# Classic deleted CC cloud Originals!



## Nathaniel Coalson (May 21, 2018)

I had 110 images captured with iPhone and the originals uploaded and fully synced into CC cloud.

All these photos were accessible via LR Mobile, CC Desktop and via the LR Web interface. No problems.

Later, when Classic attempted to Sync these photos into my desktop catalog, they did not sync and instead showed as Missing.

I tried all the obvious solutions - logging out and back in, running Synchronize Folder, pausing and resuming Sync, etc. I even shot a new photo, ,which synced just fine. But nothing fixed the broken sync files, and the images all remained showing as Missing. (And smart previews were not on the local disk, etc.)

Then I made what turned out to be a fatal mistake - I used the Remove Photos command to remove them from the Classic catalog, hoping that would force a CC resync.

But now the Originals are completely gone from my Adobe Cloud account. Gone from CC Desktop, Lr Mobile and Lr Web.

It is as if I ran the Delete photos command from within the CC app. Except, I didn't.

Something went wrong during the sync that created a condition whereby removing them from the Classic catalog actually deleted the images from the Cloud.

(And, in fact, there was a dialog that specifically stated that deleting them was not possible because they 'were on a volume that is offline' etc.) I made a screen shot just before executing the Remove command; see attached.

Now I have no access to those images, and no backups because they should have remained in the Cloud.

This isn't supposed to happen... and the images are irreplaceable.

Really bummed about this. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Nat


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## Jim Wilde (May 21, 2018)

All you can do is try to find those images on your local system, i.e. try to find out why they were listed as "missing". One of the rules when you have a Classic catalog sync-enabled, as yours is, is that any synced image that is then "unsynced" will be deleted from the cloud.....and you can "unsync" an image in various ways in Classic, and of course one of the ways is to remove any synced images from the catalog, which is unfortunately what you did. That message you received simply means that as the images are "missing" Classic cannot physically delete them from the hard drive, but removal of the images from the catalog still occurs, thus they are then deleted from the cloud.

As they are gone from the cloud, the only place they can exist now is either on the local system or, if you didn't use the LRmobile's camera app on the phone, they may still be on the phone. So that comes back to why they were "missing", which typically can only happen if the images are renamed, moved, or deleted outside Lightroom. Have you tried searching the local hard drives to see if you can find them?


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## Nathaniel Coalson (May 22, 2018)

Jim, thanks for the great explanation and advice. This behavior is a bit different than I understood it to be in the early days of CC development but, I guess, makes some kind of sense.

Fortunately, I did actually find a backup from an earlier clone of the drive, apparently just after Classic had synced/downloaded the images.

The key takeaway here, for me, is that the Classic catalog can and does directly affect originals on the Cloud server, especially as the sync status is concerned. I don't like the way this works but at least can watch out for it.

Thanks again!

PS–I never did find out why they were missing in the first place!


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## Jim Wilde (May 22, 2018)

Well, good to hear you had a backup of those images!!


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## RikkFlohr (May 22, 2018)

Always remember with Lightroom Classic, the truth is the catalog on your desktop. 
With the Lightroom CC Ecosystem, the truth is in the cloud. 

Lightroom Classic CC may have great limitations in the cloud-based ecosystem but it also has great power, as you've found out.


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