Images Imported from Lightroom Mobile Not Recognized as Already in Cataolg

[Figgie123]

I've been experimenting with importing RAW files from my camera into Lightroom Mobile on my iPad and then to my desktop catalog through the web. It seemed to work well: I loaded the files into the Camera Roll, copied them to Lightroom, allowed LR Mobile adequate time (lots of it) to synch, and sure enough, when I got home, they were in the "From LR Mobile" folder in my Library.  It appears that the full RAW file was successfully loaded into my Catalog and onto my hard drive, as the file size is the same, and I confirmed the file was indeed in the computer drive's folder. 

But here is my question:  Once I got home, I put the memory card in the card reader to download some additional images which I had taken after my LR Mobile transfer. All the files which I had uploaded thru LR Mobile were still on the card but were NOT recognized by Lightroom on my desktop as duplicate files. In other words, the images were not grayed out when I ticked the box "Don't import suspected duplicates" and so would have been imported again into Lightroom.  Is this normal for files transferred through LR Mobile?  Is there any way to keep this from happening because I'd like to be able to use LR Mobile for file transfer and backup to my desktop while traveling, but don't want to have to double check every file when I get home to ensure it is not being duplicated?

[99jon · Accepted solution]

LR mobile is evolving quite rapidly but I think this may come under work in progress.

I’m assuming the file name and exif data is all identical to the originals, so in theory it should be possible to recognize duplicates unless the extra step of adding to camera roll/photos app is changing something. As far as I know, Apple does not permit the bypassing of the Photos App.

Normally after importing to LR desktop and making a backup I format the card in the camera before shooting more images. Obviously you need to check completion of the sync’d images when you get home so that is not a good idea especially as LR mobile does not sync in the background; you need to keep it open on phone or tablet which makes any other usage of the device impossible.

If like me you are shooting 100 images or more a day the present bandwidth constraints will mean you only ever import a minority of shots. Hopefully that will improve in time.

The only practical suggestion for now is to keep a manual record of the few files imported via LR mobile so that you can quickly exclude them from further import. It’s not a great work around which is why I still carry my Macbook and then import the entire shoot as a catalog to combine with my master catalog; until the technology advances. But I think it’s great we can rate and edit raw photos on mobile devices and export to the web.