While many seasoned Adobe Lightroom Classic users know that the ALT key (Windows) or ALT / OPTION key (Mac) reveals hidden functionality in the Develop Module, this crucial key also reveals fantastic features throughout the Library Module. In the video below, I reveal my favorite Library Module tricks and time-saving shortcuts that can only be accessed using this secret modifier key function.
Taming the Folder Tree Forest
If you organize your images by date—-putting today’s in one folder, yesterday’s in another—-then you will eventually end up with hundreds of subfolders. This capture date driven folder structure is my recommended image segregation system but browsing through an endless list of folders can get overwhelming.
- The Secret: Hold the Alt/Option key and click on the little triangle (disclosure icon) next to a top-level folder.
- The Magic: Holding Alt while clicking the triangle collapses every nested subfolder instantly. Conversely, if you Alt-click the disclosure triangle for a collapsed folder then it will expand the entire directory tree so that every subfolder is now visible!
Duplicate Collections in a Snap
Collection Sets are a great way to stay organized but sometimes you need the same drag-and-drop Collection within two different groupings.
- The Secret: Hold the Alt/Option while you click and drag a regular Collection into a different Collection Set.
- The Magic: Instead of moving this Collection from Set to Set, Lightroom creates a duplicate so that all of the included images now appear in both locations!
Unlock Conditional Smart Collections
When you create a Smart Collection, simple rules like “Match All” or “Match Any” are sufficient but for complex searches, you need nested conditions.
- The Secret: While editing Smart Collection rules, hold the Alt/Option key and click the + button.
- The Magic: The Add Rule button changes into a # icon, allowing you to create conditional sub-rules. Using this trick, you can perform advanced searches such as finding photos that have a three-star rating and that are also tagged with either the keyword “Autumn” or the keyword “Fall.”
The Painter Tool’s Secret “Eraser”
The Painter Tool (the spray-can-shaped icon on the Toolbar) is an easy way to add keywords onto your images. But what if you accidentally tag the wrong photo?
- The Secret: While the Painter Tool is active, hold down Alt/Option.
- The Magic: The spray can icon turns into an Eraser tool and now you can subtract the unwanted keyword, or other types of metadata, just as fast as you added it!
Reveal Hidden Quick Develop Controls
The Quick Develop panel is great for fast batch edits but it doesn’t show everything by default.
- The Secret: Hold Alt/Option while looking at the Quick Develop panel.
- The Magic: The Clarity and Vibrance controls instantly transform into Sharpening and Saturation. These useful features only appear while the Alt key is held down.
The “No-Mouse” Keywording Trick
Typing keywords manually is slow. Using the buttons in the Keyword Suggestions and Keywords Sets is faster, but clicking on the tags that you want still requires a lot of mouse movement.
- The Secret: Hold Alt/Option while the Keyword Sets pane is visible.
- The Magic: You will see small gray numbers (1-9) appear next to your keywords. These correspond to the number pad on your keyboard. While holding Alt, you can tap the number keys on your keyboard to apply multiple keywords to a photo—or a whole block of photos—with zero mouse clicks and zero typing!
The Alt/Option key is truly the secret “utility player” of Lightroom Classic. While each of these tricks might seem small, they eliminate friction in your workflow. When managing a library of thousands of images, saving even a few seconds on every action adds up to hours of reclaimed editing time.
