P: Field "File Size in MB" should be available as a filter in Organizer

[piets73432854]

The field "File Size in MB" is listed in the Metadata of each file/photo.

It would be a functional help if this field should also be available in the Filters visible in Organizer.

This funtion would enable user to filter and sort all files/photos which have a material size.

After visualization user can conclude to remove (after backup to external HD) these large files in order to save some space on internal HD.  Actually this can only be done in Explorer and search afterwards in LR file by file.  It would be a great time saving procedure.

[AndyR00]

Hi

I have just imported 11,000 scans (which are all either .jpg, .png or .pdf files) of old photographic images into Lightroom Classic on my Mac.

I want to be able to filter / sort / create a collection based on file sizes (e.g. restrict it just to high res images). For example select only those which are >1MB in size. Or in some way to only select those which are in effect of a decent resoultion. It seems that there is no filter by size option in Lightroom but is there another way to do this or via another Adobe product. I guess I could select the files by size from outside Lightroom and then reimport but seems a little crazy to do that.

Any ideas?

Best

Andy

[TheDigitalDog]

You can make Smart Collections but they are based on megapixels so it's not going to be as 'accurate' as having the ability to do so per size in MB etc. Better than nothing. 

The issue with size in MB etc is that it doesn't tell you that much about the image. For example, if you have 1000x1000 pixels, it's twice the size on your drive in 16-bit vs. 8-bit per color. Hence LR works with pixels which do tell you more about the real size of images. 

[AndyR00]

This is helpful. I basically want to just filter down to decent resolution images which for example could be used as a hero image on a website not for printing for example of something 40"x30". Any suggestions?

Best

Andy

[TheDigitalDog]

40x30 is meaningless. 40 at how many pixels per inch? LR works with pixels. 40x100PPI is vastly different than 40X300PPI. Figure out the number of pixels, then you can filter that way with a Smart Collection. 

[John R Ellis]

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"some way to only select those which are in effect of a decent resoultion."

As Thedigitaldog mentioned, the best way to do this is to use a smart collection that searches on megapixels, e.g.

(Megapixels = width in pixels x height in pixels / 1,000,000.)

If you really want to filter or sort by the file size in bytes, you'd need the Any Filter plugin, e.g.

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[Sally.Wright]

no need to call this person's comment meaningless.  I have the same question - I want to filter for images of high resolution.  It's not a bad thing to write in shorthand "print at 40 inches" since of course I want to print at better than 100 dpi. Yes, when I filter I will have to pick a number of pixels (not inches), but we can discuss in terms of inches if we want

[TheDigitalDog]

no need to call this person's comment meaningless. 

By @Sally.Wright

But it is. If you ask me how far I live from Los Angeles and I wrote "1000," it is meaningless. Is that miles, Kilometers, or meters? Without a scale, 40x30 is meaningless. 40 at how many pixels per inch? Or CM per inch, or for a billboard, feet per inch. Now 40x30 HAS a meaning. 40x100PPI is vastly different than 40X300PPI.

This very, very old primer on resolution still seems necessary to post, this may help some in understanding what the request clearly doesn't:
http://digitaldog.net/files/Resolution.pdf

[skyrunr]

I have also had the need to search for cropped dimensions (with RAW or even bit depth) which would also help.  Even "longest" edge would help as I use that for exporting settings.  I was specifically running image enhancement on older images.

[Bob Somrak]

You can create smart collections for Long Edge

 

[John R Ellis]

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The Any Filter plugin can filter by file size:

[imontv08]

I'm pretty surprised that basic functionality like "Sort by File Size" and "Filter by File Size" (in Smart Collections) is still not available in Lightroom Classic. This needs to be fixed.

[imontv08]

Lightroom needs this. I absolutely agree.

[Bob Somrak]

Get AnyFilter as @John R Ellis stated above.  It has filter capabilities that will NEVER be provided by Adobe.  

[Hard Coder]

So, the "implementation" problem here is that these goodies aren't saved in the LR catalog, the lrcat file, which is in fact just an SQLite database, in a readily accessible format.

Each image/file has in that dabase -- obviously? -- an entry with its Adobe Camera Raw settings saved. However, very few of those parameters are stored in a way that allows them to be searched efficiently. Generally, the ACR settings are a text blob. Some of them are broken out into additional tables and indices, but not many of them.

Lightroom's ACR settings aren't (I think?) stored as JSON, rather as some kind of nearly-JSON but "string," and the relatively recent enhancements to SQLite for JSON queries probably don't apply. Oh, if only they did.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch for users to be able to filter on, say, images with Texture < -25, but it seems to me (naively and perhaps incorrectly) that the schema used by LR is basically REALLY OLD.

By the way, SQLite is one of the coolest things ever to be released upon the world, and if you are an SQL-curious nerd who hasn't heard about it, you should check it out. It has uses, and is used in ways, you would never expect.

[alexandre-daltro]

From what I have searched, it can be done only with this plugin: https://johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfilter.htm

[dj_paige]

I'm pretty surprised that basic functionality like "Sort by File Size" and "Filter by File Size" (in Smart Collections) is still not available in Lightroom Classic. This needs to be fixed.

By @imontv08

I'm in favor of not fixing this. I don't see how file size has any meaning here, it certainly does not tell you anything about quality. Better, sort or filter by image size (not file size) would be useful, that tells you about the image resolution, and you can filter by image size using Smart Collections.

[imontv08]

I don't get it. Why are you against adding a feature others may need? Adding it wouldn't hurt you in any way. You don't have to use it.

If I want to sort/filter by file size it's certainly not about quality but more about tasks like freeing disk space.

[imontv08]

Thanks, but as much as I appreciate the efforts by third parties, as a paying Lightroom subscriber I expect such really basic functionality to be included in the main software.

[alexandre-daltro]

I agree! But anyways you can use the 30 day trial for now.
I did it only to find the biggest files I have right now and free up space.

I hope adobe takes care of this! Such a simple addition.

[Luis26381749d1k4]

I absolutely agree tha LR shold have this possibility. I am not a geek and using different apps is time consuming.

[davids84228917]

Yes. There is a way, though not as inuitive and immediate as in Adobe Bridge as an example. Essentially you should select all the photos you wish to sort through (it may well be everything), then create a Smart Collection based on Match "all of the following rules": width/height "is less/more than":

A Smart Selection is then made based on any set dimension.

[alexandre-daltro]

David, actually they mean Filesize, like Mega Bytes. Not image size (Dimensions in pixels).

[Ellarsee]

I ended up here because when I copied photos off my phone I got a bunch of thumbnails that I'd like to get rid of. What I really want is to sort by resolution.  The sort will be the same whether I say sort by pixels, or sort by print size at 100dpi.  Since you seem to be much better at pedantry than math or communication, when you divide a set of numbers by a constant, the order remains the same.  Or if you really want to be pedantic, if the constant is large enough that the result of the division is an integer and it clips to zero, then yes, the order can be lost. 
But, congratulations, you had an opportunity to show the world exactly how intelligent you are, without conveying any useful information, and you siezed it without hesitation.

[Steven26961516uf8l]

Adobe will never give you this feature because it's the best way to find large files to delete. This is what anyone would want to do if your cloud storage option is too full, and you need to make room fast without hours of culling or upgrading your plan. It worked on me, except now I'm maxed out on data plans, so let the culling begin. smh

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-field-quot-file-size-in-mb-quot-should-be-a...