Lightroom Classic: Option to stop syncing photos in a Collection when that Collection is stopped from syncing

Even more confusing, if you use mouse contextual menu on a Synced Collection and choose "Delete..." there's a different dialog than deleting with the keyboard shortcut (image):



Leaving that checkbox unchecked you have the option to stop syncing.

So why is there an option to stop syncing photos together when deleting a Synced Collection but not when just stopping a Synced Collection being synced?

EDIT: I got confused about deleting a Synced Collection via keyboard shortcut: there isn't a keyboard shortcut, and in the original post 2 days ago I had mistakenly actually referenced deleting photos in a Synced Collection, not actually deleting the Synced Collection itself. But, the dialog for deleting a Synced Collection via mouse context menu remains the same and gives the user an option to stop syncing the photos in that Collection. That option is not available when just stopping a Synced Collection from being synced.

This probably should have been marked as a PROBLEM as there is no more a way to stop syncing a Collection and the photos in it – instead you have to:

1. duplicate the Collection
2. delete the original Collection and select not to leave photos in All Synced Photographs (unless they are part of another Synced Collection)
3. rename the duplicated Collection (to remove the " Copy" suffix)

Hi Anssi,

Thanks for your inputs and suggestions. They are highly appreciated.
The heading "Stop syncing this collection" would sound more apt here.
Currently , the behavior is, if you sync a collection, all the photos in it would be present in 'All synced photos' collection. 
Do you want an option to remove photos from being synced (by removing them from 'All synced photos' collection) when we unsync a collection? If this is the case, the behavior would be the same as deleting photos from a synced collection(where we give an option to the user to leave photos from being synced or remove them from being synced). If we stop syncing the collection, we can still give an option for them to be unsynced. However, one important thing to be noted here is, if the photos are present in a different synced collection say 'A'. We then unsync a collection 'B' which has the same photos that are present in 'A'. Now even though we say stop syncing the photos from 'B', the photos would not be removed from 'All synced photos', as they are still referenced in a synced collection 'A'.

Please let me know you inputs.

Thanks,
Arjun

I agree with Anssi that this is a point of confusion and frustration.

Simply put, unsyncing a collection should automatically unsync the photos it contains unless those photos are in another synced collection.

No need to keep referring to "All Synced Photos"

Hi Jordan,

Please check my above comments on this and let me know your inputs.

Thanks,
Arjun

This really needs to change already. Two months should be enough to bring back the obvious function of stop syncing photos in a Collection that's no more synced.

When a photo is not part of any Synced Collection it should not be synced. At least there should be the same option as when deleting a Synced Collection – stop syncing the photos and do not keep them in All Synced Photographs. In stead, from LR CC 2015.7 onwards, when unsyncing a Collection all photos have to remain synced. What?!

I'm getting very frustrated with organizing synced photos.

For example, I have a project where I initially made all photos (3.500 of them) available on the go and shared via a Synced Collection. Then the photos were reviewed and refined and in the end there's three different collections with 14, 139 and 245 photos in each Synced Collection. All other photos in various Synced Collections should now get unsynced as all those other Collections get archived in Lightroom catalog without being synced. But, there's no way to do that! If I would delete those Synced Collections I would get an option to stop the photos from being synced. Why is this, why isn't there that same option when just unsycing?

Why is this a significant problem? I start out from what's probably a similar viewpoint, disliking these dialog boxes and not wanting the photos to remain in All Synced Photos when I stop syncing them in a collection. But frankly:

• Why should I care if Adobe use web storage space for photos I no longer want to be synced? I don't pay any more, do I?
  
• If I subsequently add those photos to another synced collection, the sync up is already done.
  
• The photos no longer clutter up mobile device storage (if the synced collection's offline editing setting had been enabled).
• Life's too short to try finding anything in All Photos on the device/web. I look for stuff in collections.
  

So why is this a big deal? Apart from a "tidy gene" that some of us may have.

John

Arhhh, Why hasn't this been fixed yet, it's such a pain in the ......

Come on Adobe sort it out!

