Collections2Folders

Description

👋 Hi, Adobe Lightroom Classic user! Have you ever wanted to export all the collections contained in a collection set at once, with the same settings and maintaining the collection set's hierarchy as folders? Yeah, me too. That's what I wrote this simple plugin for.

Warning

Since I believe that such a basic feature should be provided by Adobe out of the box, I've decided to make this plugin public and available for anyone who might find it useful.

So, if you're a Lightroom user 📷, please remember:

This plugin comes with no warranty at all.
Read the instructions before using it.
This plugin has been developed and tested on Lightroom Classic 13 running on Windows 11. I cannot answer for its behavior with other versions or operative systems.

If you're a fellow developer 🖥️ frustrated with the poor documentation provided by Adobe for anyone seeking to use its Lightroom SDK to develop a plugin, feel free to fork, explore and copy whatever you need from this project. Of course, there are lots of better plugins out there, but this one is simple enough to learn some of the ropes.

Instructions

Installation

Install this plugin like any other Lightroom Classic plugin:

Download this repo or clone it using git clone https://github.com/amda-phd/Collections2Folders.lrdevplugin. Make sure the resulting folder containing the repo is called Collections2Folders.lrdevplugin and that it's placed in a suitable location in your machine.
In Lightroom's plugin manager, add a new plugin and select the folder that you downloaded in the previous step.
That's it, the plugin is installed. You should have access to its features in Archive -> Plugin extras -> Collections2Folders. You should see what is displayed in the image below.

Use

The plugin offers two basic ways of working, both rather similar.

Export the contents from one collection set

This dialog will allow you to choose one collection set from your catalog, a destination folder to export it and, optionally, some export settings. Clickin the 'OK' button will trigger:

The creation of a folder with the collection set's name within the selected destination folder.
The creation of a subfolder for each collection contained in the set, with the same name as each collection, in which the collection's photographs will be exported.
The same as in the two previous steps for any collection set contained within the parent set.

Export the contents from all the collection sets in the catalog

This dialog works exactly like the previous one, but instead of selecting just one collection set from your catalog, it exports all of them one by one. Obviously, use this feature with care, as for large catalogs such export can be demanding for your equipment.

Including export settings

Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to access the user's export presets from the Lightroom SDK, so I cannot offer a way to select your export settings as you have them in Lightroom's export dialog. But you can still provide an export settings file for your exported collection sets. You can either:

Browse one of your already created export settings template. You'll find them in:
- Windows: C:\Users\\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Export Presets\User Presets
- macOS: User Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom CC/Develop Presets/Users Presets

Create your own custom settings file. It should look like this:

  # ExportSettings.lrtemplate

  s = {
    id = "40A740D2-FA5C-4507-8FD0-789893B413FE",
    internalName = "Sample",
    title = "Sample",
    type = "Export",
    value = {
      LR_format = "JPEG",
      LR_jpeg_quality = 1,
      LR_export_colorSpace = "AdobeRGB",
      LR_minimizeEmbeddedMetadata = false,
      LR_size_resolution = 300,
      LR_size_doConstrain = false,
      LR_size_doNotEnlarge = true,
      LR_metadata_keywordOptions = "lightroomHierarchical",
      LR_removeLocationMetadata = false,
      LR_reimportExportedPhoto = false,
      LR_collisionHandling = "overwrite",
      LR_initialSequenceNumber = 1,
      LR_renamingTokensOn = true,
      LR_tokens = "{{date_YY}}{{date_MM}}{{date_DD}}_{{naming_sequenceNumber_3Digits}} - {{com.adobe.title}}"
    },
    version = 0,
  }

If you need help defining the values for the export settings, I recommend you to review the section Lightroom Classic built-in property keys (page 60) from the Lightroom Classic SDK Guide.

Remember that, however you choose to create the export settings file:

The extension must be .lrtemplate.
The format must be strictly the one presented in the previous lines. Otherwise, the export will not be completed the way you expect it to.
The keys LR_export_destinationType, LR_export_destinationPathPrefix and LR_export_useSubfolder will be overridden by the plugin. The rest of them will remain untouched. (No changes in your .lrtemplate file will be done)
If you don't provide any export settings, all the exports will be implemented using Lightroom's defaults.

amda-phd/Collections2Folders.lrdevplugin