Copy files directly into Lightroom Mobile

IPad Lightroom Mobile

Like many people I was very excited when Apple announced all the new features that were expected to be on iPadOS. The one key feature I was most excited about was the ability to connect to external drives so that I could copy files directly into Lightroom Mobile. As a budding photographer, part of my editing workflow is to initially review images on my iPad to filter out images that don’t make the cut. I then do some simple edits via the basic panel.

The only problem with this was getting the images into Lightroom on my iPad quickly. The only options that I had was to either put the pictures on my computer first and then sync to Lightroom mobile or copy the files to the iPad Photos app, then copy to Lightroom Mobile. This was not a quick process and that is what I was looking for.

After waiting for the final version of iPadOS to be released to the public, the first thing I tried was to get images from my SD card into Lightroom, but that was a bit more difficult than you would think. When trying to import from within Lightroom, you can only access your Camera Roll and can not see the external drive. So what one to do. Through some Google searching and some ingenuity I was able to use the Shortcuts App create a quick way to get images directly into Lightroom Mobile.

When run, the shortcut navigates to a file open window, which allows you to navigate to the external drive. From there you select the files you want to import or Select All and the click Open. This will then import the selected files into Lightroom and then open the app. After a few seconds, your new imported images will show up under All Photos.