Hwo to sync across two PCs
I currently sync two PCs, a lap top and a desktop, via Microsoft OneDrive. My entire image library and LR catalog directory are synced continually. My entire library and all collections both regular and smart are identical on either machine.
Even with On1 cloud I cannot figure out how to achieve this with On1, what I'm I missing?
On1 cloud is a no go as it is slow and cannot even sync nested albums.
I really like to switch to on1 but syncing is just not possible as it is.
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What exactly is it you want to sync?
If your photos are on your OneDrive and you use the .on1 sidecar files your photo edits are already synced.
You can sync the Albums, Catalogs, Presets, etc by running a backup on one machine then restoring to the others.
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What I want is to be able to open On1 on either PC and have it exactly the same without having to jump through hoops. LR works like this.
I tried the backup of the database and then a restore on the other machine. All folders and albums were listed however they were empty with no pictures, even though the directory structure was identical. I've tried multiple times but get a crash error asking for what I just tried.
IS there a folder in either programs or programs data that can be copied and will duplicate the catalog/database?
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I can import photos, keyword, add to collections, create collections and then close LR on that PC. 10 minutes later open LR on the other PC and the photos and collections are there.
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You keep comparing to Lightroom. Lightroom imports everything into catalogs and works on your files from there. Photo Raw doesn't work this way. Photo Raw works directly with the files on your hard drive. If you want two PC's to access your photos, then they all need to be on One drive and both copies of Photo Raw need access to them from there.
Adding a photo to an album on one PC is not going to automatically add it on the other PC. You'll need to devise a way to make that work.
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You miss the point of Onedrive, it is cloud storage. Both my laptop and desktop point to it. Anything added or changed on a local device on one machine is copied to cloud drive as soon as it is saved. Anything copied to cloud is automatically downloaded to the local machine of my other device as soon as the copy from the source is complete.
So I do have a single drive with a directory called Images available to all machines in an Identical folder structure that is kept as a local copy for speed. Works great with photos and sidecar files like .xmp or .on1 files.
The rub comes with the DAM side of On1 not the edit side. Any work done on catalogs, albums or smart albums does not appear to be saved in an easily copied set of files or a directory location.
Even if I decided that I could live with each device having it own listing replicated and displayed separately on the other machines via On1 cloud, that is useless since it will not work with nested albums like:
Animals > Pets > Bella
Animals > Pets > Buddy
Wildlife > Bears
Wildlife > Eagles
I've also tried to replicate it by using keywords in the metadata and smart albums, but again they don't do nesting.
The only reason to mention LR, besides it being the biggest competitor and should be a key target to acquire new users like me from, is it solves this problem by saving all that data in an easy to copy and replicate folder separate from the program files, simple elegant and useful.
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No one missed the point of OneDrive. To sync the dam side of things you do you either have to use the cloud sync feature, or you have to do it manually.
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I don't see why you're saying that nested metadata doesn't work. I just tried copying a photo and it's sidecars with 3 levels of metadata (Flowers < Rose < white) to OneDrive using Explorer, then when looking at it in Photo Raw everything looks just as it should and properly nested.
Then I used Photo Raw to copy another photo there and it also looks just as it should with nested metadata.
From what I can see, it should work just fine. You'll need to figure out why it's not working in your setup.
Once it is working, you'll need to use Smart Albums that populate based on Metadata. I don't have 2 machines to try it, so you're on your own with that one.
Don't waste time with standard albums, they won't populate themselves at all.
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I'm not talking about nested metadata. I talking about nested smart albums. Even though it can read nested metadata you cannot nest smart albums, so all smart albums have to be at the top root level with no sub albums. That will get messy and unruly quickly.
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(I am a Mac user so all this is theory and things remembered from other people's posts, following any of this is at your own risk!)
Drew, you should find an On1 folder somewhere in the roaming data section of app data. I think this is where the active database, presets etc are held. If you copy this folder from the system you want to mirror to the other system you should find things like albums are duplicated on the new system. I copied the equivalent Mac folder from a system backup of original system to a new system as part of migration, and that worked for me.
This would be a one time action since there will be different versions of folder on both systems.
I have just Googled about moving Windows roaming data off C: to save space. What some people have managed to do is to make a copy on the new drive and then replace the original folder with a symbolic link to the new location so that software still thinks the data is in the original location.
In theory it might be possible to take this one step further and make a copy of the On1 roaming data folder on the OneDrive and then set up symbolic links on both PCs to point to this so that the database etc would then be shared between the two PCs. If I was experimenting with this approach I would ensure I had backups and then rename the local On1 folder after making copy and before creating symbolic link, then if it doesn't work you can delete the symbolic link and change the folder names back to originals to get back where you started.
As PhotoRAW is not really designed to be shared in this way if this approach does work then you should only have PhotoRAW open on one of the PCs at the same time.
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Smart albums can't be nested AT ALL. Why is syncing them even part of this thread.
You've set your system up to work with a different program. You're using features in LR that Photo Raw just doesn't have. Trying to force Photo Raw to emulate that isn't going to work.
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Drew, you should find an On1 folder somewhere in the roaming data section of app data. I think this is where the active database, presets etc are held. If you copy this folder from the system you want to mirror to the other system you should find things like albums are duplicated on the new system. I copied the equivalent Mac folder from a system backup of original system to a new system as part of migration, and that worked for me.
This is exactly what the Backup command does. It zips that folder along with Extras and some other users data and calls it an .onbackup file. Change the extension to .zip and you can open it with any zip manager to examine or extract its contents.
This is from 2022 but it provides an example. The top window is a zip manager looking at an .onbackup file. The background window is my user data for 2022.
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Smart albums can't be nested AT ALL. Why is syncing them even part of this thread.
You've set your system up to work with a different program. You're using features in LR that Photo Raw just doesn't have. Trying to force Photo Raw to emulate that isn't going to work.
I didn't think someone who's been a LR user for years but wanted to switch would get so much push back. What I'm I trying to force, LR-Smart Collections and Photo Raw-Smart Albums are about the same thing, right?
David thanks for the pointer to roaming data and the ideas, will see if I can work this out.
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You are making this much too hard Drew. All you have to do to sync two systems is to backup from one and restore to the other. The User Guide mentions this as a migration strategy. Page 264 talks about the Backup/Restore feature.
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LR-Smart Collections and Photo Raw-Smart Albums are about the same thing, right? Yes, except for the ability to have them nested.
The ON1 Photo RAW Project is where the company listens to user's suggestions for new features or additions to the program. There are several there already concerning the ability to nest Smart Albums. Go vote for your favorite. Once an idea gains enough popularity the company starts taking a look at it.
https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/ideas/?idea_search=smart+albums
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