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Can I permanently delete photos on my HD from within LR?

Participant ,
Nov 21, 2021 Nov 21, 2021

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I want to free up a bunch of space off my harddrives so I have to go through all my Lightroom albulms and delete the photos I don't want. The only option I really see is "Delete # photos...", then it says it'll delete them "permanently" from the folder/albulm/shares after 60 days which is a little vague.

Obviously this is silly and I'd like to permanently deleter them from my hard drive right now. The only problem is I don't know which ones were edited when I look at them in Bridge/Windows Explorer.

Can anyone provide any suggestions?

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Community Expert ,
Nov 22, 2021 Nov 22, 2021

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Lightroom stores the images in the cloud, so it's doubtful that you will free up a bunch of space from your local hard drive by deleting photos from Lightroom. Do go to the Lightroom preferences however, and check the options for storing local copies. You don't have to do that, so if that option is checked, you can uncheck it.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Participant ,
Nov 22, 2021 Nov 22, 2021

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Thanks but I'm trying to delete the local copies. My online storage is full anyways. I have at least 50GB I'm looking to delete from my local hard drive. Again, I'd do it through Windows Explorer or Bridge, but I don't know which ones were edited and taking the time to painstakingly go through and compare each photo is just not practical when I have 3000+.

 

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Community Expert ,
Nov 23, 2021 Nov 23, 2021

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Local copies are just that: copies. They are not managed by Lightroom and are not really needed. Lightroom can work faster if it has a local copy, but it doesn't need one. If there is no local copy, then Lightroom will simply download it if it needs it. That means you can delete them all. There is no reason to want to keep the ones that were edited.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Participant ,
Nov 23, 2021 Nov 23, 2021

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Ah ok, I think I'm getting it...

If I delete the RAW files I imported from my hard drives I'll still have access to the files in Lightroom?

I typically import all my photos, and 90%~ of them I don't want to keep. I can just delete them? Cause I'm still thinking of it telling me "they'll be deleted in 60 days" or whatever.

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Community Expert ,
Nov 23, 2021 Nov 23, 2021

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Yes, if the raw files have been uploaded to the cloud, then you can delete the local copy. If you don't need them at all, then delete them for Lightroom and locally.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Community Expert ,
Nov 23, 2021 Nov 23, 2021

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And don't forget backup. As Johan says, you can delete all these local copies, but then you are only left with a single copy of the file - ie the one in the cloud. You have 60 days if you delete this file, but that period can go quickly. So have copies locally, somewhere.

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