Hi All,

Thanks for your concerns and we really appreciate your feedback.
However, this functionality is designed to match the behavior with other clients in the Lightroom ecosystem.
For eg : Even in Lightroom mobile, if you remove a collection or an image from a collection, the photos continue to remain synced (unless you delete the photo from 'Lightroom Photos' collection) 

Thanks,
Arjun

This is still a pain. As someone noticed before: "When a photo is not part of any Synced Collection it should not be synced". This folder "all synced photographs" leads me to confusion again an again. May be there are solutions, but in reality I end up with too much photos on my mobile device and it happened to me that I deleted photos accidentally from important collections by removing them from "all synced photographs".

I wholeheartedly agree with the original poster here. The current behavior is frustrating and wrong. Photos that can be adding to sync as part of a collection should be removable from sync as part of a collection. As it is, the process for safely removing photos from sync is a 7 step process when it should be a single step process. I cannot figure out why anyone would want it to work the way it does now.

For the record, here is the simplest process I know that works right now:

1) Using the mostly hidden filter tool in the collections panel, select "Synced Collections" (click on the magnifying glass)
2) Individually select each of the synced collections. (Note: You don't want to select any collection sets here since that will end up selecting all the photos in that collection set, not just those from the visible collections)
3) Select all photos that are visible (all synced photos that are in a synced collection)
4) Select the "All Synced Photographs" collection which should maintain the selection.
5) In the Edit menu, select "Invert Selection"
6) Review selection to make extra sure nothing is selected incorrectly
7) Use the context menu to select "Remove from All Synced Photos"

This hidden "features" are main reason why im considering to stop paying for this software :(. For who is this function good ?

Why removing photo from all synced photographs removes it also from desktop collection ?!

Hi Milan,

By desktop collection do you mean that this was removed from the actual folder in your desktop ?
Or a user created collection in Lightroom ?
If you remove an image from All synced Photographs, then it means that the photo can be unsynced (as all synced photos acts as a master collection for synced photographs). By removing an image from All synced photos, then it only removes the image from a synced collection.

Thanks,
Arjun

Hi Arjun,

thank for your response,

photos were removed from the user-created collection in Lightroom OSX
Problem is missing prompt during unsyncing collection about removing that photos also from "all synced photos"

Because now I have about 15,000 photos in All synced photographs, but only 4 collections I want to keep synced. (3 for portfolio showcase and 1 ongoing project)

When I select all photos in All synced photographs and choose to remove them from All synced photographs it also disappear from ordinary collection inside Lightroom (that 4 collection I want to keep synced and with photos inside it !


There is no easy way how to select only synced photos that do not belong to any synced collection and remove them ( 7 points workaround from Jonathan Goforth works but there is a risk of user's error. )

"By removing an image from All synced photos, then it only removes the image from a synced collection." - I understand that at this moment it is not possible to sync or unsync individual photo inside collection therfore its not possible to remove it just from All synced collection while it is in one or more synced collection.

However, there are probably more solutions for unsyncing individual photos from All synced photos (better than completely removing the photo from the collection.)
For example, a prompt that photo cant be removed because it is part of one or more collections that are still synchronized or prompt that this action will synchronize the entire collections in which the affected photos are placed.

You can also forget about All synced photos in Lightroom on the desktop and use them only to upload from a mobile app (photos created using a mobile device). In this case, it makes sense that all synced photos acts as a master collection buf only for mobile content. 
For content imported directly to Lightroom master collection will be All Photographs.

There are probably even better way to meet different users needs. So please try to rethink it little bit.

with Regards,
Milan

My recommendation would be to eliminate this "all synced photographs" completely from LR. I use both LR desktop and mobile a lot. Daily. Thousands of pics. But I never figure out, what is synced how and where. I try to add new pictures within LR mobile only into already existing collections, I've added a special "Sync Collection". I only use it to transfer pictures from LR mobile to my desktop. But sometimes when I shoot pictures in a hurry I forget to take the pictures on my mobile device only within a collection, and then the trouble begins. It's too complicated.