# Syncing LR Classic with LR CC - EASY !!!!!



## MarkNicholas (Oct 25, 2017)

Operating System: Win 10 Pro Creator

Lightroom Version: LR Classic & LR CC
_(Please go to Help menu > System Info to double check the exact version number)_

Question or Description of Problem:

Ok after all the initial fuss I finally got down to trying to sync between LR Classic and LR CC. I had read various posts about how to do this and how to do that and decided to give it a go myself.

In LR Classic I use my own filing system. "2017_10_25_ Home" is a typical folder in which my photos reside. This folder is inside a folder named after my camera, in this case "Canon 6D". So I went into LR CC and created a folder "Canon 6D" and inside that folder created another folder called "2017_10_25_ Home".

I went back to LR Classic and created a Collection Set called "Canon 6D" and inside that I created a Collection called "2017_10_25_ Home" with all the photos that reside in that folder. When creating this Collection the check box "Sync with LR CC" was already checked so I left it checked.

In LR CC it starts syncing nicely creating an album called "2017_10_25_ Home". However, the created album is outside of the folder called "Canon 6D", so I simply dragged it to that folder whilst it was syncing.

Hey presto everything syncs nicely !

The best part about this is that when you sync from LR Classic to LR CC the files are "Smart Preview" only, not the original files. This means that it does not count against your measly 20 GB allowance 

I do not understand what all the fuss has been about ! This seems like a fantastic bit of kit.

Now for my 200 + remaining files


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 25, 2017)

The fuss is not about that. That has been possible for years with the Lr Mobile part. The fuss is about other things, like not being able to sync keywords.


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## RobOK (Oct 25, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> Hey presto everything syncs nicely !
> 
> The best part about this is that when you sync from LR Classic to LR CC the files are "Smart Preview" only, not the original files. This means that it does not count against your measly 20 GB allowance
> 
> ...



As other poster said above, there are some things that don't sync. I don't think there has been any fuss about syncing, it works well.

This thread might be of interest:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/comm...n-classic-and-lr-cc-when-used-together.33012/

Rob


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 25, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> The fuss is not about that. That has been possible for years with the Lr Mobile part. The fuss is about other things, like not being able to sync keywords.


I don’t care about syncing keywords. As long as my keywords are complete in LR Classic that’s fine for me.

What I am (was) concerned about was being able to replicate the photo structure in my LR Classic catalog on LR CC and the measly free 20GB. Many posters have been “fussing” about how to do this. But I have discovered that with a bit of leg work it can easily be done.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 25, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> I don’t care about syncing keywords. As long as my keywords are complete in LR Classic that’s fine for me.
> 
> What I am (was) concerned about was being able to replicate the photo structure in my LR Classic catalog on LR CC and the measly free 20GB. Many posters have been “fussing” about how to do this. But I have discovered that with a bit of leg work it can easily be done.



Yes, as long as you only sync from Lightroom Classic to the cloud and not from Lightroom CC -so you only upload smart previews- 20 GB will get you quite far.


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 25, 2017)

Great, thanks for sharing your experience Mark. I wish everyone was so easily pleased! LOL 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 26, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> The fuss is about other things, like not being able to sync keywords.



Last night I synced around 5000 photos from LR Classic to LR CC. This was done for 10 collections which resulted in 10 albums. For 8 of the albums the keywords synced fully ! for the latest 2 albums they didn't sync at all. I will have to investigate why. During the syncing process I was checking progress on my Iphone (which has been upgraded to LR CC) and when I was checking for keywords a little message popped up saying that LR CC now syncs keywords ! I tried to screen shot it but just missed it and couldn't get it back.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 26, 2017)

Mark, had you written to XMP for those two collections in Classic before setting them sync?


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 26, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> Mark, had you written to XMP for those two collections in Classic before setting them sync?



Ahhh ! That I mostly likely it. They are fairly recent and so I probably haven't done the Ctrl S. Will check.

So if xmp files have been written then the keywords sync ? and if you don't they wont sync ? Is that how it works ?


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 26, 2017)

And will the process of writing xmp files for these 2 collections force them to re sync (with the keywords) or will I have to remove from LR CC then re sync. Only one to find out I suppose...


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 26, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> So if xmp files have been written then the keywords sync ? and if you don't they wont sync ? Is that how it works ?



You got it, though I'm going to be purposely pedantic and say that the keywords will do a one-time transfer to the ecosystem, after that any changes made in Classic or LRCC will not "sync". I'll also say that the transfer "could" be a bug or a loophole, so I wouldn't (yet) rush in to a revised workflow based on that current behaviour.

Again, we've asked the question of Adobe, trying to get an official answer to the questions that many of you are beginning to raise relating to ongoing Classic and LRCC workflows. Victoria is planning a series of blog posts on this issue, but she needs something more concrete from Adobe first.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 26, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> And will the process of writing xmp files for these 2 collections force them to re sync (with the keywords) or will I have to remove from LR CC then re sync. Only one to find out I suppose...



