Syncing between desktop and macpro

[dealoras31062612]

Hi! I just bought a macpro and I was so excited to sync my pictures so that my husband and I can both edit and all the files be in one place when I'm ready to export them.

I cannot for the life of me get them to sync!! And I've read and read and read and watched and watched and watched youtube videos! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but they will not sync and I'm getting a thousand messages that the files could not sync.

Also, when using my Mac Pro, when I import files from my external hard drive into Lightroom..... the top right hand corner of the import screen where I can choose on my desktop to put the pictures into a folder that is on my desktop... I can't change it on my Mac Pro. It automatically tells me they're going "to my catalog" and shows a picture of the hard drive. On the desktop Mac, I'm able to tell the pictures to go into a folder so that I can save and easily find them.

Lastly, after exporting pictures out of Lightroom into their folder on the desktop (which works fine), I am unable to save the folder with all my finished work to the external hard drive. So, I've had to airdrop the folder back to the desktop computer, and then save them to the external.

All of this seems way harder than it should be and with too much work. And I'm terrified I'm going to lose something along the way!

HELP PLEASE!!

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

dealoras31062612 wrote:

Hi! I just bought a macpro and I was so excited to sync my pictures so that my husband and I can both edit and all the files be in one place when I'm ready to export them.

I cannot for the life of me get them to sync!! And I've read and read and read and watched and watched and watched youtube videos! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but they will not sync and I'm getting a thousand messages that the files could not sync.

There is no synchronization between two computers. The only way to use the same catalog and photos on two computers is to install Lightroom on both computers; put the catalog and photos on an external HD, and then move the external HD from computer to computer as needed.

Also, when using my Mac Pro, when I import files from my external hard drive into Lightroom..... the top right hand corner of the import screen where I can choose on my desktop to put the pictures into a folder that is on my desktop... I can't change it on my Mac Pro.

Why can't you change it? What happens when you try? Describe in detail, please quote the complete unedited word-for-word error message.

Lastly, after exporting pictures out of Lightroom into their folder on the desktop (which works fine), I am unable to save the folder with all my finished work to the external hard drive. So, I've had to airdrop the folder back to the desktop computer, and then save them to the external.

This is clearly not a Lightroom issue, but an operating system issue. This and the previous problem suggest to me that you don't have the proper permissions on the external HD.

[cmgap]

Are you on the most current version of Lr CC?

Do you use Dropbox? If yes, is it installed on both the laptop and desktop?

Are you using Lr Mobile? If yes, are you signed in to your Lr Mobile account? In Lr, top left corner turn the arrow beside your catalog name to sign in to Lr mobile and turn on syncing. Syncing in this instance refers to collections that you've selected to sync in Lr mobile by tapping on the icon to the left of a collection. Note: You can't sync collection sets - just collections.

Lightroom is installed by default in your Pictures folder. You can move the Lightroom folder into Dropbox and it will be accessible on both computers. Consider storing all of your images on an external drive (and backup drive) so that you are not eating up storage space on your internal drive. Use Smart Previews so that you can continue to edit your images even if your external drive is offline.

What type of external drive are you referring to? How much available storage does it have? If you select the drive in the finder window and select the CMD and 'I' keys to Get Info check the bottom of the dialog box check to see if you have Read - Write permissions. The fact that you have to use AirDrop to save your files sounds like you may be missing a driver. If for example this is a Seagate drive you may need to download and install the Paragon driver so that you can read-write on both your laptop and macbook. Not an uncommon issue on a seagate external drive and a new macbook pro.

[dj_paige]

If anyone is going to use DropBox or similar service, you need to be aware of the risk. You must wait to open Lightroom until you are 100% sure that DropBox has synchronized the file on both computers. If you don't, then you will wind up with a corrupted catalog file, which is unusable, and you will need to restore the catalog file from a recent backup (meaning you will have lost all work performed in Lightroom since that backup). This also implies that two people cannot be working on the same catalog at the same time, and that you are making regular and automated backups of your catalog file (which you should be doing anyway).