Today’s Question: Is it possible to sync keywords across an entire folder of images, all at once, in Lightroom Classic? It seems when I try it only applies to one photo even though all are selected.
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can indeed assign keywords to multiple selected photos all at once in Lightroom Classic by making sure you are in the grid view (not the loupe view).
More Detail: The issue you’re running into is what I refer to as the “Loupe View Snafu”. When you are in the loupe view in Lightroom Classic by default you are only working with a single image, even with multiple images selected. In other words, if you select many images but are in the loupe view, when you add a keyword only the image shown in the loupe view display will actually have the keyword added. The other selected photos will not be updated.
If you have multiple photos selected while in the grid view display, metadata updates such as keywords will apply to all of the selected photos. Therefore, I recommend making sure you are in the grid view when you select multiple photos and want to apply the same metadata updates to all of the selected photos.
You can also synchronize metadata across multiple images using the Sync Metadata button at the bottom of the right panel in the Library module. But in general I find it easiest to simply make sure you are in the grid view display with multiple photos selected when you want to update metadata for those selected photos.