Inside a blendfile i have different scenes using mostly same meshes, Lights, cams etc. they are all linked and mostly sharing same datablocks. Now i need to copy (but linked) a collection from one scene to another. Right click copy collection in the outliner in one scene and then pasting in the other makes all objects of the Collection a copy (single user/ loosing their sharing datablocks). Pasting instanced Collection Is also no way to go, because i need to change a few materials…
How can i doit, while not loosing linking?
How can i Paste linked Collection in other scenes?
Why not simply add an instance of that collection in the new scene with Shift+A → Collection Instance?
as i wrote i need to alter something inside the collections
e.g. objects share same mesh datalock but got different materials
would be great if there would be something like “paste linked”
without a possebility to exchange collections across scenes while keeping them linked is a very bad restriction and a cumbersome workflow. Imagine setting up each individual objects datablock after pasting just to be linked/referenced…
If you place an instance of a collection in a new scene, you can make duplicates real (Ctrl+A→Make Duplicates Real). You’ll have all of the items from the collection in there with linked data that you can either keep linked or override locally.
kind of a workaround! thank you:)
Its a lil unneccesary extra work because all objects are removed from the collection, but Bad thing: all parenting gots removed when using “make duplicates real” .
just paste as linked would be much smarter. The way how duplicate linked works but across scenes would be less extra work.
It seems to me that this is a long-standing bug. I just checked and the same thing happens with groups in 2.79. I would expect parenting relationships to be preserved, but they aren’t. Probably worth a bug report.
just made one:
https://developer.blender.org/T64874
really need to exchange those collections across scenes and loosing parenting means a lot of extra work…
hopefully it gets fixed soon 
Aint no bug.
Bastien answered:
Quote“Just unable Keep Hierarchy option of the Make Duplicates Real operator, to keep parent/child relationships…“
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Huh… I completely missed the Keep Hierarchy option. Guess that solves that problem.
same same, but best thing he explained how to handle my base problem.
…in Outliner, Scenes view, drag-and-drop the collection you want…
super easy
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