Deleting photos not in a collection

[Guest]

Hi there - I'm a rookie at Lightroom, help appreciated!

I imported all of my photos (which sync'd them online which I didn't want to do) as (I thought) it was the only way I could clearly preview them (any help here welcome...)

I then sorted the photos I wanted into various collections which totals around 70, the remaining 550 are clogging all my 20Gb Adobe space I have, and I can't work out how to delete them without deleting the photos I have in my collections!

So, the questions is, can you filter photos that are not in a collection.... or any other workaround appreciated! 

Henry

P.S. the secondary question is how do you best preview photos before importing them, or import them so they don't sync online.... I think I may be getting confused with having used Lightroom and now Lightroom CC...

[dj_paige]

First, please clarify, is the software you are asking about Lightroom (Lr icon) or Lightroom Classic (LrC icon)? What is the version NUMBER of your software (go to Help->System Info, it's the fourth line down, first line inside the inner box, it says either Lightroom Version or Lightroom Classic Version)

Also, there is no software known as Lightroom CC.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply - I actually have both open. On LrC the version is: 12.4.0 [21F79] - and looking at Lighroom (Lr) it's the same on that too (OS Version: macOS 12.4 (21F79))

Henry

[dj_paige]

I don't want the OS version, I want the Lightroom version.

And its not clear which of these two software you are asking about.

[Guest]

Lightroom Classic version: 11.3.1 [ 202204181225-f90ebff5 ]

Here you go!

[Guest]

Lightroom version: 5.4 MAS arm64 [ 20220607-0605-ab0fd72 ] (Jun 7 2022)

[dj_paige]

And for the third time: its not clear which of these two software you are asking about.

[Guest]

Well I use both... so whichever the problem can be the easiest solved with... having just started to use Lightroom Classic today, Lightroom is the programme I'm more familiar with.  

However, if you recommend I should use Lightroom Classic instead from now on, and get to grips with it (as I have heard it is better), I'll give it a go.

[dj_paige]

I'm not recommending either, as you really haven't told me enough about your goals to know which is better. When I say "goals", its much more broad than one task like deleting photos not in a collection; its really what is your overall goal in handling your photos, do you want the most powerful editing tools, do you want a built-in "organizer" with keywording, do you want to access all your photos via mobile devices, stuff like that.

I can't answer Lightroom questions, as I don't use it; and you'd be better off asking questions about Lightroom in the proper forum, which is the Lightroom (ecosystem) forum and not in this forum, which is the Lightroom Classic forum.

[dj_paige]

You would also benefit from viewing introductory tutorials or reading introductory books, most of which are free, including the freee-books at https://www.lightroomqueen.com/

[Guest]

Thanks - on Lightroom Classic then do you know how to delete photos that aren't in albums?

[dj_paige]

Create a Smart Collection, and then for the criteria, Collection doesn't contain a e i o u y (with spaces) works for most cases. If you have created a collection whose name doesn't include vowels (like a collection named "10th") then even this doesn't work.

This identifies the photos, then you press Ctrl-A to select them all, then switch to the "All Photographs" view in the Library Module, and then with all these photos in the Smart Collection still selected you can delete them.

I think it would be wise for you to take a step back and instead of focusing on how to delete photos, focus on how best to organize everything such that it works for you. Big picture stuff, not how to delete. Learn the capabilities of the software.

[Guest]

Well now I can as I have the disk space!

Solved - thank you.