# Google Drive and OneDrive



## djfetterman2007 (Jan 1, 2022)

Greetings!
I subscribe to OneDrive. I use OneDrive’s Picture folder to store my photos and LR Catalogs. I am considering transitioning to Google Drive for file storage. I don’t want to pay for subscriptions to both OneDrive and Google Drive. Do you have any suggestions of where I can store my photos and LR Catalogs? Thank you much!
Dave


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 1, 2022)

You can store them anywhere you want, so also anywhere in Google Drive.


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## djfetterman2007 (Jan 1, 2022)

Johan Elzenga said:


> You can store them anywhere you want, so also anywhere in Google Drive.


Thank you! I didn’t think you could use Google Drive for photos and catalogs.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 1, 2022)

djfetterman2007 said:


> Thank you! I didn’t think you could use Google Drive for photos and catalogs.


As long as there is a local copy of the catalog and the images, it should work. Lightroom can't work with a catalog only in the cloud. I have no personal experience with it however, and I have read about people having issues. So check that you can work with local copies.


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## clee01l (Jan 1, 2022)

Both OneDrive and Google Drive, as well as Amazon drive, DropBox  and others store data locally and sync to the cloud and then to other computers.  Lightroom uses the data in the local folders. The cloud storage apps mirror that local data to some degree.


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## Jimmsp (Jan 1, 2022)

djfetterman2007 said:


> Greetings!
> I subscribe to OneDrive. I use OneDrive’s Picture folder to store my photos and LR Catalogs. I am considering transitioning to Google Drive for file storage. I don’t want to pay for subscriptions to both OneDrive and Google Drive. Do you have any suggestions of where I can store my photos and LR Catalogs? Thank you much!
> Dave


This is not exactly what you asked for, but is a good article on backup.
In it they cover Google Drive. Google has changed their photo storage a couple of times, so you should check to see if it fits your situation.
https://www.techradar.com/how-to/ho...o-backup-for-adobe-lightroom-or-google-photos

They summarize GD
Best for hobbyists: Google Drive​A simple choice for casual shooters​
REASONS TO BUY​+Free up to 15 GB+Easy to set up and use
REASONS TO AVOID​-2TB option more expensive than rivals-Maximum storage is only 2TB


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## djfetterman2007 (Jan 1, 2022)

clee01l said:


> Both OneDrive and Google Drive, as well as Amazon drive, DropBox  and others store data locally and sync to the cloud and then to other computers.  Lightroom uses the data in the local folders. The cloud storage apps mirror that local data to some degree.


Thank you!


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## djfetterman2007 (Jan 1, 2022)

Jimmsp said:


> This is not exactly what you asked for, but is a good article on backup.
> In it they cover Google Drive. Google has changed their photo storage a couple of times, so you should check to see if it fits your situation.
> https://www.techradar.com/how-to/ho...o-backup-for-adobe-lightroom-or-google-photos
> 
> ...


Thank you!


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## jmj2001 (Jan 5, 2022)

I think you have to be a bit careful with how you have OneDrive or Google Drive set up.  Both clients are now allow you to save local disk space by not having local copies of all files.  Some of the files you see in Windows File Explorer are only proxies that take very little space.  The files are only downloaded from the cloud when you try to open them.   You can insist that all files, or all files in certain folders, are always kept locally ("Always keep on this device" option in OneDrive) but this seems not to be the default.  I actually keep the working copy of my photos in OneDrive but make sure they are always kept locally on my home computer (other backups elsewhere of course).   I am not sure what might happen if I did not do this.  Perhaps it would still work but with delays as original photos are downloaded when needed.  This  might be acceptable as long as you are mainly working with previews and have a fast Internet connection.   The catalog and previews should certainly always be kept locally.


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## Jimmsp (Jan 6, 2022)

djfetterman2007 said:


> Greetings!
> I subscribe to OneDrive. I use OneDrive’s Picture folder to store my photos and LR Catalogs. I am considering transitioning to Google Drive for file storage. I don’t want to pay for subscriptions to both OneDrive and Google Drive. Do you have any suggestions of where I can store my photos and LR Catalogs? Thank you much!
> Dave


One more update today on Google Drive.
It may or may not effect you.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmo...rucial-google-photos-feature/?sh=5b6df6c059d7


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## djfetterman2007 (Jan 6, 2022)

jmj2001 said:


> I think you have to be a bit careful with how you have OneDrive or Google Drive set up.  Both clients are now allow you to save local disk space by not having local copies of all files.  Some of the files you see in Windows File Explorer are only proxies that take very little space.  The files are only downloaded from the cloud when you try to open them.   You can insist that all files, or all files in certain folders, are always kept locally ("Always keep on this device" option in OneDrive) but this seems not to be the default.  I actually keep the working copy of my photos in OneDrive but make sure they are always kept locally on my home computer (other backups elsewhere of course).   I am not sure what might happen if I did not do this.  Perhaps it would still work but with delays as original photos are downloaded when needed.  This  might be acceptable as long as you are mainly working with previews and have a fast Internet connection.   The catalog and previews should certainly always be kept locally.


Thank you!


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## gegjrphotography (Jan 10, 2022)

Hi I'm not a LRQ Guru but I use Windows and I have used OneDrive since it's inception. I just want to remind you, since you mentioned not wanting to pay for 2 cloud storage locations, that if you subscribe to MS Office either individual, family, or business, that your OneDrive space up to a limit is free. You can of course pay for additional space.


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## djfetterman2007 (Jan 10, 2022)

gegjrphotography said:


> Hi I'm not a LRQ Guru but I use Windows and I have used OneDrive since it's inception. I just want to remind you, since you mentioned not wanting to pay for 2 cloud storage locations, that if you subscribe to MS Office either individual, family, or business, that your OneDrive space up to a limit is free. You can of course pay for additional space.


Thank you!


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## neilhunt (Jan 20, 2022)

Google Drive has two modes: streaming, and mirroring.
Streaming can make your entire library available dynamically, but in my experience, it is too slow for your LRC image files, and WAY too slow for the catalog file.  Too often, LRC decides that the image file is missing, if Google Drive is a bit slow to respond, and then you have to restart LRC to make it find the picture again.
Mirroring works just fine - you have a local copy, and the Drive copy gets updated if you change it.  Unfortunately, you can't mix mirroring and streaming on the same account, so you can't have this years pics mirrored, and previous years streamed from offline.
Additionally, while LRC stores exif data in sidecar files for most raw files, it writes the exif data into the image file for JPG and HEIC files.  So if you have a lot of JPG or HEIC, be aware that e.g. bulk adding a keyword to a large set of images changes every single image file, which churns your GoogleDrive storage, consumes large amounts of bandwidth, and may slow up other activities.

I use Google Drive via a NAS (network attached storage).  I have the NAS use CloudSync to sync the image files with Google Drive, and then mount the NAS across my home network to my laptop for speedy access.  The NAS is a lot faster than Google Drive streaming, and times out with LRC much less frequently.

I also do a catalog backup about weekly, and make sure the catalog (but not the preview files) is stored on the NAS and on Google Drive too.  It's huge (4GB). so backup takes a long while.  In fact, it's large enough that backing up the live catalog is too slow - the backup copy is never complete before there are new changes to back up.  The weekly catalog snapshot is a good compromise.


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