# Deleting photos from Lightroom CC cloud but keep the Sync and originals



## Juju

Hi, I am extremely new to Lightroom CC but have been using Lightroom 5 and using an expired trial of Lightroom Classic.  I am in the midst of deciding whether I should and how to use Lightroom going forward.  I am now in my trial period of Lightroom CC.  For some reason, I decided to use the Catalog migration tool and migrated my photos to Lightroom CC (and hence the cloud), exhausting my trial 1 TB worth of cloud storage (my total photo volume is around 1.1 TB over 145,000 photos).  I think I will subscribe to the Photography Plan (20GB) using Lightroom Classic as my main edit and photo management tool and use Lightroom CC as a means to edit photos I take on my phone on the go.  My questions are:

1) Now that my photos are on the cloud, how do I delete them so that I will free up the cloud storage when my storage goes back to 20GB when I subscribe to the Photography Plan?
2) Right now, my Lightroom CC looks nice with all my collections at the side.  If I delete the photos from the cloud, will these collections still be there without the originals in the cloud?  Or do I need to sync each collection manually one by one from Lightroom Classic so that the previews can go to Lightroom CC?
3)  I can't see all the photos in my Lightroom CC app on my Android phone, but I figure that is because of my cloud storage being maxed out.
4) What should my workflow be going forward if I manage to resolve the issues above?  I take photos with my phone most of the time and currently import them to my Lightroom Classic via Dropbox.  How do I directly sync them to my Lightroom Classic going forward?  Where are the photos synced to?
Most important to me is that none of the actions above should affect my photos in my Lightroom Classic.

Any help or comments on any or all of the above questions would be greatly appreciated!

Juju


----------



## Victoria Bampton

Hi Juju, welcome to the forum!



Juju said:


> 1) Now that my photos are on the cloud, how do I delete them so that I will free up the cloud storage when my storage goes back to 20GB when I subscribe to the Photography Plan?


To delete the cloud contents, go to Photo Editor | Online Photoshop Lightroom, tap the  LR icon top left > Account Info > Delete Lightroom Library - but be aware that it'll delete everything in Lightroom CC so double check there aren't any photos in there that aren't also in Lightroom Classic.



Juju said:


> 2) Right now, my Lightroom CC looks nice with all my collections at the side.  If I delete the photos from the cloud, will these collections still be there without the originals in the cloud?  Or do I need to sync each collection manually one by one from Lightroom Classic so that the previews can go to Lightroom CC?


The whole lot would be wiped when you clear the cloud, but any organization you already had in Classic would still be in Classic. If you've done a load of work in CC, you can go ahead and subscribe to Classic, and it should sync down the changes before you clear the cloud, but just double check that with chat support staff at Adobe, as going from CC to Classic isn't as well documented as the other way round..



Juju said:


> 3)  I can't see all the photos in my Lightroom CC app on my Android phone, but I figure that is because of my cloud storage being maxed out.


That would make sense, yes.



Juju said:


> 4) What should my workflow be going forward if I manage to resolve the issues above?  I take photos with my phone most of the time and currently import them to my Lightroom Classic via Dropbox.  How do I directly sync them to my Lightroom Classic going forward?  Where are the photos synced to?


That's where it gets a bit more messy, because Classic isn't a full sync client. It has some legacy sync features, but sync can also be quite buggy. But, if you decide to go that route, you'd enable sync by clicking the ID Plate in Classic, and you can set where they sync down to in Preferences > Lightroom Sync tab.

One other option to consider - are all of the 1.1TB photos good enough to want to keep? If I need to reduce my cloud space, I move the 1 star photos to a folder on the hard drive (by Save To > Original format) and remove them from CC. Chances are, I'll never want to see them again, but I can't quite bring myself to delete them completely.


----------



## Juju

Many thanks Victoria, your responses were extremely helpful!  You would be the main reason why I will continue to use Lightroom (I was planning to switch to ON1).
Few more questions:
1) How do I sync all my collections in my Lightroom Classic to Lightroom CC in one go?  Right now, I am just ticking the sync checkbox at the side of each collection one by one to sync each collection.
2) Does it make sense for me to even sync all or most of my collections to Lightroom CC?  I have about 145k photos and maybe a few hundred collections.  I understand they won't take up too much cloud space as I am not uploading the originals to the clouds (I only have 20GB storage).  Will syncing the photos/collections slow down my Lightroom Classic (or any other "side effects")?  Will CC be very slow every time I open it on my phone or computer just because I have synced 145k photos?
3) If I add new photos to any collections in Classic AFTER I have synced them to CC, will these new photos be synced / seen in CC?
4) Separate question on Lightroom Classic:  How do I export ALL the photos I have ever made adjustments to so that they reside side by side with the respective original photos and collections?  I am planning to use a Smart Collection search by "adjustments" to identify which are the photos I have made adjustments to for the last 4 years (since I started using Lightroom).  I think I may have about 10k photos which I would need to export because there are some adjustments to them.


----------



## Victoria Bampton

Juju said:


> 1) How do I sync all my collections in my Lightroom Classic to Lightroom CC in one go?  Right now, I am just ticking the sync checkbox at the side of each collection one by one to sync each collection.


That's the way. You might also want to select all of the photos in the All Photographs view and drag them to the All Synced Photographs collection directly below. That'll pick up any photos that aren't in collections.



