Should " lightroom ecosystem photos" folder be displayed in lightroom panel

[Wallymah]

I moved my ecosystem folder to my D: and in preferences...and I can't remember...

Should it be displayed in the folders panel? Isn't it for lightroom reference only? Can I remove it from the panel?

Thanks

Wally

[richardplondon]

I am not certain what you mean by your "ecosystem" folder, but from context it sounds as if you are referring to the containing parent folder for all of your image folders. For example, I have a folder called "library" with all my various year based folders such as "2018" inside that. It's the ultimate target of my new imports and my single point of management for moving to a new drive / backup etc.

Assuming that's what you mean, it is your choice whether to show this in Folders or not - assuming there are no photos living directly within that, only subfolders.

Whenever you want to use it as a point of management, it needs to show.

To stop it showing you can right-click and choose "Hide this Parent". Your next level down folders, now become top level folders (so far as what is visible in LR).

To show it again, you can right-click on one of those current top level folders, and choose "show Parent".

[Wallymah]

To remove it would be a bad thing...maybe. It's crazy if you but in quotes "lightroom ecosystem photos folder" in all of googe and the internet I get.....my question, lol

So you are saying you do not have this folder in you panel?

In preferences it has default or asks for location of this mystery folder.

I know it is extremely important, but cannot find definitive from the mouth of the adobe gods what it is, how to control it, and how do you move it. I can't believe more people have not been more frustrated with this aspect of cc. I have a solid state. It ate it up for lunch.

Well haven't really heard much from anybody.... so I moved it to my external drive. I removed the folder from lightroom on internal. It had some thing like 9000 images and 30 gig.  Now it is only 467.

Should I synchronize it?? It's not officially "my folder" ….

Wally

[richardplondon]

OK, your mention of an option in Preferences gave a better clue - it refers to Lightroom CC's ecosystem (not Lightroom Classic itself).

To be sure, do you want to use only Lightroom Classic (for now)?

Or, do you want to combine Lightroom Classic (desktop based editing) with Lightroom CC (cloud based editing)?

If images are going to have to span across both products, I suppose LR Classic will need local storage for syncing and caching copies of cloud stuff - it won't be referencing that directly in the cloud, as LR CC does. Also in LR CC I think you can specify particular images, or perhaps Collections, to be locally stored.

There's a similar need around the Lightroom Mobile app also.

Personally I haven't got Lightroom CC installed at all, no such location is entered (not checked) in Lightroom Classic preferences, and no such location appears for me in the Folders panel. I do however use LR Mobile phone app a little, and I see besides my main data drive, another "volume" in Folders called Lightroom Web, and another representing my phone with some few images that are synced into my phone. in another way somehow But I would not feel comfortable about emptying / removing these without understanding what they are actually for - I agree information on these things is very thin and what little there is, is quite hand-wavy and obscure.

[Just Shoot Me]

To my knowledge, been using LR since Version One, there is no LR Ecosystem Photos folder.

If you are referring to the Previews folder please state that.

[Jim Wilde]

It's the description of the folder that contains the sync-download images in a synced Classic catalog, as per the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab (wording is "Specify location for Lightroom CC ecosystem's images:).

[Just Shoot Me]

Thanks Jim. Never knew it was called that.

[Jim Wilde]

If you have your LR Classic catalog synced with the cloud, what you see in Classic will very much depend on the way(s) that you are syncing. Specifically:

When the Classic catalog is enabled, every image that is added to any of the cloud-based LRCC apps (such as mobile, web, or even desktop) will automatically download into the Classic catalog and thus need to be stored somewhere locally on the Classic system (as was pointed out earlier, Classic can only work with local files, it cannot access the cloud directly). Where exactly those downloaded images are stored depends: the default location will be in some obscure folder name within a folder called "Mobile Downloads.lrdata", usually in the user's Pictures folder, though this can be changed to a user-selected folder (and if desired one of the LR date-based folder schemes).

Whatever storage location is used, the images will be in a folder, and that folder HAS to be visible in the Folders panel, right? If not, they don't/can't be accessed in Classic. If you choose your own location, that folder will appear as a normal folder in the Folder's panel, but if you leave it at the default location then you will see a "drive" appear in the Folders Panel, which will have a name identifying the source device from where the images were originally added to the cloud ecosystem, e.g. I have a couple of "drives" listed on my test system with names like "Jim's iPad", to indicate the file originated from one of my iPads. None of these "drives" will appear, however, if the user uses the preferences to store the synced images in a non-default location.

Within the Collections panel, there may also appear a "From Lr mobile" Collection Set. This will appear if an album is created in one of the LRCC apps, and so syncs down into Classic, i.e. any such LRCC-created albums will appear as collections in Classic under that "From Lr mobile" collection set.

If the concern is the amount of disk space being taken up on your system drive by the downloaded images, simply choose a different location on a different drive by using the preferences. That will not automatically move the images from the default location, however, so the user will need to do that, but do it by working within the Classic's Folders Panel.

[Wallymah]

Hmmm still not understanding completely....If this was the "cloud" photos, I thought it would show folders...behance,lightroom mobile...all those in the creative cloud folder...so this folder is a duplicate with just all my photos dumped in one folder?? I was just worried it saved some edit info like the catalog file, or this was some kind of full preview folder.  I wish adobe would just name the folder for what it is "ecosystem photos" sounds llike sample photos and images/icon needed to run the adobe assorted softwares… Not stuff I should be concerned with or touch...

anyway...

I looked through this folder and removed/deleted in lightroom.  I saw quick update that it was syncing those file removals to the cloud. So, I guess that is good.

Yes I migrated to the cloud. I'm not sure even what that means anymore in definition, it has been so long.  I just like having "All the stuff installed" and using classic mostly, and cc occasionally, and mobile a lot.