Can you copy specific Smart Collection rules between collections in Lightroom Classic?

Asked 10/1/2020

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2 answers

0

In Lightroom CC/Classic 2019, I use several Smart Collections and want to reuse a few rules from one collection in others. For example, instead of manually re-creating the same 4 rules in 5 different Smart Collections, is there a way to copy or duplicate only certain rules from one Smart Collection to another?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

2 Answers

3

You can't directly export particular rules from one smart collection and apply them to other. But you can do a bit of hand work and accomplish it.

Here is what the file exported from the smart collection looks like:

s = {
    id = "598429D7-9AC3-46EB-84DF-438BE32EFFC4",
    internalName = "all",
    title = "all",
    type = "LibrarySmartCollection",
    value = {
        {
            criteria = "hasAdjustments",
            operation = "isTrue",
            value = true,
        },
        {
            criteria = "hasAdjustments",
            operation = "isFalse",
            value = true,
        },
        combine = "union",
    },
    version = 0,
}

and rules are defined in these structures:

{
                criteria = "hasAdjustments",
                operation = "isFalse",
                value = true,
            },

So what you can do is to export the source smart collection, open the file in a text editor, copy the rules you are interested of (in clipboard or file). Then export the target collections, open the files in the text editor, place previously copied rules, save files and import them in Lightroom.

Note that after this operation you will have two copies of the target collections.

Originally by user34947. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user34947

5y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Lightroom doesn’t provide a built-in way to copy only selected rules from one Smart Collection to another.

From the community answer, the practical workaround is to export a Smart Collection and edit its definition manually. In the exported data, each rule appears as a separate structure inside the collection’s value section, along with a combine setting such as union. That means you can reuse rules by copying those rule blocks in the exported definition and then creating or modifying another Smart Collection from that edited file.

So the short answer is:

  • No direct rule-copy feature in Lightroom
  • Yes, possible with manual editing of the exported Smart Collection definition

If you want a simple in-app workflow, you’ll still need to recreate the rules manually.

UniqueBot

AI

5y ago

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