How to sync Lightroom Mobile to Lightroom Classic

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I just returned from a vacation in Florida, where I shot over a thousand images, and I don’t own a laptop, creating a problem.

How would I back up my images from the media card to ensure I didn’t lose any photos through theft or other means?

Well, what I did was I connected my camera directly to my iPad, and then I used the Lightroom app to transfer the files from the camera to the iPad, and I’m going to show you how to do that in just a second.

Once I had those backed up or transferred to the iPad, the cloud service automatically uploaded those files into the cloud.

So now I had three backups, which created another problem because I was very anxious to review the images and start editing, which I did once I got back home.

That’s when the problem started with trying to sync the Lightroom app with Lightroom Classic to transfer the files from the iPad to my computer. It didn’t work as expected.

So I will show you how to overcome that and sync your files with a mobile device with Lightroom Classic and download those files to your primary computer so you can work with them in Lightroom Classic.

So if you are ready, let’s do it.

Install Lightroom Mobile App & Connect to Your Camera

You can download Lightroom to your main computer and a mobile device with your Lightroom subscription.

Once that app is installed, you must find a cable connecting your camera and iPad.

Now, you may need to use an adapter like this where we have, in this case, USB that I can plug into on this side, and then I can connect to a USB-C connection.

On the other end, depending on your camera and the available connection types, you may need HDMI for your camera.

Download Media Files to iPad

Now, once you’ve connected your camera to the iPad, we need to turn on our camera so that Lightroom will recognize that there’s a device connected.

And then what you’re going to do is click on this first icon in the bottom right.

So this little blue button here, we have two icons.

Click on the first one, and then you will select from the camera device.

Then we’re going to click on this little box up here. So once you click that, it adds a checkmark and selects all the files on your media card.

Now we want to click on import at the bottom, and then Lightroom will automatically transfer the files from your media card to the iPad.

Once that’s done, we want to upload the files to the cloud so we have another backup, and then we can sync those to Lightroom Classic once we get back home.

Now, to upload to the cloud, we’re going to go back to the little cloud icon, and we’re going to click right here where it says resume syncing or syncing.

Depending on the version of Lightroom that you’re using. Once you do that, it’ll switch to pause syncing, which you can then pause the syncing if you need to.

But once you set it up like this, it will automatically begin uploading those files into the cloud.

Once it’s done doing that, you may decide to begin editing your images, which you can, and then once you get back home, you want to download or sync those files to Lightroom Classic.

Sync to Lightroom Classic

Now let’s jump into Lightroom Classic, and I’ll show you how to do that.

As I mentioned, once I got home, I had to click right here and then click on resume syncing or sync to begin syncing the files from the Lightroom mobile app into Lightroom Classic.

But it did absolutely nothing when I started the syncing process.

And that’s because, remember, we need to download the files from the cloud to our computer, and then Lightroom will also import the files into the Lightroom catalog.

So before we can download the files, we must tell Lightroom where to place those files.

So if we click on this little cog icon, that will open up preferences.

And then, you want to click on this option right here where it says to specify the location for Lightroom Synced Images. So you’re going to choose your folder from here.

Now, this creates another problem Elisa did for me, and that is it’s going to take all those images that have already been organized on the Lightroom mobile app, and it’s going to unorganized them.

So I’ve created albums in the Lightroom mobile app to organize those images by type of images and or by location.

I need to take all those files that are no longer organized in folders and reorganize them into folders, but there’s something we can do to make it easier.

And that’s by turning on used Subfolders, formatted by capture date.

And then, you can choose your date format right here.

So it’s going to create a folder called 2023, and then it’s going to make another subfolder based on the date of those images that were created at that time, and it will create new subfolders for each new date.

That helps organize the images.

So if we go ahead and close preferences and then turn on syncing, it will create those subfolders, which you can see right here.

I have 552 images I already went through, and I deleted many of those while I was on vacation.

That’s why there are not over a thousand, as I mentioned before.

And then, it creates a new subfolder for each date I created images on that specific date.

Okay, so now I can go in and say, okay, these are all in the same location, so I can right-click on this folder and rename it based on my naming structure for organizing my images.

I’m going to rename that folder later on because I want to keep where these owls are private. They are in southwest Florida; I’ll say that.

Okay, but we have another problem here on this date.

I created some images of these burrowing owls again, but I also went to a different location later in the day, and I believe this was at a wildlife park in Fort Myers.

So now I need to separate these images into two different separate folders.

Since I already have one folder of images here in the same location, I will select my first image.

I’m going to hold down my shift key, and I’m going to click on the last image to select that one and all the images in between.

Now, all I have to do is click and drag those over that folder where I want them placed, and it will move them on your hard drive from one folder to another.

Once I release it, I will get this little message stating that we will be moving the files on the disc, which will cause the corresponding files to be moved if you want to proceed.

Yes, I do.

So I will click move, and then Lightroom will move those from the folder on your hard drive to the other.

And now you can see I have more images in here, and all those images I selected are moved into this folder and removed from this one.

I know all these images are in the same location so I can rename this folder accordingly.

Now all I have to do is go through the other images folder, move them as needed, and rename the folders.

One last problem is that these subfolders are now inside this 2023 main folder.

I don’t want that. I want them to reside inside this top folder here, landscape and Wildlife, along with all the other folders I have here based on location.

So we’re going to do the same thing.

We will select the top folder, hold down our ship key, click on the last, and then click and drag to the top folder here.

That way, Lightroom will move all those subfolders into a new location.

Once you click on Move, it will move those images accordingly.

All right.

To continue elevating your Lightroom Classic skills, check out this free Lightroom Classic for a beginner’s course or this Lightroom editing playlist.

Parker
Parker
A 30-year photography pro with a desire to help you achieve your creative vision! Facebook | Youtube

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