# Missing collections and mobile image location



## snapper (May 17, 2016)

I've just set up mobile sync to get all my iOS photos into Lightoom (I was using photostream2folder - but it's been broken for a while for me) using Victoria's LR mobile missing FAQ book.

It appears to work properly. But when I look on my desktop version, I don't have a Collections from Sync collection (pg70 and 72)  

I've also changed the preferred location for mobile downloads to my Data disk - and that folder structure is being populated right now. Does that make the imported photos folder on my iPad air redundant - can I safely remove that?

Finally, the most recent iOS images now seem to have a funky but useless file name like 9EDC5E8D-6815-444A-A9B1-6AA419700D0D.JPG - unlike the nice and easy img_1234.jpg name previously - any ideas why that is?


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## DGStinner (May 17, 2016)

The first time I synced from Lightroom Mobile to my computer, it created a collection set called "From Lr Mobile" and had one collection inside that called "iPhone Photos".
Since my iOS devices can't show me raw images and I don't feel like exporting out JPGs of my images, I've stopped importing images to my iPhone and iPad through iTunes and only use Lr Mobile now.
I'm not sure about the file name issue you're having.


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## clee01l (May 17, 2016)

I've tried all of the methods possible to get photos from my iPhone to my master LR catalog. Photo stream2 Folder was my preference until I got a Lightroom subscription that let me use Lightroom Mobile.  Like Dave, I only use LR Mobile now.  It is clean and efficient. In my mobile device, I auto sync my Photostream/camera roll with a Lightroom Mobile album.  That album show in LR as a Collection and LR stores the Mobile image in a special folder

Keep in mind that file names and folder names are irrelevant. Computer generated file and folder names are obtuse because they are guaranteed to be unique.  In LR the most versatile and efficient organization is using keywords and collections, This is why automatically generated file and folder names are used by Apple or Adobe. They are irrelevant. If you worry about the names of files and folders in LR, you are not using LR to its fullest potential.

Most of the time, I keep my folder panel hidden because I do not need it. Anytime you find yourself scanning images in the folder panel looking for the one image that you have in mind, you are not using LR effectively.


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## snapper (May 17, 2016)

@DGStinner - thanks - I've got the "From Lr mobile" collection too. I've also got a folder that has been set as the "Lightroom mobile downloads location" - but the number of photos in the two locations don't match. And I was expecting the "collections from Sync" colection set as described in @Victoria Bampton 's book to be present.

@clee01l Thanks for your answer - however the original names of the file will allow me to match to already existing version of the images that I may already have in Lightroom or on the filesystem.  My world is not a perfect keyworded world, and never will be.


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## clee01l (May 17, 2016)

snapper said:


> ... My world is not a perfect keyworded world, and never will be.


Neither is mine, but I never have to resort to an eyeball folder scan to find the images that I need.   LR is pretty good at not importing duplicates (although I don't know how this duplicate issue relates to imports through LRmobile.   There is a duplicate finder plugin that works with several factors to identify duplicates.  File name can be one of the criteria used but not the only one (or a very reliable one).


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## Victoria Bampton (May 24, 2016)

snapper said:


> I was expecting the "collections from Sync" colection set as described in [USER=1]@Victoria Bampton 's book to be present.
> [/USER]



Thanks for the heads up. They seem to take great delight in quietly renaming things!

Sorry I haven't been around this week.  Are you back up and running now?


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## snapper (Jun 10, 2016)

Oh - just seen this.

Yes, up and running sort of. Think I may start again from scratch though. And it all seems to take so long. And I'm still irritated by the filenames I've ended up with - which look like ObjId's not file names....


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