Everything you need, in plain English. No tech-speak.
It publishes photos from Lightroom Classic straight to Google Drive™. You skip the export-then-upload chore. Drag photos into a Published Collection, click Publish, and they land in a Drive folder with all your edits baked in. Edit a published photo later? Click Publish again and the file in Drive updates - no duplicate copies left behind.
The plugin keeps one folder called Lightroom in your Google Drive. Every Published Collection you make becomes its own folder inside it. So a collection named Italy 2026 shows up in Drive as Lightroom / Italy 2026, with your photos inside.
Two things make this worth the $9.99 over uploading by hand:
If you only read one section, read this one. Five steps, end to end, from zip file to your first photo live in Google Drive.
google-drive.lrplugin.google-drive.lrplugin folder.In the Library module, find the Publish Services panel on the left sidebar. Click Set Up… next to Google Drive. The settings dialog opens.
Your license works on one computer at a time. Need to switch machines? Click Deactivate on the old one first, then activate on the new one.
That's it - you just published photos to Google Drive without touching a single export dialog. From here you can edit photos and re-publish, add more photos to the same folder, or make more folders. Read on for the full workflow and every option.
The plugin runs on a loop. Each pass keeps your Drive folders in step with what's in Lightroom.
You connect Lightroom to your Google account once. Sign in, allow access, save. From then on the plugin remembers you. You'll only come back to this step if:
Make a Published Collection, drag photos in, click Publish. The plugin asks Lightroom for a rendered photo with all your edits baked in, then uploads it to the matching folder in Drive. No export dialog, no save-to-disk, no choose-a-folder.
You can drag photos into an existing Published Collection any time. Anything new sits in New Photos to Publish until you click Publish.
Large files upload in chunks. If your connection drops part way, the upload picks up where it stopped instead of starting the file over - so big TIFFs and high-resolution exports come through even on patchy hotel wifi.
Open a published photo in the Develop module. Change exposure, white balance, crop, whatever you like. Lightroom marks it as a Modified Photo to Re-Publish automatically. You don't have to do anything else.
Click Publish again. The plugin uploads the new version, then moves the old file to your Google Drive trash. Your folder stays clean: one current version per photo, no duplicates piling up.
Right-click a Published Collection or a photo for housekeeping. The one thing worth understanding before you start removing photos:
When a removal does sync, the photo goes to your Google Drive trash. It sits there for 30 days, fully recoverable, before Google clears it for good. Nothing is hard-deleted - you always get a month to change your mind at drive.google.com/drive/trash.
Google Drive doesn't add menu items to Lightroom's menus. Everything happens in two places: the Publish Service settings panel and the right-click menus on the service, collections, and photos. Here's each control.
Open it by clicking Set Up… on Google Drive in the Publish Services panel, or right-click and choose Edit Settings…
Paste your license key here and click Activate. The status turns green when accepted. Click Deactivate to free this slot when you're moving to another computer.
Opens your browser, signs you in, and lets the plugin create its folder and upload photos. After connecting you'll see Connected as [email protected]. Click Disconnect to sign out from Lightroom - do that if you want to switch Google accounts.
Shows whether a newer version of the plugin is available. If one is, a Download Update button appears and takes you to the new version. The plugin checks once a day - this never touches your photos.
Saves your settings and closes the dialog. The button may be labeled Done or Save depending on your Lightroom version - both do the same thing.
Makes a new folder in Google Drive and a matching Published Collection in Lightroom. The name you type becomes the folder name inside your Lightroom folder.
Opens the Publish Service settings panel above. Use this to change accounts, fix your license, or check the connection.
Renames the collection in Lightroom and renames the matching folder in Google Drive to match.
Deletes the collection and moves its photos to your Google Drive trash. The plugin then asks you a question: Delete photos and folder, or Delete photos only. "Photos and folder" also moves the Drive folder itself to trash. "Photos only" leaves the now-empty folder in place. Everything goes to trash, so it's recoverable for 30 days either way. One note: if you added files to that folder by hand on the Google Drive website, "Delete photos and folder" sends those to trash too (still recoverable for 30 days).
Marks the photo for removal. It moves into a Deleted Photos to Remove section in the panel and waits. Click Publish to sync - only then does the photo move to your Google Drive trash. Removing without publishing does nothing on the Drive side.
At the bottom of the Publish Services panel when a collection is selected. Click it to send all New, Modified, and Removed photos to Google Drive in one go. Progress runs in Lightroom's top progress bar. The button is disabled while a publish is running, so you can't double-fire it.
Three common ways photographers use this plugin. Pick whichever sounds like your situation.
You shot a wedding, culled and edited your top 800 photos, and the couple wants the gallery in a Google Drive folder they can browse and download from.
How to approach it:
What to expect: 800 high-quality photos take a while on a home connection, but the upload resumes itself if the network hiccups. The folder lives in your Drive for as long as you want, and the share link keeps working for whoever has it.
You just got back from two weeks in Italy. You want a tidy folder in Drive to share with family who don't use Lightroom.
How to approach it:
What to expect: the simplest flow there is. It feels far cleaner than exporting to your desktop and dragging files into the browser.
You delivered a folder of 80 portraits a month ago. Now you want to refine the color on the top 20 and update what the client sees, without leaving a confusing second copy in their folder.
