# Should I put LR Catalog etc on OneDrive



## Richard Flack (Mar 18, 2019)

Im moving to a new PC with Win 10.  I'm still struggling with its file structure.   
I have C: on internal SSD, and D: is internal HDD.
Having just finished the LR install, I see that the catalog etc is on  C:\Users\Richard\OneDrive\Pictures\Lightroom
Is this counterproductive?  Wouldnt I get better performance by having the catalog etc on a folder that is not sync'd?
I don't really do much work on multiple devices.   Typically, my working method is to upload from camera to desktop library etc, do LR work, and then export specific collections or whatever for sharing.   I do no 'permanent' LR work on mobile devices.  [On a vacation I may upload from camera to iphone on temporary basis but often as not I just use ios for quick edits etc]

I'm thinking I should create a  C:\Users\Richard\Pictures\Lightroom ... folder to keep it away from OneDrive.


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## Piper (Mar 18, 2019)

Good question. I have been having the same concern. I just moved to a new laptop with W10 and had to purchase Microsoft with One Drive. It only  allows  5GB and my cat.lrcat Backup is 9.5GB. 
Presently I download to an external HD and backup my catalog to my C: drive.
I don't really want to buy more space unless it is highly recommended by an expert. Mabe another backup system would be better.


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## Richard Flack (Mar 18, 2019)

Piper said:


> Good question. I have been having the same concern. I just moved to a new laptop with W10 and had to purchase Microsoft with One Drive. It only  allows  5GB and my cat.lrcat Backup is 9.5GB.
> Presently I download to an external HD and backup my catalog to my C: drive.
> I don't really want to buy more space unless it is highly recommended by an expert. Mabe another backup system would be better.


That's another consideration I hadnt thought of.  I was thinking of speed of access etc.
I really don't have my head around the whole "This PC" aspect of Windows 10 and some folders being under OneDrive and some not.


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## Califdan (Mar 18, 2019)

I'm not a big fan of One Drive as a backup solution, especially if it has a 5gb limit before you have to pay more.   You may want to look at other options for cloud based backup.  There are many on the market at very reasonable prices.  CrashPaln, Backblaze, Acronis, iDrive, to name a few.  Look for one that has unlimited storage for a flat annual fee, includes backup of external drives without an extra fee and uses incremental, de-dup, or block level technology.  That last part means that it only has to ship 2k or 4k portions of files (blocks) that have changed, not the entire file.   Like Time Machine and File History, this technology also permits reverting to prior versions without eating um massive amounts of disk space.


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## Richard Flack (Mar 20, 2019)

I'm not planning on using any form of Cloud backup.   I use StorageCraft Shadowprotect with frequent incremental backups to (rotating) external hard drive. ( I would say that Im not so good at the drive rotation as I should be).
OneDrive would be for sharing with mobile devices, but as Ive indicated, Im sceptical about continual sharing (versus specific export / import) and performance impact.

I've started trying to read up on OneDrive in Windows 10 and the 'shadow folders', its a very confusing concept to me (having the same name so Im nver quite sure where 'Desktop' is.   Also the file hierarchy appears to show "This PC' as UNDER Desktop which makes no sense.  

To me the hierarchy should go

This PC
...Users
........Me
.............Desktop  (and a Property would show if syncd or not and to where)

OneDrive
....Me
........Desktop-onedrive

etc .  Or something like that

This is getting beyond LR issues I probably need to find a Windows forum.


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## Umberto Cocca (Mar 20, 2019)

If the only reason you share with one drive is to send pictures to mobile devices, have you considered installing LRCC on the mobile devices and syncronizing the collections you want to? 

Sent using Tapatalk


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## BobT (Jan 27, 2021)

Umberto Cocca said:


> If the only reason you share with one drive is to send pictures to mobile devices, have you considered installing LRCC on the mobile devices and syncronizing the collections you want to?
> 
> Sent using Tapatalk


So if you have LRCC on a mobile device, will that sync with a LR catalogue on OneDrive or does the catalogue need to be on the Adobe cloud?


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## tspear (Jan 27, 2021)

The impact of having Lr in the onedrive folder will be the data will be copied to the net. It will use so little COU, Memory and disk resources you will not notice. Depending on the speed of your inet connection you may notice the sync.

Otherwise, unless you want to share the catalog with another computer (this has all sorts of caveats, so ask before you consider it), there is no value to having it in OneDrive except it makes easy to switch to a new computer.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk


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## clee01l (Jan 27, 2021)

BobT said:


> So if you have LRCC on a mobile device, will that sync with a LR catalogue on OneDrive or does the catalogue need to be on the Adobe cloud?


Lightroom (cloudy) syncs to the Adobe cloud.   Any images in the Adobe cloud are available to any mobile device running Lightroom (cloudy).  Lightroom Web is a browser based web link to the Adobe cloud.  All of the images in the Adobe cloud  can be accessed via your browser from any device with an internet connection.  
You can put images into the Adobe Cloud by syncing one or more LrC collections to the cloud.  This is how you can share images from your LrC catalog to mobile devices running Lightroom (cloudy) or to any browser with the right Lightroom for the Web link.


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## BobT (Feb 5, 2021)

For what it's worth, I uploaded a small catalogue + images into OneDrive.  It seemed to work OK so I tried the same with my main catalogue which has thousands of images.  I had a few glitches and heart stopping moments so quickly back pedalled and put the catalogue back on the hard drive.  The data I left in the cloud.  There were issues with some file pointers that now needed to be redirected.  Perhaps if I had sorted that out, it might have been fine but I couldn't take that risk.  After all LR6 was never meant to run in the cloud.
For quicker down loads and additional data security, I set the OneDrive folder at "Always keep on this device".  I had previously backed up to an internal drive using Windows and another mirror backup to an external drive using SyncBackPro.  With the data now in the cloud, it's pretty secure... or so I think, so I've dispensed with the external drive backup.  However, I found that using SyncBackPro, I can easily do scheduled mirror backups of the OneDrive data to the internal drive.  So, in the event of my Microsoft account going up in smoke, I still have everything on a hard drive.
So far so good.


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