Deleting photos in the catalog or on the disk

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
June 29, 2025
3 replies
583 views

Hello,

A friend uses LR Classic on Windows and wants to make space on the hard disk. In the "Photo" drop-down menu and then "remove photo", it can only do so in the catalog, while on my mac or other windows, you have the choice between deleting in the catalog or deleting on disk.

The question has already been asked here, but for deleting folders, collections or virtual copies. In that case, the purpose is to delete some photos selected in the catalog.

How to get the "complete" popup window with the choice between deleting in the catalog only or also in the disk?

Thank you

Windows

Correct answer Rob_Cullen

There are several ways to Delete selected catalogued photo/s from the Hard-Drive:

1. Press [Delete] with image/s selected > [Delete from Disk]

2. [Right-Click] > [Remove Photo] > Choose [Delete from Disk]

3. Main Menu Photo > [Remove Photo] >[Delete from Disk]

4. [Backspace] > [Delete from Disk]

5. Flag Rejected photos only [Ctrl + Backspace] > [Delete from Disk] (My recommended method)

There is a situation where the Import process has Copied files on the hard-drive and when a photo is deleted in the catalog, the original (not the copy in the catalog) remains on the Drive, thus confusion "My photos are not deleting!"

6. And there is the 'Deadly no recovery, no confitmation' method to delete a selected photo from everything (permanently) [CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+BACKSPACE].

Do any of these methods work for your friend?

francisd93962023Author

Participant

I checked on my friend's PC. She tries to delete photos from a folder (in library, grid mode) and not a virtual copy or from a collection.

So, what can we do?

Rob_Cullen

Correct answer

Community Expert

There are several ways to Delete selected catalogued photo/s from the Hard-Drive:

1. Press [Delete] with image/s selected > [Delete from Disk]

2. [Right-Click] > [Remove Photo] > Choose [Delete from Disk]

3. Main Menu Photo > [Remove Photo] >[Delete from Disk]

4. [Backspace] > [Delete from Disk]

5. Flag Rejected photos only [Ctrl + Backspace] > [Delete from Disk] (My recommended method)

There is a situation where the Import process has Copied files on the hard-drive and when a photo is deleted in the catalog, the original (not the copy in the catalog) remains on the Drive, thus confusion "My photos are not deleting!"

6. And there is the 'Deadly no recovery, no confitmation' method to delete a selected photo from everything (permanently) [CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+BACKSPACE].

Do any of these methods work for your friend?

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.3, Photoshop 27.5, ACR 18.3, Lightroom 9.3, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .

francisd93962023Author

Participant

I tried again to delete a photo on my friend's PC. She has no collection nor virtual copies, only folders and sub folders in her catalog..

When I right click on a photo, I get the menu (see photo attached). When clicking on Remove the photo, there is no dialog box (remove from catalog or from disk). The photo is removed immediately from the catalog and remains on the disk.

What do you think ?

C.Cella

Legend

If the current active source(s) is/are Folders the the "Confirm dialog" with the two chocies (Remove or Trash) should appear.

Photos cannot be directly "Trashed" form Collections or Smart Collection...that's more likely why the confirm dialog with the multiple choices is not showing up.

This said it is totally possible to trash photos directly form collections of any kind but we must use the hidden/secret KBSC:

⌘ ⌥ ⇧ ⌫

That though directly trashes the images.

P.s.
For some unknown reason to me trashing is not undoable in LrC so once we trash we must restore manually.

Make no sense to me as with the SDK we finally can "remove and trash files" and we can restore any trashed items with a code after undoing the remove.