# Question about backups and storage with LR CC



## fbx33 (Oct 23, 2019)

Hey--

I'm a long time LR Classic user. Have 6 full backups of my almost 30K photos -- Backblaze, Time Machine, Daily CCC  Backup, 3CCC backups on SSDs (diff dates). If I switch to Lightroom CC, how do I update all backups so that they reflect future changes, additions & subtractions to/from base LR CC collection?

I do not want to have just one set of all photos in cloud. Prefer to have all on my Mac and through the Mac to all connected backup services.


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 23, 2019)

Set the “store a copy of all originals locally” checkbox in preferences, and then you can back up those photos in as many ways as you like, just as you did with Classic.


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## fbx33 (Oct 24, 2019)

OK, I got that, and thanks for the speedy reply.

One more question--if I uncheck  “store a copy of all originals locally” is there any way to keep a backup of all full size photos in LR CC in the cloud? 

I was thinking that if I could backup directly from the cloud to a local SSD, the first backup would take forever, but subsequent backups wouldn't take long at all because of only a few selected changes would need to be backed up. And I would save much space on my internal HD (512GB on MacBook Pro 2018).

So is it possible to backup directly from Adobe cloud to local SSD?

Thanks again--


fbx


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 24, 2019)

I'm not quite following that question. Maybe rephrase?

No need to worry about the space on the internal drive, as you can just plug in an external drive for the "store a copy of all originals locally" location.


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## fbx33 (Oct 24, 2019)

Thanks very much for the quick reply. You may have supplied an answer I wasn’t expecting. I just attached an external SSD and reset the LR CC application to “store a copy of originals” on that. If that works it totally solves my issue, as I can, from time to time, backup that SSD to others, thus making a number of backups of all photos in their then current states, and saving the internal HD space into the bargain.

It may have been an error, but earlier today I punched the “migrate” button to migrate my LR Classic files to LR CC, so some of the “local copies of originals” were already put on (or saved on) where they were originally (for use by LR Classic). Now I have reset the location as stated above for the new external SSD, and I’ll leave it overnight and see if it starts putting copies of originals on that external drive.

Again, thanks very much for your help. This is a great and informative site and I thank you for doing it.

FB


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## johnbeardy (Oct 24, 2019)

Brave of you to hit that migrate button!

In my view Adobe haven't really thought about user-controlled backup with LRCC.  While I haven't checked for some time, the local originals setting doesn't include any metadata, so you cannot properly backup the work you've done or recover from a mistake. 

Deletions in the cloud apps are automatically reflected in the locally-stored copies, so make sure your backup services kick in immediately. You can't go to an old version of the catalogue to check what photos you might have accidentally deleted - the best you can do is look in the Deleted Items collection (which took them around 18 months to add).

In my view, local storage is OK if you want to work with originals when offline, but it is not really suitable for backup of originals. If you really want to use Cloudy Lightroom as you main tool and have proper independent backup, use Classic Lightroom too. It will sync down originals, and it won't replicate your deletions.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Oct 24, 2019)

johnbeardy said:


> If you really want to use Cloudy Lightroom as you main tool and have proper independent backup, use Classic Lightroom too. It will sync down originals, and it won't replicate your deletions.


I haven't tried Cloudy since the initial version... have they fixed it so all originals and sizes of originals loaded in CC can sync down into Classic?  That's big news for me if so.  I thought there were limits, and in some cases you just got smart previews. 

Lack of well thought out backup and lack of integrity checks in the cloud uploads were one of the deal killers for me for Cloudy.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 24, 2019)

Ferguson said:


> I haven't tried Cloudy since the initial version... have they fixed it so all originals and sizes of originals loaded in CC can sync down into Classic?  That's big news for me if so.  I thought there were limits, and in some cases you just got smart previews.


I don't understand what you mean....Cloudy has always uploaded in orginal format any images added to any of the Cloudy apps, and the sync-enabled Classic catalog has always downloaded all such images in the same original format. Smart Previews come into play only if you sync images FROM Classic to the cloud, i.e. Classic does not upload original files, only SPs.


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## fbx33 (Oct 24, 2019)

Over my head--

So I hit "Migrate" yesterday, and now it seems like all pictures are in LRCC. All seem to be marked Synced and Stored locally--as below.

Also, when in LR Classic (which remains on my internal drive on MBPro 2018) I see this in addition to my previous list in Folders:




where all the new folders (except a couple) are empty as shown and the "All Photographs" folder still contains all of my photos (27,566). 
What are all these new folders? Can they be deleted?

And lastly--

Can I delete all the photos in LR Classic and still have all photos in LRCC online and in the backup I made to external drive (via the  "store a copy of all originals locally" that I set up last night and which today shows 150 GB of photos in these folders on my external SSD:



Thanks for all attention and help. It is much appreciated. I am still not certain that this is what I want to do long term, but am determined to give it a few days worth of trial in any case.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Oct 24, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> I don't understand what you mean


Let me do some reading first, I've forgotten the details and it's not helping the OP I think... ignore this diversion please.


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## fbx33 (Oct 25, 2019)

Thanks to all for the replies. After some mucking about I have reconsidered and given up moving to LRCC.  

I now seem to have originals both in cloud and on my Mac. And I am not clear what i should do to revert to LR CLASSIC as main system, with files synced to Cloud for connection to iPad and to get iPhone photos automatically brought into LR CLASSIC.

I have multiple backups if that would be the best route — I.e., delete everything and start over, importing from recent backup of LR CLASSIC.

Or should LR Classic still be essentially what it was before I hit “migrate” (this is what it looks like to me).

