How do I remove a folder from Essential Elements 15*

Question

How do I remove a folder from Essential Elements 15*I have backed up all of my photos.  Now I want to remove the source folders.  How do I remove them from Elements/Organizer?Lenny Fenimore

MichelBParis · Accepted Answer

Warning!There is no software called "Essential Elements 15*", you certainly mean Photoshop Elements 15 (still image editor) or Premiere Elements 15 (video editor). The organizer is used with both.Backup: do you mean a backup you have made from your organizer menu? Then, the backup is a folder containing everything needed to restore its contents, that is your catalog and your image files. It's not a simple copy, you can't use it like a copy, it's only there to enable the 'restore' function of the organizer.Removing from the organizer.The organizer is the managing software, the catalog is the database containing all the information about your photo files (the links to their location, the exif data, the tags and captions, the small thumbnails... but the catalog does not contain any image nor image copy.)So, what makes sense is to remove the files:- from the catalog only: the information is deleted, the files stay on your drive- or from the catalog AND from your drive.When you select files in the organizer (highlight them), you can delete the files (right click contextual menu of Del key); you are asked to choose if you also want to delete from the disk.You can also use the folders panel on the left in tree mode. You select a folder and use the right click menu (Delete Folder). This would delete the folder from the disk as well as from the catalog, including files not present in the catalog.If you delete a folder from the Explorer or Finder instead of from the organizer, the information about the files are still in the catalog, but the links point to nothing. The files are shown as 'missing' in the catalog. You can do a search for missing files. The resulting dialog has options to - 1 select all or part of the list - 2 - delete from catalog.

MichelBParis · Answer

You imply that if you select Delete folder for a folder in the Organiser tree view, it also always deletes the folder from the disc. Is there no option as there is with deleting a file, to delete from Folder but not from disc. I would prefer to see only the folders I now want in the catalogue and remove others to keep it tidy. Note I am using PS 2020 on IMAC with Catalina but doubt if those details matter.

Deleting from folder or from disk is the same. The files are totally erased from your computer.

Deleting from catalog is different, the photo files stay in your computer / disk / folders, but the references (links) in the catalog are removed. You can re-import them if you want.

If you select a folder in the left folder tree panel, rijght click and choose 'delete folder', you get a message telling that the folder will be deleted (which means 'from catalog') and there is a checkbox for you to say if you want the files to be also deleted from disk.

This is equivalent to an alternative solution based on searching missing files.

You start by checking there are no missing files in your catalog.

- if you want to delete the whole folder from catalog and disk, you close the organizer, you use your Finder to delete the folder. You search missing files, and from the 'reconnect missing files dialog' you choose to select all and delete all.

- If you only want to delete from catalog, instead of deleting the folder in the Finder, you simply rename it. You do 'reconnect missing files' then select all and delete all. You can use the Finder afterward to rename the folder back if you want.

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