How to get Lightroom to give you both "delete photos from disk" and "remove from collection" options

Agreed. An image FILE only exists in a catalog one time. But it can exist in multiple collections based on how the user decides to organize those images. Therefore images can be removed from collections. However if a user deletes an image from the folder where it exists than that image file will also be removed from ALL collections in which that file has been added to.

Things to keep in mind,

Folders on hard disks connected to your computer contain the original images that have been imported to your LrC Catalog.

Collections and Smart Collections do not contain image files or copies of image files they only contain data relative the image files assigned to the collection. When you remove / delete an

item from a collection you are only discarding data.

However when you delete an image file from the disk you are discarding the source image and all data stored in the Catalog, hence the data in related Collections.

DeDegannes, I believe we are on the same page as we have been in the past. I didn't mean to imply that it was a bug. I wasn't trying to argue. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly when I wrote my last reply. I think we have all been attempting to clarify the issue for the OP.

Same (and not a bug) with Quick Collection. IMHO, the behavior makes sense once one considers a collection a “virtual folder” that totally differs from a real folder on a HD residing outside LRs catalog.

Kind of like a Virtual Copy. It lives only in the virtual world inside LR. IOW, a collection is just a construction of the Catalog. I may want to delete an image from a Collection but not from the Catalog or the HD.

In the library module of LrC you have the option of  viewing your images in All Photographs, or in the actual folder where the photographs exist, or in collections. The viewing option where you cannot delete images is in the collection.You are only given the option to delete images from the collection.

What you get depends on where you are. If you have selected the images in a collection, then the option is 'Remove from collection'. You cannot delete images from disk when you are in a collection. If you are in a folder, or in 'All Photographs', then you get the option to remove the images from the catalog, and if you want also delete them from disk.

I'm not referring to using Windows. I'm referring to going to the folder in Lightroom rather than the collection. There IS a difference. When you first import images they are in a folder. Then you organize collections, and those collections can contain images from multiple folders on multiple hard drives. That is why Adobe has chosen not to allow deleting  images from the collections.

A collection is simply another way of organizing images. If you want to delete the image from the disk it will be necessary to go to the folder that contains the image and delete the image from the folder that contains the image. Images cannot be deleted from colllections, they can only be deleted from the folder.