Lightroom WONT delete photos from disk

[_MIchael_J_Howard_]

I understand the diffrencce between deleting a photo from LR verses completely deleting from the disk.

However when I try to "delete a photo from disk" through light room it remains on my disk no matter what i do.

I do click the option "delete from disk" verses "remove" from LR

any ideas on what is happening here?

[GJ du Toit]

Same here (LR2). It turned out that the imported photos were all write-protected. I selected the (in my case) My Pictures folder, and turned off Read Only for all subfolders and files. After that, Lightroom deleted the files as expected.

Of course Lightroom should have produced an Error message when files selected for deletion are Read Only -- something like: "Cannot delete read-only files."

Question: Why are these pics write protected? Is there a setting in LR that does this on import? (couldn't find it), or do they come from the camera as write-protected files, or what?

Question: Now I've got a zillion unwanted photos still sitting on my disk. How will I determine which to delete? Would there be a way in Lightroom to delete all files in LR folders but not included in LR libraries? Or to copy the contents of all LR libraries to another location, and then delete the files in the old location?

[ssprengel]

If the source media is readonly then the files will end up on the destination as readonly.

Readonly source media could be a CD, a network share to another computer with the default readonly permissions, a write-protected memory card, or in my case I have a flakey reader that shows the card as readonly even when its switch is not set to write-protect. I don't know if this is a reader issue or a USB-driver issue. Other, newer readers, work ok, but it is a new 64-bit machine and there could be 64-bit driver issues with the older reader.

You say you have zillions of photos that aren't in LR that you want to delete. The point of using LR is to import everything and then use it to review, mark, and delete the rejected photos from w/in LR, not just not import the ones you don’t want.

If your folder structure that contains your photos from your camera also contains other pictures from other sources, then you could move all the camera-related folders out from under where your other miscellaneous pictures are so you can keep straight which is which. If you move the photos w/in the LR interface then the remaining files would be the ones not imported into LR. If you move them outside of LR then you'd need to reconnect to the new folder location(s) w/in LR after the move. Reconnecting to moved folders does not involve re-importing, only clicking on the missing-photo warning ? and browsing to the new location and telling it to find other ones close by. You should start doing this at the highest level up in your folder structure that you can so all the lower folders get recognized automatically.

[upmc1]

I have same problem using LR 2.6 on OS 10.5.6, except none of my photos are read only.

[Pencefn]

I am having a similar problem. My situation is that I have just installed Lightroom 3 on a new computer as a 64 bit version. It has then converted the catalogue. What I have found is that delete will not work on any of the photos in the converted catalogue. Any totally new imports will delete as I would expect. I am an experienced Lightroom user and am very familiar with the normal method of deleting. So for me it seems there is a problem with the Lightroom catalogue conversion. I have checked all file permissions etc. My only solution is to delete using Windows Explorer and then remove from catalogue. Very tedious as someone has already said. But I do believe there is a Lightroom bug somewhere that is causing this problem.  Hope someone can come up with a solution. Cheers, Penny

[DESERTDIESEL]

My question is if LR does not let you remove them from disk, but removes them from LR, where are they stored just being removed froom LR.   So I can go delete them manually.  What file are they then stored?

[Geoff the kiwi]

DESERTDIESEL wrote:

My question is if LR does not let you remove them from disk, but removes them from LR, where are they stored just being removed froom LR.   So I can go delete them manually.  What file are they then stored?

On the drive where they are stored. Right click the file in Lightroom and use the Show in Explorer/Finder option to locate files on disk.

[web-weaver]

desertdiesel,

When images are removed from LR they are not moved in any way. They are still sitting on the hard drive where they were before they were removed from LR.

"Removing" from LR means only that their data in the LR catalog is deleted. That means that all the work that was done to this image in LR is gone. But the image itself (without the changes done in LR) is still on the hard drive.

In the Library Module you can right-click any image(s) and select <Show in Explorer / Finder> and it will show you where it is located on  your hard drive.

WW

[fotografinia]

WW,  THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INFORMATION. IT REALLY WORKED AND I WAS ABLE TO RECAPTURE G-BYTES ON MY MacAIR!

[fromtheheart17]

I have Lightroom 2.7...i couldn't figure it out either...my disk was full. So I played around and if you go to the top of your page and click on photo it gives you an option to delete photo. When you click on that a box pops up to give you the option to delete from disk also.  Hope that helps...

[BobL727]

I have tried all the suggestions so far, re permissions, read only, etc. and nothing works.  I am still in the same position as Penny, having to delete through windows, then remove from the catalog.  I also feel this is a bug.  I really appreciate all the suggestions, but I don't find these forums particularly useful - it seems pretty hard to get any real attention from someone connected with the actual program design - as if Adobe passes off responsibility for solving program problems to users. 

[bockfu]

I can delete rejected photos, but only when I am looking at the entire catalog.

To Delete:

1. Library
2. Catalog\All Photographs
3. Photos\Delete Rejected Photos

If you are in a collection, this flow only removes the photo from the collection and does not delete it from disk.  This is where I'm having a problem as I do not know an efficient workflow to delete photos from a collection.  Anyone have recommendations for a good workflow for deleting photos from disk, one collection at a time?