The latter, i.e. keyword changes do not sync.


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## Jimmsp (Oct 26, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> ..... Again, we've asked the question of Adobe, trying to get an official answer to the questions that many of you are beginning to raise relating to ongoing Classic and LRCC workflows. Victoria is planning a series of blog posts on this issue, but she needs something more concrete from Adobe first.


This is exactly what I am looking for.
I don't have the time or energy, or even the drive , to go and experiment myself, as I am quite happy with my current desktop LR Classic - PS workflow.
However, I believe that Classic and CC will eventually merge, and I would like to be prepared. 
I would also like to be able to give some intelligent updates, summaries, and recommendations to our photo and computer club members in my community.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 26, 2017)

Jimmsp said:


> I don't have the time or energy, or even the drive , to go and experiment myself



And you shouldn't have to, Jim, as a lot of that testing/experimenting has already been done. But I would think making that knowledge publicly available could be quite dangerous unless it's endorsed by Adobe in some way...Mark's already discovered for himself a couple of potentially useful things, but we don't actually know it they are "as designed", "loophole" (i.e. unintended consequence), or "bug". If either of the last two, and the loophole/bug gets fixed, that would invalidate any procedure we might document in the meantime.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 27, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> The latter, i.e. keyword changes do not sync.


Even that has not worked. I have deleted the collection and created it again and synced but still no keywords.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 27, 2017)

I think you would need to remove the photos from All Synced Photographs ("in Adobe's cloud").

In the past, removing them from a collection would have been sufficient.

John


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 27, 2017)

John's right, Mark. In the situation you're describing, you'd have to force a full re-sync, i.e. remove the assets from syncing completely (using All Synced Photographs in LR Classic, or deleting them from any of the LRCC apps), then set them to sync again in LR Classic.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 27, 2017)

Ok thanks for the help. I think I’ll wait for (hopefully) a solution. If they are going to fix it then it’s best to wait. If they aren’t going to fix it then there is no point faffing about.

I have also noticed that in those collections that did sync with keywords that quite a few keywords are missing and did not make the sync. It seems like longer keywords or those made up of 2 or more words didn’t make it.

At well....


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 27, 2017)

Hmm, that's interesting....I've got keywords with 2 or 3 words which made the transfer, so I wonder what's different about yours?

What do you mean when you say "If they are going to fix it"? If you mean ongoing keyword syncing, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that. It hasn't happened in the last 4 years since mobile was introduced.....


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 27, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> Hmm, that's interesting....I've got keywords with 2 or 3 words which made the transfer, so I wonder what's different about yours?



Yes it doesn’t make much sense because I have 3 word and long keywords that synced with other photos.

I think it is probably that the xmp files were not up to date.



Jim Wilde said:


> What do you mean when you say "If they are going to fix it"? If you mean ongoing keyword syncing, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that. It hasn't happened in the last 4 years since mobile was introduced.....



We can live in hope !


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 27, 2017)

All the signs are that Lightroom Classic will not get new _synching_ features. That is Lightroom CC territory now.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 27, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> What do you mean when you say "If they are going to fix it"? If you mean ongoing keyword syncing, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that. It hasn't happened in the last 4 years since mobile was introduced.....



Title and caption did happen after almost as long, but abandon all hope for keywords, Mark.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 28, 2017)

johnbeardy said:


> Title and caption did happen after almost as long, but abandon all hope for keywords, Mark.


To be honest, not having synced keywords doesn't really bother me as I will continue to use LR Classic as my main tool. What bothers me is that there clearly something wrong with what it does at the moment which creates an untidy mess in LR CC.

If they had designed it so that it did not sync any keywords at all from LR Classic to LR CC then fine, but tell us that is how it is designed.

If they had designed it to allow you a one and only chance of syncing your LR Classic keyword to LR CC then that is also fine but again tell us that it is designed that way and also tell exactly what we have to do (xmp file writing etc. in Classic) to make the keywords sync properly during our one and only chance.

I have absolutely no intention of trying to re keyword everything in LR CC. With the limited tool that would take years. So I am faced with either tiding up the keywords that have got messed up. In some cases LR CC has synced keywords that are not in my photo in LR Classic but are somehow liked via the parent / child set up. That would mean some Albums have keywords and others don't.

Alternatively for complete tidiness I can just delete all keywords in LR CC.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 28, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> If they had designed it so that it did not sync any keywords at all from LR Classic to LR CC then fine, but tell us that is how it is designed.
> 
> If they had designed it to allow you a one and only chance of syncing your LR Classic keyword to LR CC then that is also fine but again tell us that it is designed that way and also tell exactly what we have to do (xmp file writing etc. in Classic) to make the keywords sync properly during our one and only chance.



As we said earlier in the thread, Mark, we don't know if the current behaviour is working as designed, is a loophole (unintended consequence of initial sync from Classic to LRCC) or an outright bug (i.e. is not working as designed). Until we get clarity from Adobe about that, it would be wrong to publish a definitive "this is how you can work the two apps together, and these are the downsides/consequences" guide, because we don't know how definitive it would be.