Juju said:


> 2) Does it make sense for me to even sync all or most of my collections to Lightroom CC?  I have about 145k photos and maybe a few hundred collections.  I understand they won't take up too much cloud space as I am not uploading the originals to the clouds (I only have 20GB storage).  Will syncing the photos/collections slow down my Lightroom Classic (or any other "side effects")?  Will CC be very slow every time I open it on my phone or computer just because I have synced 145k photos?


That should be fine, Classic only syncs up smart previews which don't count toward your quota. It can slow Lightroom down slightly if it tries to sync a photo when you pause editing or when editing metadata on tonnes of photos at once, but you can just pause sync. CC should be fine on your phone once it's finished syncing. 



Juju said:


> 3) If I add new photos to any collections in Classic AFTER I have synced them to CC, will these new photos be synced / seen in CC?


Only if you add them to a sync collection or to All Synced Photographs. If you don't usually add to a collection when importing, consider setting it to add them to an "inbox" collection that's set to sync.



Juju said:


> 4) Separate question on Lightroom Classic:  How do I export ALL the photos I have ever made adjustments to so that they reside side by side with the respective original photos and collections?  I am planning to use a Smart Collection search by "adjustments" to identify which are the photos I have made adjustments to for the last 4 years (since I started using Lightroom).  I think I may have about 10k photos which I would need to export because there are some adjustments to them.


No easy answer - Lightroom's not built to work like that. It's designed to export photos when you need it for a purpose rather than catalog the output files. You can find all the ones you've edited, and you can export all the ones you've edited, and you can reimport all the ones you've edited - but they won't get added to the collections.


----------



## Juju

Many thanks again for your clear response, super helpful!

For response to 1), if I drag all my photos in ALL Photographs ALL Synced Photographs as you suggested, would that create "duplicates" of those photos I already synced from my collections which I have check-boxed earlier?

For 4), I just realised already have exported all my photos with edits as a result of a failed migration process using the plug-in from ON1 Raw (which gave an option to migrate and make a copy of all photos with edits) and the exported photos are all residing in the respective folders of the originals, but of course I cant see them in Lightroom, since I have not re-imported them to Lightroom.  I don't suppose I can sync "folders" from my hard drive to Lightroom Classic without importing?

Going forward, can I just switch on the "Enable Auto Add" in the Lightroom CC (in my Android phone) and all the photos I take from my phone will be automatically synced to my Lightroom Classic?  Of course< I think they will be saved to my Adobe cloud which would count towards my 20GB and eventually I will have to delete all the photos from the cloud.

Thanks to your helpful responses, I am now ready to subscribe to the Photography Plan (20GB) but I just noticed I have to do an Annual subscription (ie penalty fee if I cancel within a year)?  Is there any way I can do a Monthly Plan (ie can cancel any time without penalty)?  I am based in Hong Kong.

Thanks again!


----------



## Victoria Bampton

For 1), no, it'll only mark additional photos for sync.

For 4), you'd still import, but just set it to ADD at the top of the import dialog.



Juju said:


> Going forward, can I just switch on the "Enable Auto Add" in the Lightroom CC (in my Android phone) and all the photos I take from my phone will be automatically synced to my Lightroom Classic?


Yep!!



Juju said:


> Is there any way I can do a Monthly Plan (ie can cancel any time without penalty)?  I am based in Hong Kong.


No, and if there was, it'd cost twice as much.


----------



## Juju

Many thanks Victoria for your comprehensive responses, and I am now signed on to the Photography, in large part due to the help you have given me (I was considering moving to other non-subscription based applications before).
After using the LR CC and LR C Mobile in conjunction with LR Classic, I encountered the following issues:

1) My workflow is still importing pictures from my phone and camera to LR Classic and then syncing that with LR CC and LR Mobile without uploading to cloud (since I have only 20GB cloud).  My issue is that I realised my videos from LR Classic (both new and old ones) are not syncing to either LR CC or Mobile.  What should I do?

2) I don't use the Auto Add function in LR Mobile.  But sometimes I do edit my photos on LR Mobile, in which case I guess I have no choice but to add them to LR Mobile first (hence using cloud space) and then saving the edited photos to my phone.  But these photos can't seem to sync with LR Classic (it says pending) on my desktop.  What is the issue?

Many thanks for your help again!


----------



## Victoria Bampton

Juju said:


> 1) My workflow is still importing pictures from my phone and camera to LR Classic and then syncing that with LR CC and LR Mobile without uploading to cloud (since I have only 20GB cloud).  My issue is that I realised my videos from LR Classic (both new and old ones) are not syncing to either LR CC or Mobile.  What should I do?


Classic can't sync videos to the cloud. It can sync them down from the cloud, but not up. If you need them in the cloud, you might want to rethink the order of the workflow, or upload them via Lightroom Web - but they'll gobble up your space quickly, as there's no such thing as smart previews for videos.



Juju said:


> 2) I don't use the Auto Add function in LR Mobile.  But sometimes I do edit my photos on LR Mobile, in which case I guess I have no choice but to add them to LR Mobile first (hence using cloud space) and then saving the edited photos to my phone.  But these photos can't seem to sync with LR Classic (it says pending) on my desktop.  What is the issue?


We'd need to know a bit more about that. Classic's Preferences dialog > Lightroom Sync tab should show the status at the bottom.


----------

