up to the Adobe Cloud.


So why don't you turn off that settings, and use the built-in camera in Lightroom Mobile? Depending on the iPhone model, you can shoot in DNG if you use the built-in camera app.



mikebore said:


> My question is: Can I delete the junk in Cloudy before before Classic has been opened, without Classic ever seeing them? Or does Classic still see them because they will be in the Cloud in recently deleted for example.


Deleted photos do not sync to Classic, so yes this will work.


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## mikebore (Jun 28, 2020)

Thanks very much Johan.

About using the Lightroom camera on the iPhones instead of the Apple one. If this was just me I would probably do this, and aim to use the Apple cam for the junk, (screenshots, note taking etc) and the Lightroom cam for photos that might become keepers. But my wife is something of a technophobe would never get used to this.  I could and might do it to number of non keepers to just hers. The Lightroom camera widget makes it nearly as accessible as the Apple one.


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