Hardrive getting full from original Raw images, help!

[Lucas1122]

Hello-

So I have a terabyte of memory on my computer that seems to keeping getting full. I get the message "start up disk nearly full"or something like that. I shoot RAW images and upload them into lightroom via drag and drop some the SD card. When i'm done editing the images in Lightroom I export them in jpeg format onto a external hardrive. I've been finding folders on my computer that have backing up every RAW images thats taking up a ton of space. I recently moved the lightroom back up on to the external drive, will this solve the issue? I strictly use my computer for image editing so I guess i'm not that familiar with this kind of stuff. Help!

-Lucas 

[dj_paige]

I've been finding folders on my computer that have backing up every RAW images thats taking up a ton of space

This is clearly the problem, and you have to figure out why this is happening. Important point: Lightroom only does that at the time of import if you have turned on an option at Import, Lightroom does not make other backups of your photos.

If that's not the problem, then you have to find the reason why backups of your photos are being made. it is some other software on your computer.

[Laura Shoe]

I'm also wondering what you mean by backing up - are these images in folders titled, "Imported on January, 6, 2017 (or whatever date)" as dj_paige assumes,  or are these in folders named "2017-01-17" or another date format, but without "Imported on"?  If they are just date folders, these aren't backups - these are your master raw files. These masters don't reside "in Lightroom", they reside in folders on your hard drive according to what you choose in the Destination panel in the Import dialog (or what it defaults to if you make no choice).

If they are in "Imported on ..." folders, then follow his response above.

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

Putting Lightroom of the external hard drive isn't the solution, in my opinion. I suggest that you import your images directly to the external hard drive and not have them on your 1 TB drive on your computer. As far as all the duplicates are concerned, you either have an option check in the import dialog or some other software is creating these backups/copies.