Removing photos from Lightroom CC

RunWithScissorsRWS  wrote That's why I think it's more of a flaw than a feature, I'm told it will delete it everywhere, but it leaves a copy?  What if I am cleaning up... do I now need to get some file or folder comparison software to figure out which photos in the lightroom classic CC folder are the orphaned ones so I can delete these as well?  If I don't want them, I really don't want them.  I'd rather it just mark them with a rejected flag or keyword metadata or something else that I can filter on and then delete manually, so I can actually delete that copy that was synchronized into this folder. So what happens when I delete the photo from Lightroom Classic CC by flagging as rejected and deleting the maser from the disk?  That gets rid of all copies, except the original one taken on the phone.  Just an FYI and I hope it helps some until it (hopefully) gets fixed.

I don't think that the current behaviour is actually flawed, but it's certainly misunderstood by many, and I agree that the warning message is not as clear as it could be (Adobe have been made aware of our concerns and hopefully will react by improving the message). The message specifically means that when deleting an image from any of the LRCC apps, that image is deleted completely from the cloud ecosystem, which means that it will be removed ONLY from all/any LRCC apps (phone, tablet, web, and desktop). And that part works fine, but there are other places, as you have noted, where the image could still remain after that deletion.

Dealing with the issue of adding a photo to the cloud from your phone, and then subsequently deleting it....a lot depends on how you added the photo. If, for example, you used the LRCC camera to take the picture, then subsequent deletion should also remove that picture from the phone. If, OTOH, you used the phone's own camera app to take the picture, when you then import that picture to LRCC on the phone, the image is copied from the camera roll (or whatever it's called on Android phones) into the LRCC app's space. In this situation, subsequent deletion will remove the picture only from the LRCC app's space on the phone, it cannot also delete the image from the camera roll. Copies of images outside the LRCC app are the user's responsibility, LRCC cannot deal with that.

The same approach exists when you import images from a desktop folder into LRCC desktop....those images are copied into the local LRCC library from where they are uploaded to the cloud. The original images remain outside the LRCC app's control, and would not therefore be deleted if they are subsequently deleted from LRCC (i.e. the cloud and any locally stored copy under LRCC control).

Regarding Classic, if the catalog is sync-enabled any images added into the cloud ecosystem from any LRCC app will also download into Classic and will remain synced. Subsequently deleting a synced image from the cloud (i.e any LRCC app) will only cause it to be "unsynced" in Classic, and not deleted from Classic. Classic retains autonomy over all its cataloged images, even those downloaded via cloud sync....such synced images are regarded as simply another import source, and thus can only be removed/deleted from the Classic catalog.

So with the above in mind, trying to incorporate all that into one easily understood dialog box becomes a little tricky. This is how it looks today when deleting from the LRCC desktop app:

If, for example, "All Synced Devices" was changed to read "The LRCC app on All Synced Devices" then that would technically be correct while remaining reasonably concise. Whether or not the full implications of that would be sufficiently understood (probably not by everyone) is another matter, so does the message also have to explicitly state the potential exemptions? I think that there are a few too many "ifs and buts" to do it concisely, so I don't envy Adobe the task of trying to improve the message so that it is totally understood by everyone.

FWIW, because I remain "Classic-centric" while also using the LRCC ecosystem as well, I control deletions by using the Reject Flag when I come across an image in LRCC that I want to delete, subsequently doing the deletion from Classic. But this problem doesn't arise for someone using only LRCC, and not Classic as well (which is possibly what Adobe expected would be the "norm" when the deletion message was first coded).

hasansheikh  wrote Hi, I have recently started using Lightroom CC. I flagged a bunch of photos I did not want to keep as "x" and permanently deleted them. When I go back to the folder on my Mac, I can still see them there. I thought by permanently deleting them, the photos will get removed from the local disk as well. Is there anything that I am missing? P.S. I have been using a trial version of Lightroom CC and the trial has now expired. I would like to try out the Lightroom Classic CC before I decide to buy either of them. Is there a way I can import my photo albums etc and edited photos from Lightroom CC into Lightroom Classic CC?

Which "folder on your Mac" do you mean? If you add photos to LRCC from an existing folder on hard drive, LRCC copies those images to a different location, from where they are uploaded. The original images on the hard drive are not "managed" by LRCC, only the copy that it makes for uploading are managed in accordance with whatever settings you have on the Local Storage tab of the LRCC Preferences. So if you are referring to the original folder, then yes they will not be deleted when you delete them from the cloud. If you are in fact referring to the local copy that LRCC made, they should get removed over time by LRCC.

Importing the photos/edits from LRCC to LR Classic should happen automatically when you launch LR Classic AND enable it to sync using the same credentials that you are using for your LRCC trial.

Understood, but still unclear how far the deletion goes. You import images to LR CC from a folder. Are those cloud copy images with their associated local storage independent of those in the original folder? Or, in other words, if you delete images from LR CC, does that leave the original images in the source folder untouched or does it delete those too. And vice versa, if after importing into LR CC you edit or delete the image in the original folder, is the LR CC image affected?