Accumulating Metadata

[kaelaria]

When you select multiple images, what is it doing when it says Accumulating Metadata and how can I speed it up, or do it automatically?

For now I have selected everything and am letting it run, but would like to know if I should be doing it differently in the future.

[Nat Coalson]

When Accumulating Metadata, Lightroom is reading in the metadata from the file and comparing it with its own metadata edits in the database. It does this so it can tell you if the external file has been modified outside of LR and give you the option to sync the metadata. It also will update any open panels that are displaying metadata.

LR should only Accumulate Metadata every so often; once it's confirmed the metadata is the same (or different) in the database and on the disk it shouldn't be a bottleneck.

I don't know of any way to turn this feature off or do it in the background; I think it only happens when switching between sources.

Are you using DNG? It's a little faster than XMP sidecars.

[kaelaria]

It's not slowing me down, it goes along nicely in the background.  It already finished my whole library.

I am using xmp.

Thanks!

[tomrock]

I thought that accumulating metadata happened when you have multiple images selected and LR is looking over the selection to see what common metadata exists.

For example, if you select 100 images taken with a Canon 20D but with different lenses and on different dates, after the accumulation the metadata panel with say "Canon 20D" for camera but the lens and date fields will say something like "multiple entries".

In other words, accumulating just means it's looking for common entries.

[kaelaria]

That certainly makes more sense, since that's the only time it's showing up.