Lightroom Classic’s Hidden “Sync” Feature Is Hidden No More
Ever since Lightroom let us sync our images from our desktop to our mobile devices, in the desktop version of Lightroom Classic, Adobe had hidden the Sync controls under the Identity Plate in the top left corner. If you didn’t know they were there, you’d probably never find them on your own, but in the current version of Lightroom, it’s now finally right out in front, which is awesome because syncing allows your images are available on all your devices.
If you look in the top right corner you’ll now see a cloud icon (shown circled above in red), and you click on that to access the sync controls.
One thing I want to point out to that is really helpful is that Adobe has published a “Sync FAQ” page on their site, and they embedded the link right inside the sync controls panel (as seen above to the right of the little ‘i’ (info) icon.
Adobe did a nice job of going through the most-asked questions, and even listing what will and won’t sync, including which size files are too large to sync regardless of their file type (spoiler alert: it’s 200MB).
NOTE: Once you turn on syncing, only Collections you choose will be sync’d over to Lightroom on your mobile device (and it only sync’s Collections — not Folders), so you don’t have to worry about turning on syncing and it raiding all your free space on your phone or tablet. Plus, it doesn’t send the full high-resolution JPEG, TIFF or RAW file — it sends ‘Smart Previews” instead. For more on all this syncing stuff, hit this link.
Anyway, high-five to Adobe for making these sync controls more “discoverable” to everyone. Here’s to what could be a really awesome week, so let’s make the most of it. Stay healthy, sane, and we’ll catch you back here tomorrow. 🙂
-Scott
I am using the latest version of LRC and when I create a collection the option to sync with Lightroom CC does NOT appear. I also do not have the icon to the left of the collection name. At some point on my Macbook Pro I was able to create collections with the sync option but not now. This has been driving me crazy as I cannot find any blogs that address this issue. Can you help Thanks Cindy
It could be that you’ve synced another catalog? You can only have one catalog synced at a time. What do you see if you click the cloud icon in the upper-right?
Hello! I use lightroom classic and don’t see this icon. Is this because there is an update that has not been done ? What version should I be using for the icon to appear ?
Thanks,
The latest version of Lightroom Classic, which is currently 10.4.
Thanks – I just spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out why it wasn’t where it belonged.
I can hide any item of the top bar but not this cloud that I don’t use !