How to Not Duplicate files on my mac--Creative Cloud Files dummy

[gnurotic]

I have the CC Photography plan, and work with my photos mostly in Lightroom Classic.  The photos I access in Lightroom are stored on my local drive in a folder (and subfolders) in my Pictures folder   e.g. MacintoshHD/Users/Me/Pictures/myPictures

It seems that I have 1 TB of Creative Cloud storage space, and, as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) if I want to have the photos referred to above available to me from Creative Cloud when I am working on a different computer or different device, I need to put my photo files into a folder named Creative Cloud Files

If I do that, however, then it seems to me that I would have to re-import all my photos into Lightroom Classic, reconstruct my folder and collections structure, and somehow get my Lightroom library to point to this folder.  Alternatively I think I could just copy all the files into that  Creative Cloud Files folder, but I really don't have enough space on my drive to accommodate duplicating all those files.

I've looked at Adobe's User Guide for Creative Cloud, but I can't find any clear cut guidance.  I don't know if this is an omission or if it has to do with the (unintuitive) way it is organized.  Maybe I'm just a dummy?

How can I have my photo files exist both on my system and on the 1 TB of storage I have from my CC Photo Plan without screwing up the organization structure I have in Lightroom and without duplicating files on my Mac?  What am I missing here?  Help!

[Rob_Cullen]

Here is my understanding-

In Lightroom CLASSIC- to 'Synchronize' photos (in local folders of your Mac) to Mobile on the Web, you need to add the selected photos to a COLLECTION and mark that collection to Sync.

The photos in a 'Synced' Collection are uploaded to the Web as DNG Smart Previews (not original copies) that can be edited remotely with Lightroom-CC (Cloud based program on a Laptop) or Lightroom-Mobile (Browser based).

The "Synced" photos will also appear in a list within the Classic Catalog panel called "All Synced Photographs" You can also drag & Drop photos onto this list in the LR-Classic Catalog panel.

If you have a Photography Plan that includes 1 TB of storage- then you may be subscribing only to Lightroom-CC (Cloud Based), or you have paid extra for the 1TB. The plan with {LR-Classic + LR-CC + Photoshop + Bridge} only comes with 20GB as standard. Can you confirm the type of 'Plan' you have?

Photos that you take with a mobile device (iPad, iPhone) will be full size 'originals' in the mobile device, and they will download via Sync to a specified folder in your Mac. And they occupy space in the 20GB as well as the original download in Mac folders.

[gnurotic]

Thank you for your help, although I'm not sure it applies to my situation.

I have the "Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB"  (this is what it is called when I go into the Manage My Account in the Creative Cloud app).

Although I received Lightroom-CC with this plan, I never use it.  I just use Lightroom Classic (and occasionally Photoshop for more complicated edits), and I want my photos to remain on my hard drive for use in this app.  I would also like them mirrored to that 1TB I have in Creative Cloud storage for use with my iPad when I travel and don't take my Mac with me. I would also like to upload photos I take when traveling, using my iPad and camera connection kit to do so.  I do not normally use my iPad or phone to take travel photos, but I use the Apple camera connection kit to transfer them from the SD card in my camera to the iPad.

[Conrad C · Accepted solution]

I am answering this after you provided more information in your reply to WobertC. The additional info helped clarify what you want and what needs to be done.

gnurotic  wrote

It seems that I have 1 TB of Creative Cloud storage space, and, as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) if I want to have the photos referred to above available to me from Creative Cloud when I am working on a different computer or different device, I need to put my photo files into a folder named Creative Cloud Files

Since you are new to Creative Cloud, there is one basic thing you should understand, and you are not a dummy because this confuses a lot of people:

The Creative Cloud Files space is not the same cloud file space used by Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC. It's a separate online storage area:

• Creative Cloud Files is a Dropbox-like place to store files you create with Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, etc. It's for those applications and their mobile apps.
• Lightroom Classic CC, Lightroom CC, Lightroom Web, and the Lightroom mobile apps use a completely separate cloud space so that you do not have to duplicate any files or any folder structure.

You could sync/upload thousands of Lightroom images to the Lightroom cloud space, and your Creative Cloud Files space could be completely empty of files.

To achieve what you want with Lightroom Classic CC, this is what you need to do:

1. Any sets of photos you want to share across Lightroom on all devices must be organized into Collections.
2. When you enable cloud syncing for any collection, that collection will be available to all devices and Lightroom Web.

There is no need to involve the Lightroom CC desktop application in any of this if you don't want to use it. You don't even have to install it.

However, this does mean that if you have 150 folders you want to sync to the cloud, you'll first have to create 150 collections out of them, because you can't sync a folder, only a collection.

The other catch right now is that other devices don't reconstruct the hierarchy of collections in Lightroom Classic CC. That, and some other features like keyword syncing, are only available by syncing with Lightroom CC, but that usually involves completely committing to the Lightroom CC workflow. For now I am sticking with Lightroom Classic CC and living with the limitations of how it syncs with the rest of the Lightroom cloud system.

When you're out traveling, you can store pictures in Lightroom on your mobile devices (or drag and drop them into Lightroom Web in your desktop web browser) and that will upload them to the cloud. When you get home, all of those images will automatically download to the one Lightroom Classic catalog set up for syncing. I strongly recommend that you go into Lightroom Classic preferences, click the Lightroom Sync tab, and set up the "Specify location for Lightroom CC ecosystem images" option so that when those new images come in from the cloud, they are downloaded to the folder and subfolders you want.

Whatever you do, do not set up Lightroom Classic on a second computer to sync to the cloud. It really will only sync to one Lightroom Classic catalog, so syncing another catalog will break the first connection. This is not a limitation of Lightroom CC, which can be safely installed on more than one computer and sync with the cloud. You could use Lightroom CC on a travel computer to upload/manage cloud photos, and that would safely interact with the one Lightroom Classic synced catalog back home.