The unlucky users who have downloaded Adobe’s latest update for Lightroom’s iOS app—Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad—have reported that their photos and presets were gone. Adobe have also confirmed the issue, stated that the data is gone for good.
“Yesterday when I used Lightroom Mobile, it was okay. I still have my presets and pictures saved in the apps but today, 18th August 2020, after I updated the apps on Apps Store, all of my pictures and presets gone. I really need this to be fix as soon as possible. Please help me as I really need all those pictures and presets,” wrote user Mohamad Alif Eqnur on Photoshop’s feedback forum.
Reddit users have also complained of the same thing happening to their app after updating, with one user losing over two years’ worth of photo edits. You can also find Tweets saying that they’ve lost their files over the update.
“We are aware that some customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and presets that were not synced to the Lightroom cloud. A new version of Lightroom mobile (5.4.1) for iOS and iPadOS has now been released that prevents this issue from affecting additional customers,” wrote Adobe representative Rikk Flohr.
Flohr also said that some missing photos and presets are not recoverable. “We sincerely apologise to any customers who have been affected by this issue,” he continued.
Adobe also come out with a statement saying that the issue specifically affected Lightroom mobile users without an Adobe cloud subscription, as well as subscribers with photos and presets that hadn’t been synced to the Adobe cloud. The company also said that some customers might be able to recover their data from iPhone or iPad backups.
Adobe Lightroom is free on iOS and Android, but if you don’t want to risk any future files missing, you can backup your photos on your device’s main storage. You can also alternatively subscribe to the Adobe Cloud which costs RM250.16 a month for all apps or RM47.07 a month for the Lightroom plan with 1TB of storage. The prices shown are inclusive of the 6% digital tax.
