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Time to clean up hard disk space. What are your tips

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alaios

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Hi all,
it is time to clean hard disk space from my hard disk.
I wanted to ask if you have some nice tip/ workflows that can help on selecting multiple images and throwing them away. I am trying to see if I can do anything better than picking one by one.

Any tips that you have used in the past?

Regards,
Alex
 
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Are you talking images only? And only images imported in LR, or just images in general on the drive (imported or not imported)? What you are trying to delete will dictate what the best solutions are.

--Ken
 
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Alex - when I cull my images (not often, because I do this at first viewing) I pretty much use File Explorer. Using the Preview within Explorer (side panel) - I can cull very fast without having to answer a second question "Are you sure?" Done. Of course, I can hold down Shift or Ctrl keys to select many at once. Deleted to Recycle bin, gives me a choice to undo if I go too far.
 
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If you are cleaning up images in your Lightroom-Classic catalog: A useful feature is the 'Painter' Spray Can.
You can set it to 'Spray on' the Reject Flag.
Then in Grid view of a folder, or 'all photographs' list, spray the images to reject. Even [click & drag] to spray over multiple images.
Later - Review (by filter) and delete all the 'Rejected' images (from Disk). [Ctrl/Cmd + Delete]

1645999182091.png
 
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Rob_Cullen said:
If you are cleaning up images in your Lightroom-Classic catalog: A useful feature is the 'Painter' Spray Can.
You can set it to 'Spray on' the Reject Flag.
Then in Grid view of a folder, or 'all photographs' list, spray the images to reject. Even [click & drag] to spray over multiple images.
Later - Review (by filter) and delete all the 'Rejected' images (from Disk). [Ctrl/Cmd + Delete]

View attachment 18209
Click to expand...

Wow, Rob I had forgotten about that useful tool. Thanks for that. I may change my habits on my culling now. I really don't work much in Grid Mode. I need to open my mind... lol
 
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Windows has a habit of creating temporary files which don't often get cleaned up.

Do a search for "temp" until you find one or more temp file folders. Select ALL the files in each such folder. DELETE ALL. Some files are actually in use and Windows will not let you delete those. All others will get trashed.

If you use Outlook, and if you have any PST files, search for information on how to compress those PST files.
 
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To get an idea of what folders are taking up most of your disk space, check out WinDirStat, a free and open source disk space usage analyzer.
 
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Hal P Anderson said:
To get an idea of what folders are taking up most of your disk space, check out WinDirStat, a free and open source disk space usage analyzer.
Click to expand...
I have seen similar programs, but not this one. Thanks for the recommendation, Hal. I am assuming that you have used it and are happy with how it performs.

--Ken
 
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Also, by Right clicking on your drive, you can access under Properties - you will find Disk Clean-up, and then it will let you check the boxes you want to clean.. It is a so-so way to clean. I don't use this much. But - it's there.
 

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Replytoken said:
Are you talking images only? And only images imported in LR, or just images in general on the drive (imported or not imported)? What you are trying to delete will dictate what the best solutions are.

--Ken
Click to expand...
Images imported in lightroom mostly
 
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Hal P Anderson said:
To get an idea of what folders are taking up most of your disk space, check out WinDirStat, a free and open source disk space usage analyzer.
Click to expand...
my apologies that I was not clear. It is an external disk I have exclusively for lightroom content. So there are many many images there
 
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alaios said:
Images imported in lightroom mostly
Click to expand...
Are you culling just before or after import? If no, then consider doing so to reduce this issue for you in the future? If you are, why are you culling again? Storage is cheap these days.

--Ken
 
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I am doing both. Storage is cheap but why to buy two more 4TB disks ?
 
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alaios said:
I am doing both. Storage is cheap but why to buy two more 4TB disks ?
Click to expand...
As I look at the drives on my desk, I can understand the desire. But if that is the case, then it should drive your culling prior to, or on, import. Over the years, I have seen two primary camps emerge with respect to culling. Those that are only interested in that few percent of images that are show worthy, and those that only delete the bloopers and misfires, figuring they will sort through the rest and keep it all for a variety of reasons (e.g. learning what went wrong). Neither approach is right or wrong, but those who tend to keep or only cull minimally often find storage cheap. I am not ruthless in culling so I do find my self in the latter camp, but I can appreciate those who only want those 1-2% that are truly keepers. In either event, I hope your culling goes well. I recommend lots of good music.

--Ken
 
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alaios said:
Hi all,
it is time to clean hard disk space from my hard disk.
I wanted to ask if you have some nice tip/ workflows that can help on selecting multiple images and throwing them away. I am trying to see if I can do anything better than picking one by one.

Any tips that you have used in the past?

Regards,
Alex
Click to expand...
What does your initial ingestion process look like? As you do your initial cull do you use star ratings or flags? Might be really easy to do an initial clean sweep by creating a Smart Collection consisting of all rejects (if you haven't already deleted them) and images with a star rating of one or two, on no star rating at all.
 
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alaios said:
some nice tip/ workflows that can help on selecting multiple images and throwing them away
Click to expand...
Work in reverse! Select the images you want to keep and throw the remainder away.
That is what the "Refine Photos..." command is designed for, used with the Pick Flag.
Work with a folder of images,
Apply the [Pick Flag] [P] to the images to keep,
'Run' the "Refine..." command and all the remainder without the 'Pick' flag will now be marked as "Rejected" to be easily filtered, selected, and deleted. [Ctrl+Backspace]

The "Refine..." command works by demoting (down-grading) the 'Flag' status of images.
Un-flagged > Rejected. Pick Flag > Un-flagged.
 
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