# Mobile Lightroom uploading iPhone photos, download to external?



## Dawn Kitley (Dec 12, 2016)

Hi, all. First, I'm sorry if this post is the same as a previous one. I did put effort into finding an answer but was fruitless.

Second, I'm not "new" to LR, just new to CC and especially to mobile LR. I wouldn't say I'm experienced with LR but I'm not a novice either.

I started using mobile LR because I can't get LR to read the photos on my iPhone when I hook it up. I'm trying to upload my images to get them onto my external HD.

My question is how do I now get my images from the mobile LR to my external? This whole thing confuses me.


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## clee01l (Dec 12, 2016)

Welcome to the forum.

There are (at least) two answers to your question.
Let's start with the simplest.

Connect your phone to your computer.
If the Photos App Opens, you will want to stop it from happening.
With the phone connected, Open the Image Capture app.
You should see you phone listen as a device in the pane on the left.
At the bottom of the pane is a dropDownList Box labeled "Connecting this Camera opens:"
In the dropDownList Box, change the app to  "Adobe Lightroom"


Now when you connect you phone Lightroom will open and may even open the import dialog. (Don't be surprised if it doesn't, I've never been able to get that option to work consistently on a Mac)
With the phone connected *and unlocked!* and LR open to the import dialog, choose the phone from the list of devices on the left panel.
Use the import dialog just as you would for any other inserted camera card, making sure that the destination panel is pointing to your EHD.
The next option involves Lightroom Mobile on the Phone and uses the Adobe Creative Cloud space that is shared between your mobile devices and you master LR catalog  file.

*Part 1   *Let's begin with your Phone and the Lightroom Mobile app.
Once the app is running and you are signed in to Adobe Creative Cloud, you can designate a collection that you have created on the phone as the "AutoAdd" collection.  You do this by clicking on the three dots icon {...} to the right of the chosen collection and selecting "AutoAdd" from that menu.
From this point on any photo that you take with your phone camera will automatically be added to this collection. 
If there are photos already on the phone but not in this collection, you can click on the "Add Photos" menu item on the same menu that you opened in Step 2.  and choose these from your camera roll.
All photos in Lightroom Mobile collections will be sync'd to a storage space on the Lightroom Mobile Web Site ( Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ).

Part 2. Your Lightroom Master Catalog
Open the Preferences "Lightroom Mobile" Tab 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




In the Location Section, select a parent folder on your EHD.   I also strongly recommend that you import all of your images including the LR Mobile images into date named folders since folder aren't really useful as an organization tool.

Make sure that you are signed on to your Adobe account and that Lightroom Mobile sync is turned on.
In the Module Picker section at the top of LR,click on the ▼ just to the right of your Identity Plate.
In the menu at appears, make sure that the item "Sync with Lightroom Mobile" is running.

In the Collections panel, create a Collection set to receive and to share with Lightroom Mobile
You can create a Collection Set to mirror the AutoAdd Collection that was created on your Phone.  If the Phone Collection has already sync'd,  you will find the autoAdd collection from the phone somewhere in your Collection panel. You can drag the Collection (if it already exists) to the Collection set This way you can keep all of your Lightroom Mobile collections in one tidy package.
If you have a collection in your LR catalog in the Collection panel and you want to share those images with Lightroom Mobile, you can right click on the Collection and choose "Sync with Lightroom Mobile" from the context menu
Any Lightroom Collection that is sync'ing with Lightroom Mobile has another option on it's right click drop down menu.  This is a sub menu titled "Lightroom Mobile Links.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



On this menu you can choose to make the collection public or private and get a quick link to the Collection on the Web.


Additionally, there are other methods to get photos from your phone to your computer.  You can use Apple's iCloud with or without involving the photos app.   Other file sharing apps Like DropBox can also act as a go between your phone and your computer.  This coupled with Lightroom's Auto import will also automatically import photos from a local computer folder to the designated destination (i.e. your EHD) and catalog these in the LR catalog .


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## Conrad Chavez (Dec 12, 2016)

Dawn Kitley said:


> I started using mobile LR because I can't get LR to read the photos on my iPhone when I hook it up. I'm trying to upload my images to get them onto my external HD.


What happens when you plug into your iPhone? I've seen a recent problem where if I plug in my iPhone, the Lightroom Import window says No Photos Found. But if I simply unlock the phone, the images immediately appear. It didn't require unlocking in earlier versions. Is your problem different than that one?

Now, as far as how to get them to the external drive. If the external drive is already listed in the Folders panel in Lightroom, you can (inside Lightroom) drag the images from wherever they were imported to the external drive. In the future, you can save steps by creating an Import preset that's set up so that Lightroom copies images directly to your preferred folder on the external drive.


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## Dawn Kitley (Dec 12, 2016)

It seems intermittent, whether LR recognizes my iPhone, let alone sees the images. I did get it to see the images once this evening but half of them came up as saying it couldn't give me a preview. The previous commenter's suggestion worked, however convoluted it is. It was the most straightforward option I've run into as of late.


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