Thx.
1138


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## johnbeardy (Oct 25, 2019)

fbx33 said:


> And I am not clear what i should do to revert to LR CLASSIC as main system, with files synced to Cloud for connection to iPad and to get iPhone photos automatically brought into LR CLASSIC.


Very little. Assuming everything is in Classic Lightroom (check this!), as a minimum you'd just stop importing anything into Cloudy Lightroom.  Take a good look at the catalogue before migrate - take your time.

You could leave originals in the cloud, or unsync all the collections until nothing is left in All Synced Photos. This removes originals from the cloud, and you can sync the collections again, which syncs smart previews to LR iOS and Cloudy.


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## fbx33 (Oct 26, 2019)

Dear Patient Observers:  After trying to "migrate" to LRCC, then deleting all photos in LRCC and setting LR Classic to "Sync" with the newly empty LR CC, I have done the following:

(a) Migrated all originals to LRCC

(b) Made a copy of all originals from LR CC to external SSD connected to MBPro

(c) messed about a bit and decided I didn't want the hassle of LR CC

(d) deleted all images in LRCC,

(e) set up syncing from LR Classic to LRCC

(f) seem to have Smart Previews Only in "Cloud" in LRCC (see "Sync Status" panel below)

(g) seem to have full size pix in LR Classic (internal SSD) as viewed in Finder (6000x4000 for Sony a6000, 4032x3024 for iPhone SX, 5472x3648 for Sony RX100 vi, etc)

(h) have external 512 SSD with all originals (from a previous "Store originals at specified location" when I had imported all originals into LRCC)

(i) have this Sync Status panel in LRCC stating "Local" is "Smart Preview" which I don't think it is (see item (d) above) and where RX100 vi photos are about 11 MB and iPhone SX landscapes are shown as 2.9 MB



My sense is that all I have to do is forget/remove the external drive and go forward with the LR Classic setup I had before, which now seems pretty much unchanged from what it was (it amts to about 142 GB when backed up using CCC to a different external SSD).

Before I congratulate myself for ending up here I thought I might ask folks to look at this and see if I'm making wrong-headed assumptions from this so-called evidence.

Thanks for watching this program.

PS: Is there somewhere in LR CLASSIC that tells you whether a given picture is an "original" or a "smart preview"?


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 26, 2019)

I think maybe you are mis-interpreting some of the "evidence", so to clarify:

1. When you migrate a catalog from Classic to the Cloud, the Cloudy app first copies all the original files in Classic to its own dedicated area on a local drive (the location will either be the default area on the local system drive, or the location you may have specified in the Cloudy preferences for the locally stored originals). Once that migration is complete, Cloudy has no further connection to the original Classic catalog, and that catalog and all the associated original images remain untouched. You can continue to use that Classic catalog as usual, though re-enabling sync is not advised for as long as the cloud copy of those originals is being managed by Cloudy.

2. Re your point d), deleting all the cloud images would have no effect on the Classic catalog and its images. In theory, deleting the cloud images should also delete the locally stored copy managed by the Cloudy app, though it's possible they wouldn't be deleted immediately as all the originals that you deleted in the cloud are in fact placed into the "cloud trash can" for up to 60 days, so possibly the locally stored copies are retained until the originals in the cloud are fully deleted from the trash. I haven't tested that though, perhaps someone else has.

3. Re your point e), there's a bit of information missing here. "Set up syncing between Classic and the Cloud" means what, exactly? Once you have enabled sync in Classic, nothing will be synced to the cloud unless/until you enable that process.....Classic allows for selective sync, i.e. you can enable existing/new collections to sync, so all the images in that collection will sync, or you can add images to an already synced collection, or you can simply add images to the "All Synced Photographs" special collection in Classic's Catalog Panel. Until you do some of that, nothing will sync.

4. Re your points f) and i), it would seem that you have indeed already synced some images from Classic to Cloud. When you sync images from Classic, only a Smart Preview of those originals is uploaded.....thus Cloudy will reflect that fact that only a Smart Preview exists in the cloud (for ease of identification, the sync status icon in the Grid in the Cloudy app will be "hatched", not solid, for Smart Previews). So why are you questioning this? Are you suggesting that you haven't synced anything from Classic to the Cloud since you deleted all the Cloud contents? What is the photo count of the All Synced Photographs collection?

Re the final question: under the Histogram in both Library and Develop modules you will see an indicator when you select an image which tells you the status of the selected image. If a smart preview has been generated by the user, you will see "Original + Smart Preview". However, this indicator does not in any way relate to any Smart Preview which is synced up to the Cloud....understand that in terms of cloud syncing, all synced images in Classic (be that synced up to the cloud, or down from the cloud) will always be in the original format.


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## fbx33 (Oct 26, 2019)

Jim Wilde--1000 thanks for this exhaustive, detailed and understandable response. I will read again several times as I try to undo what I've already done. But rest assured this is the most satisfying and helpful note on this subject I've ever found. Very much appreciated.

fb


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## fbx33 (Oct 28, 2019)

Trying now to remove all remnants of LR CC from my HD (in preparation for starting over or not) I have uninstalled CC from the Adobe Creative Cloud app. I find still on my HD the following --




I think this is the LR CC use of my local HD showing the most recent install, and two prior installs (10/24 and 7/17) each of which amounted to 10-15 GB as I recall. Can I just zap the entire "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary" folder and regain that space? 

And then, of course, if I want to re-migrate start from scratch?

Are we having fun yet?

Thx in advance--


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 28, 2019)

fbx33 said:


> Can I just zap the entire "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary" folder and regain that space?


Yes.


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