# Slow download



## guzzibob

Just got a new iPad and Lightroom Mobile. The first time I tried to download files from a collection it seemed to take forever. If LR is not actually downloading the complete file why does it take so long?


----------



## Victoria Bampton

How many files?  It should be downloading about 1.5 MB per photo.


----------



## clee01l

LRm will download from the Adobe Cloud storage.  Adobe Cloud storage needs to be first populated by Smart Previews from your local catalog.  These may need to be created before uploading to the Adobe Cloud storage.  This longer trip from your computer to the cloud to your iPad may be way your are experiencing.  The trip to your iPad from the cloud may be relatively fast once the images are stored in Adobe Cloud storage.


----------



## guzzibob

Victoria Bampton said:


> How many files?  It should be downloading about 1.5 MB per photo.


At first I tried a catalog with forty files. It was taking so long to download I gave up, stopped the download and tried a catalog with eight files in it. This took about ten minutes. Should I be creating smart files first?


----------



## guzzibob

" This longer trip from your computer to the cloud to your iPad may be way your are experiencing."
Can you give me an idea how long it should take to download a catalog of forty files?


----------



## RogerB

guzzibob said:


> Can you give me an idea how long it should take to download a catalog of forty files?



That's difficult to answer without knowing what speed your link to the Internet is.  As Cletus outlined above, the files have to be uploaded to Adobe's servers before they can be downloaded to your iPad. If you have a high speed cable or fibre link then it will all happen more quickly than if you're using a dial up modem.  In my case the fastest option currently available to me is ADSL over my landline, which is approx 0.5Mbps uplink and 8Mbps downlink.  A folder of four hundred images takes about four hours to fully synchronise with the iPad.

The synchronising speed is one of the more frustrating aspects of LR mobile, hopefully a future version may allow some local caching over home networks and populate the Adobe servers in the background. That might introduce some technical challenges however...


----------



## Victoria Bampton

Go to http://lightroom.adobe.com and check they've all uploaded.


----------



## guzzibob

Thanks for all the help, guess I'll give it a try for a bit and see if it's worth it for me. 
Ailso, when the trial runs out , what does the 10.00$ buy? Is it just LR mobile?


----------



## clee01l

guzzibob said:


> Thanks for all the help, guess I'll give it a try for a bit and see if it's worth it for me.
> Ailso, when the trial runs out , what does the 10.00$ buy? Is it just LR mobile?


 The $10USD/mo buys you a subscription to LR and all future versions, PhotoshopCC (as long as the subscription remains in effect) LRm cloud storage, and Adobe CC Cloud storage (a separate storage)  There are cloud storage limits, but they are reasonably plenty.


----------



## mbeast40

Hey. For what it's worth, I get variable speeds for downloading to the iPad. I have 162 collections and over 18,000 images on the iPad and I've been using LR Mobile since it came out. When I'm syncing a new collection, I usually flag it for Offline use so the iPad attempts to download all of the images.
I find that I get about 1-3 images per second at home (55 Mbps cable) but at work (much more bandwidth but shared with 800 other users) I get about 3-5 seconds per image. In both cases, my LightRoom desktop at home has already loaded the smart previews to Adobe so I'm not waiting on it.
I investigated briefly and the network guys at work figure it's our firewall interrogating the payloads and taking more time so slowing the downloads but at home it's clear sailing.
So, long story shortened - your download to the iPad will be dependant on all of your Internet speed connection, latency (like through a corporate network), what's in between (firewalls, proxies, etc.), and, of course, congestion on your end (if any).

It's worth the wait though. Once the images are accessible on the iPad, online or offline, updates sync'd back and forth are quick. And the power of LR Mobile is great. I couldn't live without it now.


----------



## Victoria Bampton

That's an interesting bit of information, thanks mbeast40!


----------

