# Auto Import



## jgwalter (Nov 17, 2019)

What happened to 'Auto Import' on LR Mobile?  I just purchased an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and tried the camera in LR Mobile today for the first time.  I took about 50 photos, and about halfway through, they stopped appearing in my 'Auto Import' folder.  I cannot find any controls for the auto-import feature.

The photos appear in the 'All photos' folder, but not in my camera roll.

Om top of that, my LR Classic desktop app will not open, saying it needs to upgrade the catalog, which fails when I attempt to do so.

Pretty frustrating, with a trip coming up in two days.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 18, 2019)

Auto Import relates specifically to photos which are added to the Camera Roll, which the LR camera does not do. Pictures taken with the LR camera will be added to whichever album you are working in at the time, and if you're not in a particular album they are only added to All Photos.....though they will also, of course, always appear in the LR Camera Photos special collection.


----------



## jgwalter (Nov 18, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Auto Import relates specifically to photos which are added to the Camera Roll, which the LR camera does not do. Pictures taken with the LR camera will be added to whichever album you are working in at the time, and if you're not in a particular album they are only added to All Photos.....though they will also, of course, always appear in the LR Camera Photos special collection.



Thank you for the response.  It certainly makes sense.  I'm guessing that the reason that it added the first 20 or so images to the 'Auto-Import' folder, is because that's where I happened to be working prior to the session?  Thinking back, I may have switched away at the point it stopped?

I still don't see how to manage which folder(s) are 'auto-import' (i.e. from the camera roll)  ?

And, I'll address the other question about the upgrade in a separate post.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 18, 2019)

jgwalter said:


> I still don't see how to manage which folder(s) are 'auto-import' (i.e. from the camera roll)  ?


Only one album can be designated to receive auto-imported photos from the Camera Roll, and that is done by tapping on the "tri-dot" icon for the album you want to use (when in the main album list view). The resulting menu includes the option to "Auto Add from Camera Roll". Turning that on for any album will disable it in any other album if it was enabled there. You can see which album (if any) is currently the target album as it will be indicated beneath the album name in the main album list.


----------



## jgwalter (Nov 18, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Auto Import relates specifically to photos which are added to the Camera Roll, which the LR camera does not do. Pictures taken with the LR camera will be added to whichever album you are working in at the time, and if you're not in a particular album they are only added to All Photos.....though they will also, of course, always appear in the LR Camera Photos special collection.



Thanks, Jim.  I seem to be unable to accomplish this?  What do I have to do to designate the 'album that I am working on'?  As a test, I've opened an album, edited a photo in it, then gone to the camera and taken a photo.  It still does not appear in that album, but only the 'All photos' album.  And, I guess what you are referring to as the LR Camera special collection, is the group below the 'All Photos'?  I do not see any other amongst the collections, nor do I see any collection on my desktop version, although they do appear in the dated folders.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 18, 2019)

Apologies, it looks as though things have changed. Testing just now pictures taken with the LR camera appear to be added only to the "Lr Camera Photos" collection (and All Photos of course). Not sure how long ago that change was made as I rarely take pictures with my iPhone.

At the far right-hand side of the All Photos collection is an arrow-head, which collapses/expands the special app collections. Tap the icon to expand/collapse as needed, but when expanded you should see something like this:


----------



## jgwalter (Nov 18, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Apologies, it looks as though things have changed. Testing just now pictures taken with the LR camera appear to be added only to the "Lr Camera Photos" collection (and All Photos of course). Not sure how long ago that change was made as I rarely take pictures with my iPhone.
> 
> At the far right-hand side of the All Photos collection is an arrow-head, which collapses/expands the special app collections. Tap the icon to expand/collapse as needed, but when expanded you should see something like this:
> 
> View attachment 13469



Thanks, I see the same thing.

What I don't see is how to get them to be added to an album when I take the photos?  Perhaps that can't be done, but the first photos that I took with this new phone were added to an album, which happened to be my 'New Images' album that I use to sync camera roll images with my desktop.  In the middle of that shoot, I must have done something like switch to another album, as the balance of the shoot were only added to the 'LR Camera Photos' collection. (and all photos)  Now, I cannot seem to replicate that action.  I guess I need to confirm that this is either no longer possible, or I am doing something wrong.

Additionally, photos that I take with the LR camera only appear on my desktop in the Lightroom Mobile Uploads folder, but not in any LR Mobile collections on the desktop.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 18, 2019)

Well, having testing a few times now, I don't think photos taken with the *Lr camera* will go into any album other than that special Lr Camera Photos album. Perhaps you were taking some with the *native iPhone camera*, those WILL auto-import into the designated album in Lr provided you've got the settings correctly established for that.

Regarding your last point, what do you mean by "Lightroom Mobile Uploads folder"?


----------



## jgwalter (Nov 18, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Well, having testing a few times now, I don't think photos taken with the *Lr camera* will go into any album other than that special Lr Camera Photos album. Perhaps you were taking some with the *native iPhone camera*, those WILL auto-import into the designated album in Lr provided you've got the settings correctly established for that.
> 
> Regarding your last point, what do you mean by "Lightroom Mobile Uploads folder"?



I think you are correct?  When you think about, there really isn't any need to do that, and it would only lead to a lot of confusion.  I think the reason that my first few photos did post there, was due to it simply being stuck in that position from my previous phone (I had just upgraded from an iPhone 6+ to an iPhone Pro Max.

On the last point, what I mean was the folder in the desktop app that contains the actual image files.  They appear in a dated folder (ex. 11-18) that points to a sub-folder in the finder of LR Mobile Uploads.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 18, 2019)

It sounds as though you are referring to Lightroom Classic, perhaps? Not the Lightroom Desktop cloud-based app? In which case, look at the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab where you can specify the location for images downloaded into Classic from the cloud. The default is a "Mobile Downloads.lrdata" package in the user Pictures folder, but you can choose to set a different location. You can set one of the Lightroom standard dated folder structures as well, or have them all placed in one "bucket".


----------

