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Doug7
Participant
October 24, 2020
Question

How to filter specific file types when importing in Lightroom

  • October 24, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 5228 views

Hello,

I'm working on relearning some of my Lightroom skills after a long hiatus and am using a Mac.  On a recent photo shoot, I realized I had RAW(Canon CR2) and JPG capture set.  Fortunately, I didn't just have JPG set!!  Obviously I'd prefer to just import the RAW files to work on and store in the cloud.

 

When I click to "add photos", from my SD card, it shows all the photos (both RAW and JPG), but I can't see an obvious way to filter the window so I only import the RAW photos.  There are over 1,000 photos on the card, so individual selction will take a long time.  

 

Does anyone know how I can set it up to only import the RAW files and skip the JPG files?  If there isn't a way, is there an easy way to do this, post-import?

 

Thanks so much for your help!

    4 replies

    R
    redgilda
    Participating Frequently
    April 2, 2025

    Hello, just searching the forums to see if maybe this 'feature' has been addressed since then? 

     

    I do shoot still RAW and JPGs on the same card and so need to delete all the JPGs manually afterwards as they are also copied to my hard drive... so just checking if anyone has a solution since 2020? 

    R
    redgilda
    Participating Frequently
    April 2, 2025

    as it happens often in my life, posting a message helped me to find a solution... somehow I've never noticed that we can 'sort' the files by type when importing.... so selecting only RAWs is much easier now at least... 

    M
    michael_jones
    Participant
    April 19, 2025

    Hi, could you please tell where you set this filter up, seems I can't find it.

    S
    snappy42
    Known Participant
    August 20, 2023

    Same problem here. And: no, I do not want to import the JPGs first and then delete them again... 

      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 20, 2023

      As the Rolling Stones already sang: "You can't always get what you want".

       

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
      S
      snappy42
      Known Participant
      August 20, 2023

      It may have been exactly that kind of attitude of product managers that killed companies like Nokia 😊

        JohanElzenga
        Community Expert
        JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 14, 2022

        You can filter on file extension (type 'extension' in the search field) after you imported them all. So filter on .jpg and then delete all those images again. If you have other jpeg images in Lightroom that you do not want to delete, then import into a new album so you can filter in that particular album, or filter by date as well.

         

        -- Johan W. Elzenga
          R
          Raphael2264922524tp
          Participant
          January 14, 2022

          I'm running into the same exact problem. It is such a basic feature, it's infuriating that in 2022 it's still not done.

          Importing is literally the entry point into the Adobe system, and they effed it up right from the beginning.

          Naïvely I thought Adobe hired professional product managers.

          This makes me want to switch to the competition.

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