# LR (cloud) Synching Keywords



## rjwilner (Dec 21, 2021)

I have discovered that some images in my 'cloud' storage have keywords assigned that are not checked in LR Classic. They are all 'containing' keywords.

Am I correct in assuming that synching an image to the cloud is considered an 'export' process by LR? And as a result...
  - If I didn't uncheck the 'Export Containing Keywords' option when defining a new keyword, any/all such 'containing' keywords would go along for the ride when synched?

Thanks for any feedback!


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## Y.K (Dec 21, 2021)

Keywords do not sync between LrC and Lr. 

But if you happen to migrate a LrC catalog to the Cloud - via the Lr (cloud) desktop app - the LrC keywords are copied to the Cloud. This is a one time transfer and no keyword hierarchy is preserved. So only the keywords that are explicitly checked transfer to the Cloud.


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

Y.K said:


> Keywords do not sync between LrC and Lr.
> 
> But if you happen to migrate a LrC catalog to the Cloud - via the Lr (cloud) desktop app - the LrC keywords are copied to the Cloud. This is a one time transfer and no keyword hierarchy is preserved. So only the keywords that are explicitly checked transfer to the Cloud.


Now I'm totally confused because...

1) There are keywords assigned to this group of images in the cloud that I _*definitely *_did not add in the cloud after their arrival there. In fact, there are more keywords attached to those images in the cloud than there are in LrC.  And those 'extra' keywords are all 'containing' keywords in LrC...that are not checked in LrC, but somehow came over to the cloud.

2) I definitely did not migrate an LrC catalog to the cloud. TBH, I'm not entirely sure at this point how I did send this group to the cloud. I *think* I selected the LrC folder where they reside, and initiated the sync from that folder. But instead of the graphic sync indicator appearing next to the folder, it appears in the upper right corner of each image 'tile' in that folder.

To be sure, the sync process is not one I would claim to have any expertise at all. For the most part, I've used it almost exclusively to sync images captured in LR Mobile on the iPhone to LrC.  But because I have been developing an interest in using the Adobe Portfolio app, I sent this small group of images to the cloud as an early step to finding the best approach to getting 'portfolio' images up to the Porfolio app. I did that several months back, but have had other priorities in the interim, and was only restarting that investigation in the last couple days.


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## Y.K (Dec 22, 2021)

Any photos that have been added through Lr mobile on your phone and have been synced down to LrC, will have this sync indicator on their thumbnail. They will also appear in the All synced photographs special collection. If they were put in an Album, while in Lr (cloud), this album will appear, as a synced collection, under the “From Lightroom” collection set in LrC. 

I’m not sure about how the keywords you describe got there. Could you select a specific photo in LrC and sent a screenshot of the keywording panel (select there “Keywords & containing keywords” under Keywords Tags) Also send a screenshot of the Keyword List panel , showing those particular keywords in their hierarchy. Lastly send a screenshot of these keywords, as you see them in the Lr (cloud) app.


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## Jan Roelof (Dec 22, 2021)

Clipped from: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based-discussions/lightroom-ecosystem-keywords-don-t-sync-from-mobile-to-classic/td-p/9454702
Not really, Jao....it's never been possible to sync keywords between Lightroom (5, CC2015, or Classic) and Lightroom mobile (now including LRCC). The ability to sync Titles and Captions was added sometime during the CC2015 cycle, but never keywords (or Location data).
However , it is currently possible (though this may be a bug or loophole) to effect a *one-way, one-time transfer* of any existing keywords and Location data in an image from Classic to the mobile ecosystem apps. If you write metadata to XMP in Classic (either automatically or via the Ctrl/Cmd+S keyboard shortcut), *before *you enable sync on the image in Classic, you should find that any of the cloud-based apps will show that data. But as I said, it's a one-time deal.....subsequent changes to keywords or location data made in Classic will not sync to the other apps, and changes made in the cloud-based apps will only sync to the other cloud-based apps but not to Classic. Because of that lack on ongoing syncing between Classic and the cloud, this "feature" may not be very useful.


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 22, 2021)

rjwilner said:


> 1) There are keywords assigned to this group of images in the cloud that I _*definitely *_did not add in the cloud after their arrival there. In fact, there are more keywords attached to those images in the cloud than there are in LrC.  And those 'extra' keywords are all 'containing' keywords in LrC...that are not checked in LrC, but somehow came over to the cloud.



@Jan Roelof has explained how it is possible for keywords applied in LrC to be transferred on first sync of an image from LrC to the cloud. To expand upon that quoted post, I should have also added that a further pre-requisite for that one-time transfer is that there must not already be a smart preview associated with the image in the LrC catalog (if there is, LrC copies that SP instead of generating a new one for the sync, and that existing SP may have been created before the LrC keywords were applied, thus they would not be available in the SP when it is uploaded). But when that one-time transfer does occur, both directly assigned keywords as well as all containing keywords in the hierarchy are transferred (because they are included in the XMP metadata), however the hierarchy is flattened to produce a flat keyword list in the cloud.

