How to fully delete folders in Lightroom?

DaelpixPhotography

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David
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In Lr (v5.7) when you want to delete a folder it says;

If you continue, these photos will be removed from the Lightroom catalog but the folder and files will remain on disk.

How can I fully delete them?
 
Are you in a 'collection' when trying to do that? That's normally the alert that pops up when you delete from collections... If you do it from 'All Photographs', you should have both options - to either delete from lightroom or to delete from lightroom and disc.
 
No I'm in my catalogue. I don't use collections.

I guess the easy way to do it is to delete the images in the folder, then delete the folder.
 
Only way I know ... If on a PC, when you right click on the folder there should be an option near the bottom that reads "Show in Explorer", this will launch windows explorer where the folder and files can be deleted, I'd remove from lightroom first though (using the remove option and answering "Remove" when prompted)
 
Ah, ok, I'm an idiot... you're talking folders, not individual files. Ignore my stupidity. :)
 
In Library mark any pictures you don't want to keep with an x then at the top under photo - bottom of the list it has a delete rejected photos option. If you click it it then has a delete from disk or remove option. Delete from disk deletes the original file where ever it has been saved, remove just removes it from the catalogue.

To delete all the pictures open the folder cmd or ctrl A to select them all then x then you can remove all of them as above.

Once the folder is empty (it shows 0) then click on the folder and delete it.

Hope that helped/made sense.
 
I'll delete the files then the folder in future.

I'll go through my folders and delete the 'removed' folders in 'explorer' because I have a lot that I want deleted.

Don't worry about it Bethy we all make mistakes :)
 
Wayne

When deleting images I press 'x' to mark them to deleted, then go in to 'Photo', then select 'Delete Rejected Photos'.
 
You need to delete the images in the folder first, before you can delete the folder. Assuming you want to delete the images and the folder, select all the images in the folder, (Cmd/Ctrl A). the press "X" on the keyboard to select the delete option. Then cmd/ctl backspace or delete depending on OS. You will get a warning message. If you wish to continue press return. The images will be deleted from the Lightroom database and the drive they are on. You can ow remove the folder, by right clicking and select remove.

Deleting the images directly from the hard drive wont remove them from Lightroom as the database data still exists for them and the folder deletion will still come up with the error you are getting . They need to be deleted from the database as well
 
There is no way to sync a Lr catalogue with the files on the computer is there?

You can't sync PC to Lightroom apart from importing. deleting the images my way deletes on both computer and in Lightroom. That syncs both.

Missing files can be re sync as Byker 28i suggests
 
I know I can find missing files and folders in Lr, but I want to know if I can sync folders and files in Lr to the catalog on under 'Pictures'
 
Inn order for Lightroom to know where images are , you have to use the import option. This creates entries in the Lightroom database. This is what Lightroom uses to find the images. . If you delete these from the hard drive Lightroom still thinks they are there but cannot find them hence the "?" symbol in the image. Lightroom isn't interactive. In other words it doesn't check files and location each time it starts. That would take far to long. So it assumes everything is OK at startup. There is no "Sync" option for picture import. You have to tell Lightroom which images you want Lightroom to import into it's database. The same with deleting. Yes you can delete images from your hard drive, but the Lightroom database still has a record of where they were. As a safety factor it wont let you delete a folder that it thinks has images in it.

So if you are using Lightroom to manage your images the best option is to manage these via Lightroom
 
Just re read my reply. made a slight mistake. What I meant to say that Lightroom doesn't check for changes to the image locations each time it starts. It does however check that files are in the location it has on record.If not that's when you get the "?" symbol.
 
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