# Migrating from LR Classic to LR and collections/Albums



## newmoon (Nov 4, 2021)

I use LR Classic (latest version) and want to migrate to LR with the plan of mainly using an IPad but also using a desktop.
My photographs in Classic are stored in Date folders that are subfolders of year photos. So I have a list of folders from 2004-2021 and in each folder ‘2021’ there are folders such as ‘2021.07.26 Coast’ format folders.
As Folders don’t exist in LR I created a Collection ‘2021’ and sub collections under ‘2021’ that mimicked the date format folders.
When I look at what have synced in LR the main collection ‘2021’ isn’t there so I just have all the sub folders.
This isn’t a migrate, just syncing to see what happens.
Can I have sub collections in LR please? Thanks.


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 4, 2021)

When you say you created  "a Collection '2021' and sub-collections...." that really means you created a "Collection *Set*" called "2021" and then created Collections below that. There are no such thing as "sub-collections", there are only Collection Sets and Collections. You CAN have sub-Collections Sets, but not sub-collections. And only Collections can sync to the cloud, the Collections Sets do not sync, which is why you only see your "sub-collections" appearing as Albums in the cloud. You can replicate the Collections Sets  in the cloud (they're called Folders there), but that has to be done manually in Lightroom.

However, the good news is that Collections Sets are automatically converted to Folders during the Catalog Migration procedure, so any existing Collection Sets and associated Collections will migrate to the same Folder/Album structure.

More good news....there's an option in Lightroom Classic to create a Collection Set/Collection hierarchy from an existing set of Folders and Sub-folders, so if you do that prior to migration you could end up with your current folder structure converted to the Folder/Album structure when you migrate.

One caveat: there a limit to the number of hierarchy levels that can be migrated (I think it's four), so if you convert your folders/sub-folders to Collection Sets/Collection, try to ensure the number of hierarchy levels doesn't get too high.


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## newmoon (Nov 4, 2021)

Hi Jim,
Thank you and you are correct I meant Collection Sets, I wrote the post on my phone without access to the desktop.
I've created 3 years' of collections/collection sets so far (manually, one at a time!), but having seen what you have written I've checked and I can just right click on the year folder and create a collection set, which cuts the time involved to around 1/100,000 of doing each sub folder manually! Thank you.
If I have the photographs in Albums in LR and have to replicate Collection Sets as Folders in the Cloud, that's relatively straightforward, especially if I can drag multiple albums into a folder (I am not at the stage where I can test this yet).
Thanks again.


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## clee01l (Nov 4, 2021)

In Lightroom you can sort on capture date and you don’t need a collection or collection set to isolate. You can also add a year value for a keyword


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