Impossible to move a file to the destination folder because there is not enough available space

[Lise34734661z2ty]

Hello, looking for some help. I have been transferring my old jpeg pictures from my iMac Picture folder into Lightroom. I was able to transfer a lot of them and then suddenly I received an error code telling me its 'impossible to move a file to the destination folder because there is not enough available space'.  I am on iMac with latest version of OS.  Find below the french dialog box with the error code. I have translated it for this purpose. I have 500g still available on my disk so don't think this is the issue. Would really appreciate understanding how I can fix this. Thank you.

[dj_paige]

My personal opinion (which maybe you disagree with) is that you get better help in this forum than you will get from Adobe. If the problem is truly that your hard disk has very little space left, Adobe won't help with that anyway.

[Sean McCormack]

Lightroom uses previews for everything you see in the program except in Develop. Even if 1:1 previews are set to delete after 30 days there are things that prevent this. If your screen size is less than twice the size of the largest preview, then Ligthroom uses the 1:1 preview. This is true for most modern 4K+ screens. 

You do get orphaned previews though. These get removed as part of the File>Optimise Catatlog command. 

If you delete this file, Lightroom will recreate it. You'll have loads of grey thumbnails as Lightroom will regenerate them as you view each folder. You may find this frustrating. 

As @dj_paige suggests, you're more likely to get help here that with Adobe. Plenty of the experts here write books, tutorials and even worked on the help pages. 

[Lise34734661z2ty]

Thank you Sean. You are absolutely right. I just finished spending over 90 miinutes chatting with an Adobe expert and he was amazing in helping to fix my two big issues and he answered a whole bunch of questions I did"nt even I had. The net regarding the preview file, which I did delete this morning before chatting with Adobe, will regenerate itself. The 30 parameter is only good if you are using 1;1 previews. I am using 'Standard' previews therefore this preview file just kept getting bigger and bigger. So I will now start deleting it maybe every 6 months or every year. So thank you every one for all of your help. As I said this gentleman was really amazing. He navigated on my French version of Lightroom like he spoke French, which he did'nt, so really appreciated his time and patience. Very competent.

[Lise34734661z2ty]

Now on the original topic of my initial post regarding an error code I was getting when trying to 'Move' pictures from my disk Photo folder to Lightroom's folders, it turned out to be something I certainly would never have found. So folks, its perfectly ok to use the Move function of the import in Lightroom and I was doing everything right for my purpose. Unfortunately the error code I was getting which was saying it 'lacked space' to move the folder to destination is a generic type error code message. I will make this short because it took some time to find but it turns out that some, not all, folders in my 'Photos' folder on my drive did not permit to write. I had 'read only' permission. It seems simple but trust me it was'nt simple to find. This gentleman first started by ensuring I had 'read/write' permission on my entire Library but that did'nt cut it. I still could'nt move the pictures. So we found some folders had 'read/write' and other not. He proceeded to modify use permissions for all of the folders contained in 'Photos'. And the Move/Import function works like a charm. I want my Lightroom to be one stop shop for all of my pictures and this Move will ensure all of the pictures are located in the Lightroom folders by date. 

So again thank you all for trying your best to help. I did test a lot of your suggestions but without success. I would certainly recommend using Adobe's chat for expert support. I don't know if they are all as competent as the gentleman that helped me but I was very impressed. We were connected almost for two hours. I did take the opportunity to have him on line to ask a lot of other questions. So it was a very very productive morning for me. Have a great day folks!

[Sean McCormack]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and add to our knowledge. I'm glad you were able to get through. 

[GoldingD]

... Your suggestion to use Finder means the pictures would be in Finder and in LrC which is what I don't want. ....

By @Lise34734661z2ty

Huhh?? What??

Finder is not a hard drive, Finder is not a folder. What the heck are you talking about. Finder is your MACOS file manager, you use it to navigate thru your files, to see where they are, to find out info, to copy, to move, to delete.

You can use Finder to copy your photos from a SD card to a appropriate folder on a appropriate hard drive, that you want to contain your photos for use in LrC.  Then instead of Import via Copy in LrC, yoiu Import via Add in LrC.

This is extremely fundamental.

[Lise34734661z2ty]

Please see my response above. Thank you.

[richardplondon]

Just for completeness: the VIDEO cache file can also be emptied on demand, by clicking a button in the LrC Preferences dialog.

[Lise34734661z2ty]

I did'nt know. Thank you for sharing this information.