 It is also entirely possible that keywords that were assigned in LrC, at the time that the metadata was saved to XMP, may have been removed from the image (and those changes not saved to XMP) before the image was then synced to the cloud, i.e. current keyword data in LrC may not be the same as the keyword data held in the file's XMP, and it's the latter which is transferred to the cloud on first sync.


> 2) I definitely did not migrate an LrC catalog to the cloud. TBH, I'm not entirely sure at this point how I did send this group to the cloud. I *think* I selected the LrC folder where they reside, and initiated the sync from that folder. But instead of the graphic sync indicator appearing next to the folder, it appears in the upper right corner of each image 'tile' in that folder.


No, folders in LrC cannot be synced even though the images they contain may be synced. Much more likely is that the images synced from LrC were in a collection, as collections CAN be individually synced (all images in that collection would then also be synced). The only other way images can be synced from LrC to the cloud is if they are directly assigned to the "All Synced Photographs" special collection which appears in the Catalog Panel.


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## Jan Roelof (Dec 22, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> @Jan Roelof  has explained ...


Well, *you *did - I merely copy-pasted your excellent explanation


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> No, folders in LrC cannot be synced even though the images they contain may be synced. Much more likely is that the images synced from LrC were in a collection, as collections CAN be individually synced (all images in that collection would then also be synced). The only other way images can be synced from LrC to the cloud is if they are directly assigned to the "All Synced Photographs" special collection which appears in the Catalog Panel.



I think this explains how this group of images got to the cloud.  After reading this, I went looking in the LrC Collections panel, and sure enough there is a collection that contains the same group of images that have been in question. And it's not a smart collection, so I must have manually dragged them from their storage folder into the collection. I don't recall doing that, but given several months have passed since it was done, that doesn't surprise me. And presumably, I did so for precisely the reason you discuss above. 

Screen caps of keywords in LrC and Lr to come next.


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

Attached are screencaps of the keywords for the same image in both LrC and Lr. As a couple examples...
- In the LrC list on the left, '_WEBSITE_CATEGORIES' is not checked, yet it does appear in the list for the cloud version of the same image. 
- 'Months' is not checked in LrC, yet it too appears in the cloud list.

The list of keywords available in the cloud version had to come across 'automagically' at some point. I have been guessing that transpired at the time they were synched, but certainly don't have the expertise to say that definitively.

But as mentioned previously, none of the keywords appearing in the list for the cloud version were added manually. Because this was an experimental idea, I wouldn't have been ambitious enough to do so at the time. And even if I had, I wouldn't have added what I would see as 'containing' keywords.


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 22, 2021)

Keywords can either be directly assigned to an image (shown by the "√"), or can be "inherited" from parent keywords (shown by the "-") when using a keyword hierarchy. Both types of keyword assignment are included when saving to XMP, so it's no surprise that all those "extra" keywords appear in Lightroom. The major difference is that Lightroom doesn't support the keyword hierarchy function, so all the "inherited" hierarchy is flattened into a single list of keywords, with no indication if they were directly or indirectly assigned initially in LrC.

The only "anomaly" is the "DATES_TIME_SEASON" keyword, which is one of the parent keywords in LrC, but does not appear in Lightroom. One possible reason could be that the "DATES-TIME-SEASON" keyword was not a part of the hierarchy at the time that the metadata was saved to XMP in LrC.


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## clee01l (Dec 22, 2021)

If you want to use Lightroom and Lightroom Classic together as I do, you might want to adopt a different workflow. 

I maintain a flat non hierarchal keyword system in Lightroom Classic, this meant changing an involved hierarchy to a flat one.   Images sync'd from LrC to Lr will share the one time sync of keywords acquired in LrC.   Images imported into Lr are since full size to LrC. For me this includes all of my camera card image as I now used Lightroom (mobile) as a front end to LrC.  What ever processing I do in Lightroom, I limit to NOT adding keywords  or considering any keywords that I have to be limited to Lr only.  Also I do not delete and image from Lightroom.   I only mark these as rejected (x) and delete the from Lightroom Classic which will also delete them from the Lightroom Library.
I have hopes that Adobe will at some point sync keywords from Lightroom to Lightroom Classic and vice versa.   When they do implement this, it will be from a flat keyword list.   Lightroom has a process called Sensei and it can identify images by "smart " keywords". 
Adobe Sensei: machine learning and artificial intelligence 
If Adobe ever gets around to adding Sensei to Lightroom Classic, perhaps the keyword sync'ing issue will get resolved.