There IS a more official "one and only chance of syncing keywords from Classic to LRCC", and that's by using the Migration Tool in LRCC to migrate your catalog. But that really is meant to be a "one way ticket", designed to be used when making a 100% switch from Classic to LRCC.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 29, 2017)

Ok I did another test.

I deleted everything from LR cc and de synced everything. I then re - synced 2 of the albums which when I had previously synced no keywords were synced to LR cc at all. This time one of the albums properly synced with all keywords and the other had no keywords at all, just like previously. 

What could still be causing this album not to sync the keywords ?


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 25, 2017)

Operating System: Win 10 Pro Creator

Lightroom Version: LR Classic & LR CC
_(Please go to Help menu > System Info to double check the exact version number)_

Question or Description of Problem:

Ok after all the initial fuss I finally got down to trying to sync between LR Classic and LR CC. I had read various posts about how to do this and how to do that and decided to give it a go myself.

In LR Classic I use my own filing system. "2017_10_25_ Home" is a typical folder in which my photos reside. This folder is inside a folder named after my camera, in this case "Canon 6D". So I went into LR CC and created a folder "Canon 6D" and inside that folder created another folder called "2017_10_25_ Home".

I went back to LR Classic and created a Collection Set called "Canon 6D" and inside that I created a Collection called "2017_10_25_ Home" with all the photos that reside in that folder. When creating this Collection the check box "Sync with LR CC" was already checked so I left it checked.

In LR CC it starts syncing nicely creating an album called "2017_10_25_ Home". However, the created album is outside of the folder called "Canon 6D", so I simply dragged it to that folder whilst it was syncing.

Hey presto everything syncs nicely !

The best part about this is that when you sync from LR Classic to LR CC the files are "Smart Preview" only, not the original files. This means that it does not count against your measly 20 GB allowance 

I do not understand what all the fuss has been about ! This seems like a fantastic bit of kit.

Now for my 200 + remaining files


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 29, 2017)

If you're sure that before trying to sync them you had done Ctrl+S to write to XMP, then I don't know why the metadata isn't syncing....so maybe these "methods" aren't supported by Adobe for a good reason.

Every test I've tried has worked, but my testing probably hasn't been exhaustive. Perhaps drop a couple of original files into Dropbox (or similar), and share the link. I'd be happy to try to figure out why it's not working.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 31, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> If you're sure that before trying to sync them you had done Ctrl+S to write to XMP, then I don't know why the metadata isn't syncing....so maybe these "methods" aren't supported by Adobe for a good reason.
> 
> Every test I've tried has worked, but my testing probably hasn't been exhaustive. Perhaps drop a couple of original files into Dropbox (or similar), and share the link. I'd be happy to try to figure out why it's not working.



Thanks for the offer Jim. I will post a link to some of the originals hopefully this evening.


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## MarkNicholas (Oct 31, 2017)

Here you go Jim and anyone else who wants to try.

https://derisleyconsultancyservices...1Ueoig3hTg&e=8bfc12cf6cd04d55969397b626c2141d


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 31, 2017)

Thanks Mark, but couldn't see any problem when I synced after importing. Both images in LRCC display the correct number of keywords and the Location data that was stored in the XMP sidecars. Tried on two different systems, same expected result on both. 

I can't therefore explain why that data is not syncing for you. Have you tried removing the two images from sync and then re-syncing?


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## MarkNicholas (Nov 1, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> Thanks Mark, but couldn't see any problem when I synced after importing. Both images in LRCC display the correct number of keywords and the Location data that was stored in the XMP sidecars. Tried on two different systems, same expected result on both.
> 
> I can't therefore explain why that data is not syncing for you. Have you tried removing the two images from sync and then re-syncing?



Thanks for trying. Yes I have tried completely de-syncing and re-syncing with the same result. Never mind lets see how (and if) things develop.


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## MarkNicholas (Nov 1, 2017)

I am going to try one more thing. I have LR on my laptop which I only use for photos when I’m on holiday. I have already upgraded it to Lr Classic and installed LR cc so I will try to sync those photos with LR cc from there.


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## MarkNicholas (Nov 2, 2017)

MarkNicholas said:


> I am going to try one more thing. I have LR on my laptop which I only use for photos when I’m on holiday. I have already upgraded it to Lr Classic and installed LR cc so I will try to sync those photos with LR cc from there.



Ok I couldn’t do that because apparently I can only sync from 1 catalog. As a last resort I de-synced, deleted the collection and removed the offending photos from lightroom and then re-imported them, re-created the collection and re-synced.....and finally all the keywords synced


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## MarkNicholas (Nov 3, 2017)

I did the same with the album that was syncing unwanted additional keywords and that has resolved itself too. So I am back on track creating collections and syncing to LR CC to replicate my folder structure in LR Classic.


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