# LR and Google Drive - import



## Luc (Aug 31, 2014)

Hi,

just joined this forum and I have, maybe a silly, question about using LR and Google Drive. 

Indulge me to elaborate a bit on my workflow: I use google drive to store my pictures in the cloud so what i do first is upload them to GD.
Since i have the GD desktop application that syncs with GD i pointed LR to my GD folder on the desktop. So far so good but the problem is that the GD folder on my desktop takes up a lot of space (i have about 20000 pictures on GD cloud). As i understand it i can just delete the GD desktop folder to free space without affecting the online storage. 

But now comes my question: is there a way/trick to point LR to GD cloud so LR syncs/imports with GD cloud? I tried Auto Import but that just gives me the error that the Auto Import folder must be empty to start using it which is not what I want because I have set up GD cloud with a complete folder structure.

So to cut things short .... point LR to my GD cloud folder in order to have new pictures imported automatically can be done?

Looking forward to any advice


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## clee01l (Aug 31, 2014)

Welcome to the forum .  Take a look at this thread http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...an-locally-but-still-access-them-in-lightroom  It addresses a similar issue.

You want to import from the Cloud,  Normal imports copy files from the Target source to a destination folder that is locally attached or on the local network.  I think what you are wanting is to use the "Add" option to add the file in place so that the source folder and the target folder are the same.  I believe it is possible to map the Google Drive to a Drive letters as you would any other network drive.  I have done this with Microsoft's SkyDrive (OneDrive) and I suppose it can be done with Google Drive too.  
The solution may again need to be WebDAV.

Here is a  possible solution: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGRZ6YhwdI


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## Luc (Sep 1, 2014)

Hi Cletus,

I apologize for the late reply ... the youtube video was exactly was I was looking for. Worked just fine and I have mapped SME. 

Just a quick question:

Adding the SME as a new folder into LR is easy but I suppose after doing that I need to delete the GD folder from within LR and for last delete the GD folder from my system, correct?

greetz


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## clee01l (Sep 1, 2014)

Folders in LR are a reflection do the filesystem (explorer in your case) Any folders deleted from the folder panel will be deleted from the filesystem *IF* the folder is empty.


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## Luc (Sep 2, 2014)

Ok. In this case the LR folder is isn't empty so I indeed need to separately delete the Gd on my system.


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