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> Keywords can either be directly assigned to an image (shown by the "√"), or can be "inherited" from parent keywords (shown by the "-") when using a keyword hierarchy. Both types of keyword assignment are included when saving to XMP, so it's no surprise that all those "extra" keywords appear in Lightroom. The major difference is that Lightroom doesn't support the keyword hierarchy function, so all the "inherited" hierarchy is flattened into a single list of keywords, with no indication if they were directly or indirectly assigned initially in LrC.
> 
> The only "anomaly" is the "DATES_TIME_SEASON" keyword, which is one of the parent keywords in LrC, but does not appear in Lightroom. One possible reason could be that the "DATES-TIME-SEASON" keyword was not a part of the hierarchy at the time that the metadata was saved to XMP in LrC.


That all makes sense.  And based on the discussion elsewhere in the thread, I think I now understand how the keywords made the trip to the cloud. So appreciate everyone's replies on that end.

I was also a bit puzzled by the 'DATES-TIMES-SEASONS' anomaly you mention. I rationalized it thusly...
  - The '10-October' under 'Months' is the one keyword I would have hoped to 'stick' with the file. I consider the 'Months' and 'DTS' keywords both 'containers' that exist only to help me organize the hierarchy and make them easier to find. I wouldn't want either to 'stick' with the image when the image is exported for use on my own site or any other use.
- Because 'Months' is the immediate 'parent' of '10-October' in the hierarchy, it is the one 'container' kw LrC would send with an export because I had the 'Export Container Keywords' option checked in the 10-October definition. And _maybe_ LrC doesn't look any higher up in the hierarchy than the immediate parent level to determine which 'container' keywords stick. (????) Just a serious WAG.


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

clee01l said:


> If you want to use Lightroom and Lightroom Classic together as I do, you might want to adopt a different workflow.
> 
> I maintain a flat non hierarchal keyword system in Lightroom Classic, this meant changing an involved hierarchy to a flat one.   Images sync'd from LrC to Lr will share the one time sync of keywords acquired in LrC.   Images imported into Lr are since full size to LrC. For me this includes all of my camera card image as I now used Lightroom (mobile) as a front end to LrC.  What ever processing I do in Lightroom, I limit to NOT adding keywords  or considering any keywords that I have to be limited to Lr only.  Also I do not delete and image from Lightroom.   I only mark these as rejected (x) and delete the from Lightroom Classic which will also delete them from the Lightroom Library.
> I have hopes that Adobe will at some point sync keywords from Lightroom to Lightroom Classic and vice versa.   When they do implement this, it will be from a flat keyword list.   Lightroom has a process called Sensei and it can identify images by "smart " keywords".
> ...


I'm going to have to marinate on that for a while.

At this point, I don't foresee me utilizing Lr to any significant degree. My only ongoing use of it thus far has been to sync images captured via LR Mobile on the iPhone to the cloud and subsequently to LrC on the desktop. I absolutely LOVE that bit of functionality.

To try and put my entire LrC catalog up in the cloud would probably end with me becoming familiar with bankruptcy courts. 

The experiment that prompted this discussion was just that...an experiment to see how (or if) I could automate getting image files from LrC to Adobe Portfolio. Or could I get far enough down that road to make it advantageous to use such a methodology vs direct upload of the images into AP from a web browser. And that's yet 'TBD' given that I know even less about AP than I do the Lr sync functionality as of now.

But thanks for the idea!


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## clee01l (Dec 22, 2021)

rjwilner said:


> To try and put my entire LrC catalog up in the cloud would probably end with me becoming familiar with bankruptcy courts.


Only images sync’d from Lightroom (Mobile) count against your plan storage.  Images originally in the Lightroom Classic catalog sync to a separate area and there you have unlimited storage. Lightroom Classic syncs a smaller (2560 px long edge) image to the free area and all of the edit adjustments  sync back and forthe between the cloud and the catalog.  If you have a 20GB storage plan you need to carefully manage which full size images are maintained in the cloud.  This smaller image is suitable for processing with a mobile device (Phone or tablet).


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## rjwilner (Dec 22, 2021)

clee01l said:


> Only images sync’d from Lightroom (Mobile) count against your plan storage.  Images originally in the Lightroom Classic catalog sync to a separate area and there you have unlimited storage. Lightroom Classic syncs a smaller (2560 px long edge) image to the free area and all of the edit adjustments  sync back and forthe between the cloud and the catalog.  If you have a 20GB storage plan you need to carefully manage which full size images are maintained in the cloud.  This smaller image is suitable for processing with a mobile device (Phone or tablet).


Really?!?!? Wow, I had never heard that before. Thanks for passing it along!


