Flattening version sets extremely tedious

[Van_Epscheuten]

In order to save disk space, I'd like to flatten (all) my version sets. I start by selecting the sets with the aid of ]Find/By Details], I memorize their number (almost 6000), select them all, and thentry to do Edit/Version set/Flatten (including the option to delete from disk). PSE then starts and shows a progress bar that gets stuck at 79%. After a few hours of patience, I abort the process by restarting the program. Apparently, three or four version sets have been flattened. Is there a solution to this problem, other than 'forget about flattening'?

Rik

Elements Organizer 19.0.0.0
Core Version: 19.0 (20210126.m.155261)
Language Version: 19.0 (20210126.m.155261)

Current Catalog:
Catalog Name: catalogPSE2021
Catalog Location: C:\Users\rikbe\AppData\Local\Adobe\catalogPSE2021\
Catalog Size: 459,3MB
Catalog Cache Size: 3,4GB

System:
Operating System Name: Windows 10
Operating System Version: 10.0
System Architecture: Intel CPU Family:6 Model:14 Stepping:10 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Built-in Memory: 7,9GB
Free Memory: 2,3GB

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

Flattening version sets means deleting many files. Deleting many files at the same time, especially if they are involved in stacks or version sets is by far the slowest command in the organizer... If you want to delete several thousands files at the same time, that may require many hours. Worse, the process can abort for lack of free RAM. That depends on your available RAM.

There is no workaround apart from deleting (or flattening) by smaller batches.

Try to flatten 500 or maybe 1000 at the same time. That will give you an idea of the time needed to do the job, and how many version sets or stacks you can batch without the process aborting. In that case, you should be rolled back to the initial state.

[Van_Epscheuten]

Thanks, Michael. I tried your suggestion and found that flattening will proceed normally (although slowly) for 500 pics.

[Van_Epscheuten]

Really sorry for misspelling your name!

[Glenn 8675309]

"In order to save disc space"?  Why even bother worrying about it?  It's not 1992 when a  20MB HDD was $300.  Hard drives and storage space is pretty cheap.  There really is no reason to "make work" for yourself.     

[Van_Epscheuten]

No, this is not about disk space. I sync my pictures with OneDrive and OneDrive doesn't recognize stacks as being stacks: all pictures are shown individually.