P: Delete Images on Card after Import

Report · Jun 03, 2011

I would love to get an option to let LR automatically delete images from the card after they have been successfully imported. Images on the card that have not been imported, are let alone, of course.

It would serve two purposes for me:
1. It would save me deleting the images manually.
2. It would dramatically improve the experience of importing images from one card into different catalogs.

An incremental import of subsets of images on one card into a single catalog (but e.g., different folders) is well supported by the "New Photos" filter in the import dialog. However, when I switch catalogs while downloading images from a card -- because some subset of images on the card needs to go into a different catalog -- the "New Photos" filter no longer works. As a result, I have to remember and wade through a lot of images I already imported into a different catalog.

I realise that deleting images from the card is a sensitive issue. It must not happen prior to having verified that the image indeed has been copied (or converted) to a new location. Picasa supports this double checking.

As a safety net, Lightroom could offer a "restore deleted images" feature that would resurrect deleted files from cards. Users will find such a feature tremendously useful for other occasions as well.

I'd be happy with the following compromises as well:

* The option to delete images after import is available only if one activates a second backup location.

* Images are not deleted but the tracking of which images have already been imported is extended to work across catalogs. A record of what images still need to be imported could be associated with a currently inserted card.

Report · Aug 17, 2025

I will point out three things here:

1) Many individuals have made assertions here about why Lightroom allows Move functionality for files from every source except an SD card, but there is no evidence that any of them have any knowledge of what Adobe thinks about the idea.

2) It is not at all relevant what camera manufacturers say about formatting SD cards. The suggestion is about deleting files, not formatting cards.

3) I personally have lost photos because I erased the images from the SD card after a partially unsuccsssful copy to HD. How am I supposed to check that the copy is fully successful? Look at every one of 500+ images on both SD and HD and manually compare the metadata? Lightroom knows whether the copy is complete and successful; for image sets of non-trivial size, there's no reasonable way for the photographer to know.

Thus, allowing this option (a configurable choice to Move rather than Copy files from SD cards, with Lightroom verifying the copy before deleting the files) not only would allow for a more efficient workflow, it would allow for a safer process of moving images from SD cards.