Elements 2018 is backing up all my photos to a folder on the desktop and taking up too much space.

Elements 2018 has backed up all my photos to a folder on the desktop, now taking up too much space and I don't know what to do with this folder. If I dlelete it will I lose a bunch of photos? I do have a separate backup online.

By @Anthony301206296k4c

Do you mean a full organizer backup storing both your media files and your catalog folder or a backup from another application ?

An organizer backup is a folder you have created and named yourself in the backup process. It contains everything needed to restore all the media files and the catalog on another computer or drive while restoring the links in the database to the new location.

- You can move, copy or delete the backup folder (including copies of the media files and the catalog components) everywhere, that does not change its contents nor delete anything in your current catalog folder or your media files trees. I suspect the separate online backup is not an organizer backup, so I would absolutely either:

- move the backup folder to an external USB drive like most of the organizer users

- create a new full backup directly on an external USB drive. In my last backup, surprisingly, that took less time that moving the backup folder!

The issue with most external backup solutions is that when moving to a new computer, the catalog database will point to the old location of the media files, showing them as missing. They are good to restore to the same location, so it's a good idea to use both types of backup, the cloud solution for syncing the media files and the organizer backup for more safety and ease of moving to a new computer.