Hi Mike, I’m wanting to use your solution for the same problem as you. (I’ve just downloaded Lightroom on both my Mac and iPhone). How did you do the initial sync and what settings on Adobe Lightroom keep everything in sync? I’ve also got a 600GB Photo library, but only a 500GB MacBook Pro, therefore my system library is on an old iMac to download all the originals, but I think to sync everything at full resolution I need the system library to be on my MacBook Pro. What external SSD disk would you recommend I purchase to handle this in the best way?
Adrian, I am not going to be able to help much I am afraid, as I did not switch to Lightroom Cloudy directly from Apple Photos, as you are planning to do.
Background: Before Apple Photos launched in 2015 all our personal photos were in Lightroom Classic. When Apple Photos arrived I migrated the Lightroom Classic Library to Apple Photos, and from 2015 to 2018 Apple Photos was our main Photos tool. But I was very wary of committing all 70000 photos to Apple’s impenetrable managed library structure (thus losing my 500 folder structure built up over twenty years). So I maintained my original Lightroom Classic in parallel with Apple Photos for those three years. Apple Photos was prime but Lightroom Classic was a backup.
When I moved to Lightroom Cloudy in 2018 I did it from Lightroom Classic, not from Apple Photos. I exported each of twenty subject and year-folders in Classic as a catalog and imported each to Cloudy. This preserved my 500 folders as Albums in Lightroom Cloudy. So I have no experience of migrating from Apple Photos to Lightroom Cloudy, which is what you are asking.
Today, with Lightroom Cloudy as prime, I still maintain my 600 GB Apple Photos Library (not on iCloud) and Lightroom Classic (not sync’d with Cloudy) so that I can change horses again if necessary.
I am sure there is plenty of guidance for going from Photos to Cloudy, and the best resource for getting direct expert help is the Lightroom Queen forums, which are outstanding.
To try and answer some of your questions:
With Cloudy your masters are in the Cloud, just like with Apple Photos (if iCPL turned on). You can keep local originals but these are incidental, and I don’t do it. Partly because I already have local originals in my Classic, and partly because there is no structure to the originals, except date. It might be OK if all your photos have meaningful exif info, but mine don’t as they are from a hotch-potch of sources.
Any device, mobile or computer, which has the Lightroom Cloudy app installed and signed in to the same Adobe account will synchronise with the cloud. You don’t have to “do anything to keep everything in sync”.
Although I don’t keep local copies of the originals but I do keep smart previews locally which enables instant viewing, and editing without being online. The edits sync up to the cloud when on line. I guess you do want to keep local full size copies which is why you ask about a new external SSD. I use Samsung T5s and T7s in other situations.
My 79,000 smart previews use 100GB local in my Lightroom local library) so if you do the same, plan for this space on your boot drive. (You can, and I have, put the actual LR library on an external with a symlink to the internal, but this is frowned on, but has worked for me for three years on my iMac. I wouldn’t do it on a laptop). My laptop is also 512GB so the LR library with smart previews fits fine.
Don’t be tempted to try and use Cloudy and Classic syncing. It is supported but not recommended by Adobe, and is complex and full of pitfalls. Some power users do it with benefit for specific use cases.
This is a very simple summary, real life is never as straightforward! Although strange things happen locally sometimes, which have required help from LRQ, I have complete confidence in the Adobe cloud. Unlike Apples iCPL which has let me down (losing all albums twice), Adobe has been rock solid. Moving iPads or computers, new hard drives or if something wrong with the library, you can just delete the library and let it sync afresh. It is a much less opaque process than Apple Photos syncing.
As with many things, they sound more complicated than they are when you try writing it all down. Good luck!
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