.lrlightroom file doubling my storage needs?

[xpiotiavos]

Hi folks,

New to the forum.  I've been using LR 1 through 4 forever, but recently made the jump to the new version of LR CC -- using an iMac I bought new in early 2017.  After downloading and importing my 270-ish GB  worth of photos, my computer almost immediately started running slow.  Did some digging and found out that I jumped from a photos folder worth 270 GB to nearly half a TB.  I found a single file -- the cataloge file named Lightroom Library.lrlibrary -- that's a little more than 200 GB. 

What's going on?  Does that file somehow include all or some of the photos I imported?  It's basically doubling the size of my photos folder, so I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong, and how to do it right/better. 

I did search Google and this forum, but apologies if I missed an obvious answer somewhere. 

Thanks in advance,

Adam.

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

Adam,

as soon as the files are uploaded to the cloud, it should start deleting locally stored images from that folder depending on what you set as preference in Lightroom's preferences. When you first migrate, it will copy over all originals into the folder you found and then upload those to the cloud. When that has happened it will start cleaning up those images. Lightroom CC does not keep originals on your local hard disk, it will store them in the cloud but can keep some local copies for rapid access. This is contrary to the versions of Lightroom you have used before (and that are more full featured) that keep all images locally. That Lightroom has been renamed to Lightroom Classic.

[xpiotiavos]

OK, so the solution is just to keep Lightroom CC open while connected to the internet, and as the files upload that cat file will decrease in size.  Right?

[Jao vdL]

Yes that's how it is supposed to work