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 17, 2022)

I migrated (part of my) LR Classic catalogue with LR.  Tags  have been uploaded to LR correctly. But as also mentioned in this threat; changes in tags/keywords are not synchorised between both apps. Now I have a long list with tags in LR, some of them not in use anymore, some of them part of the higher level group in my LR Classic hierarchy. Can anybody tell: 
1) How do I remove tags from the tagmenu in LR?  When I Google this I see either how to remove keywords from photos (being not my question), or an instruction how to remove tags in LR Classic. But how does it work in LR (thus NOT LR Classic)? 
2) Is it possible to rebuild my LR Classic tag hierarchy in LR? I guess it is not, but may be some tooling has been developed now somewhere.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 17, 2022)

paul.roos_1 said:


> 1) How do I remove tags from the tagmenu in LR?  When I Google this I see either how to remove keywords from photos (being not my question), or an instruction how to remove tags in LR Classic. But how does it work in LR (thus NOT LR Classic)?
> 2) Is it possible to rebuild my LR Classic tag hierarchy in LR? I guess it is not, but may be some tooling has been developed now somewhere.


1) Delete the keyword from all images that it is assigned to, and that will also delete the keyword. So....select All Photos as the source, select one of the two grids, click on the filter icon at the right-hand side of the central search bar, click on the down arrow next to "Keywords", scroll down to find and click on the keyword you are wanting to remove. That will populate the grid with all the images that contain the selected keyword. Open the keyword panel (click on the tag icon near the bottom of the right-hand tool bar), then do Ctrl(Win)/Cmd(Mac)+A to select all the images. You will then see that the keywords panel will show all the keywords that are assigned to any image in the selection, but the list is divided into two parts. The top part contains all the keywords that are assigned to all the images in the selection, your target keyword should be in this section. Hover over the keyword and the text will turn red with a red strikethrough line.....clicking on it in that state will delete the keyword from all the images, and thus will remove it from the keywords list. Trust me, it's quicker to do that than to type it!
2. Not possible, LR simply does not support a keyword hierarchy.


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 17, 2022)

Jim Wilde said:


> 1) Delete the keyword from all images that it is assigned to, and that will also delete the keyword. So....select All Photos as the source, select one of the two grids, click on the filter icon at the right-hand side of the central search bar, click on the down arrow next to "Keywords", scroll down to find and click on the keyword you are wanting to remove. That will populate the grid with all the images that contain the selected keyword. Open the keyword panel (click on the tag icon near the bottom of the right-hand tool bar), then do Ctrl(Win)/Cmd(Mac)+A to select all the images. You will then see that the keywords panel will show all the keywords that are assigned to any image in the selection, but the list is divided into two parts. The top part contains all the keywords that are assigned to all the images in the selection, your target keyword should be in this section. Hover over the keyword and the text will turn red with a red strikethrough line.....clicking on it in that state will delete the keyword from all the images, and thus will remove it from the keywords list. Trust me, it's quicker to do that than to type it!
> 2. Not possible, LR simply does not support a keyword hierarchy.


Jim, unfortunately this doesn't work. If I delete the tag from all photos it still shows up in my filterlist. I checked it by filtering on the tag (I want to remove) and LR shows no pictures anymore. But even after restarting LR, the tag is in the list again.... .


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 17, 2022)

In addition/ nuance:  When putting in a new tag in LR, indeed it works the way you describe. However it doesn't to the job for the tags which I have imported...


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 17, 2022)

paul.roos_1 said:


> In addition/ nuance:  When putting in a new tag in LR, indeed it works the way you describe. However it doesn't to the job for the tags which I have imported...


How did you "import" them?


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 17, 2022)

By migrating my LR Classic catalog.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 17, 2022)

OK, I'll have a look at that scenario when I have time. If I can reproduce I'll let you (and Adobe) know. All the scenarios that I've tested so far work as I described.


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 30, 2022)

H i Jim, already some conclusions?  I really hope you can find a solution for this.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 30, 2022)

Sorry, I've not yet had time to setup a test yet, and not sure when I can do that. In the meantime, have you tried adding one of the problem keywords to an image, and then removing it form that image again? Does that clear it from the list?


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## paul.roos_1 (Jan 30, 2022)

No unfortunately it does not. It is not all the tags, but some (I guess apparently older ones) are stubborn....


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## rjwilner (Dec 21, 2021)

I have discovered that some images in my 'cloud' storage have keywords assigned that are not checked in LR Classic. They are all 'containing' keywords.

Am I correct in assuming that synching an image to the cloud is considered an 'export' process by LR? And as a result...
  - If I didn't uncheck the 'Export Containing Keywords' option when defining a new keyword, any/all such 'containing' keywords would go along for the ride when synched?

Thanks for any feedback!


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 30, 2022)

OK, I think you already have enough information/evidence to file a bug report at the Adobe Community site (see link at the top of this page).

Let me know when it's done and if I get a test setup myself I can add my comments to that bug report.


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