How to approach it:
What to expect: the client's share link is unchanged, the folder looks updated and tidy, and there's no "wait, which one is the latest?" moment.
Anywhere on your computer you won't accidentally delete or move. Documents, Desktop, or the standard Lightroom Modules folder all work. Once you've added it in Lightroom's Plug-in Manager, Lightroom remembers the path - just don't move it after.
Yes. The plugin is pure Lightroom Classic and runs identically on both. There's no separate program and no AI files to download. Install and activation are the same on either platform.
Open the Publish Service settings (Set Up… or Edit Settings… on Google Drive in the Publish Services panel). The License section shows a green Licensed status when you're activated.
No. The plugin can only put photos in folders it created itself - that's how it keeps the rest of your Drive private and untouched. Every folder you fill from Lightroom needs to start as a Published Collection. Your hand-made folders stay visible in Drive; the plugin just can't write into them. To consolidate, make a fresh Published Collection and publish there.
Inside a folder called Lightroom in your My Drive. Each Published Collection becomes its own folder in there. A collection named Italy 2026 shows up as Lightroom / Italy 2026.
Lightroom renders each photo using your current Develop settings, then the plugin uploads exactly that. You set the format, size, and quality in the Publish Service settings - JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or full-resolution conversions of RAW files. The plugin doesn't recompress anything.
It depends on photo size and your upload speed. Roughly 1-3 seconds per photo on a typical home connection. Large TIFFs take longer. Big files upload in chunks and resume if the connection drops, so a flaky network slows you down but doesn't break the upload.
No - closing Lightroom stops the upload. But progress is safe. Anything that finished uploading stays in Drive. Reopen Lightroom, click Publish again, and only the remaining photos get sent.
No. The plugin uploads the new version and moves the old file to your Google Drive trash. Your folder keeps one current version per photo. The old file is recoverable from trash for 30 days if you ever need it.
That's Lightroom - it flags any change, even a keyword or rating tweak, as a candidate. The plugin doesn't trust that blindly. When you click Publish, it checks whether the photo actually changed visually and quietly skips the ones that didn't. You're never re-uploading the same image for nothing.
Removing a photo only stages the change in Lightroom. Nothing happens in Drive until your next Publish click. Click Publish and the photo moves to your Drive trash. This is the most common point of confusion - it's not a bug.
No. It goes to your Google Drive trash and stays recoverable for 30 days before Google clears it. Restore anything in that window at drive.google.com/drive/trash. Nothing is hard-deleted.
The plugin asks you. It always moves the photos to trash, then offers Delete photos and folder or Delete photos only. "Photos only" leaves the empty folder behind; "photos and folder" trashes the folder too. Either way it's trash, so it's recoverable for 30 days.
Yes - both sides update. Rename in Lightroom and the folder name in Drive changes to match.
Only the files it created itself. By Google's design it cannot read, move, or delete anything else in your Drive. Your existing files and folders are completely invisible to it. See the Privacy Policy for the full list of permissions.
No. Photos go directly from Lightroom on your computer to Google Drive. The plugin has no servers of its own and never sees your image data. The only outside call is the license check, which just confirms your key is valid.
Open the Publish Service settings dialog and click Disconnect. To remove access from the Google side too, visit your Google Account > Security > Third-party access page and remove the Lightroom Tools Google Drive entry.
One at a time. To switch computers, click Deactivate on the old one first, then activate on the new one. Lost access to your old machine? Use the contact form and we'll free the slot for you.
Check your LemonSqueezy purchase-receipt email - the key is right there. Can't find it? Reply to the receipt for a resend, or use the contact form and we'll look it up.
If the plugin doesn't work on your setup, contact us - we'll either fix the issue or refund you in full. Use the contact form to reach out. Full terms are on the Terms of Service page.
This is expected. Removing a photo from a Published Collection only stages the change in Lightroom's Deleted Photos to Remove group. Click Publish and the removal syncs - the photo moves to your Drive trash. Removing without publishing never touches Drive.
Google caps how many uploads an account can do in a short window. After a big burst of a few hundred photos, wait a minute or two and click Publish again - the plugin retries automatically. If it persists for hours after very heavy use, you've hit Google's daily ceiling; it resets the next day.
Two common causes:
Now and then the automatic hand-off doesn't complete (often because another program is using the same connection on your computer). When that happens, the plugin shows a box asking you to paste a code from the browser page. Follow that prompt - copy the code Google shows you, paste it into the box, and you'll be connected. Wait until the browser says Authentication Successful before you switch back.
Your Google session expired, or you removed the plugin's access from the Google security page. Open the Publish Service settings, click Disconnect, then Connect to Google Drive again to sign back in.
Your license is currently active on another computer. Open Lightroom on that machine and click Deactivate first. If you can't reach the old computer, use the contact form and we'll reset the slot.
That's by design, not a bug. The plugin can only write into folders it created itself, which is what keeps the rest of your Drive private. Make a new Published Collection in Lightroom, drag photos in, and publish there - the plugin creates its own folder on the Drive side.
Use the contact form - solo developer, personal responses, usually same-day. Tell me what you were trying to do and what you saw instead, and we'll get you unstuck.
Send a note through the contact form or the feedback form. I read every message and reply personally - usually within a day. Include a short note about what you were doing and what happened.