Lightroom version: 3.4.1 [749592]

Version: 10.6 [8] (mac osx)

[okwilson511]

Yes I have tried run as admin, etc. Photos in collection, marked with reject flag, grid view, unchecked "read only", select all....no option to delete from disk. This is so basic........

Lightroom 3.4.1

Win 7 64bit

[Hal P Anderson]

Lightroom doesn't offer you the option of deleting from disk when you are in a collection. By design.

That said, there is a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Alt-Shift+Delete that will remove the photo from Lightroom and disk even though you are in a collection. Note that the shortcut will delete all selected files without giving you a warning dialogue.

Hal

[etccdb]

I recently changed from pc to mac..On a pc Lightroom would ask me If I wanted to remove the image from the calalog or delete from the disk ..if I click delete it would send it to the recycle bin and I could delete it from there..this would happen for anything I deleted from any program..with the mac it won't send the image to the trash it will only delete from the disk..why

[Stephan21]

I had the same problem (LR3.4.1, MacOS Lion) and it turned out that it was my recently installed export-to-zenfolio-plugin bei Jeffrey Friedl (version july 2011). I deleted it (just deactivating was not enough), and all works fine again.

[etccdb]

so what do you do to upload to zenfolio?

[sandbyte]

I picked this solution from a thread somewhere on this forum and it works for me on Windows 7-64bit/Lightroom 3.

You have to get the permissions correct for folders imported from other PCs:-

- My computer>Right click on the drive that's giving you a probem.

- Click on the "Security"

- Select the User group that applies to you. (In my case it is "Users")

- Click on "Edit" to change permissions.

- Click the first box in the "Allow" column.  (This should put check marks all the way down the column.)

- Click on "Apply"

It then applies the new security permissions to all folders below.

You may have to modify this procedure for your own setup, but the solution is to set the appropriate security permissions.

[kal03]

Hi,

You can try resetting preferences by moving the preferences to the desktop and relaunching the lightroom.

location:  c:\users\user name\appdata\roaming\adobe\lightroom\preferences

[mifapmifap]

Had the issue with files located on an External Hard Drive (EHD) that Lightroom would not delete. This is what worked out for me:

1) Go to "My Computer"

2) Right-click on the EHD on which the files are located and choose "Properties"

3) Click on the "Security" tab

4) Choose "Everyone" and give "full control". This will take a while but afterwards it will give Lightroom the rights to do something with those files, especially delete them.

5) Go to Lightroom and try again deleting the files you needed to delete.

PLEASE NOTE: it would probably also work if instead of "Everyone" you chose a lower level of ppl/users, but I haven't tried to find which one LR requires. Also, giving all rights to all users of the computer should probably be done on a home computer only.

Good luck!

[barbara246810]

I see this post was started years ago. It is now 2016. I'm use LR 4.3 on a MAC. I delete from disk within LR. Photos go to Trash. I empty Trash. Some photos simply will not be removed from the hard drive, other will with no problem. Can anyone tell me how to change the permissions on the Mac? Perhaps certain photos shot on the iPhone and edited in apps are being blocked from deletion, as others have suggested? Photos shot with my Canon delete just fine!

[Guest]

I stumbled upon this post because I also encountered the same issue. It took a while to figure out my mistake though.

When you import a photo to Lightroom, there will be a new folder created in the same directory as the source of your photos. For example, you have a 'Travel' folder in your 'Pictures' Library folder. When you import a photo, a new folder will be created by Lightroom (in my case, a '2016' folder) with the copy of the imported photo. Now, when you decide to delete this photo in Lightroom by selecting "Delete from Disk", Lightroom will delete the photo from the '2016' folder and not from the original source folder of the imported photo.

My mistake is, I was checking the original source folder of my photos and was dumbfounded why even if I choose "Delete from Disk", the photo doesn't get deleted from that source folder. Butt when I realized there is a new folder created by Lightroom, I have confirmed "deleting from disk" moves the photo from the Lightroom created folder ('2016') to the Recycle Bin.

[barbls5280]

I have had the same problem. I found that if it was a .dng file it wouldn't delete. But if I right-clicked, chose Go to Folder in Library, and then selected the file (usually a psd), it would delete. Does seem like a bug-

[Geoff the kiwi]

barbls5280 wrote:

I have had the same problem. I found that if it was a .dng file it wouldn't delete. But if I right-clicked, chose Go to Folder in Library, and then selected the file (usually a psd), it would delete. Does seem like a bug-

Tell me how can a DNG file be a PSD file??? Is there a mis-association in Lightroom somehow? if it is a PSD on disk and Lightroom thinks it's a DNG of course it will not delete via Lightroom...

[Lew_S]

Same problem here, the unacceptable addition that the selected file(s) are not deleted, but some other random files are deleted. I know this because the file count for the folder in question goes down.

[gabantoya]

August 2017 here. haven't tried any of the solutions but just telling the issue is still around.