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Removing sidecar files as don't need the clutter - how to unlink?

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pjamedia

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I am sure I have been involved in conversation about this a long time ago but can't find it in search, so here goes:

I want to get rid of all my sidecar files. In fact I did it already. To be honest, I don't know why I had so many as I don't generally save to sidecars but some of it may be a historic thing having moved (several years ago) from using ACR. Anyway, when I deleted the sidecars, I got the ? in each thumbnail using one (in grid view) and hovering over the ? gives me the 'sidecar file missing' message. Clicking this ? gives me the option to forget about the sidecar files, in essence removing the link with the missing sidecar. Clicking 'forget' achieves this perfectly, and from this point on I rely solely on the metadata from the catalog for that image - exactly what I want!
But I have several thousand files like this and LR only gives me the option to address one file at a time. So how do I get around that?? I.e. how to unlink multiple images files from their missing sidecar links in one go? You certainly get the ability to create multiple sidecars in one go, but there doesn't seem to be any way provided to get rid of multiples.

BTW, having the ? on the thumbnails doesn't stop me from working, it is just the annoyance of the broken links I would like to resolve for completeness - OK, maybe a OCD thing ;o)

(Please don't suggest editing the SQLLite database I have tried plenty of tweaks to the database, including a few sql update queries which have been published on this very subject, and they all have side effects as they don't address all the different table/record/value changes needed to complete the un-link fully. Thankfully I only try this after making sure I have a healthy backup and so can restore, which is ultimately what I have to do to get things working properly again.)

Any ideas please?

Thanks, Paul A
 
Try selecting all the affected files and the click on a ? It should say do or all???? CHoose all selected, then your golden! :D

Don
 
[quote author=MarkNicholas link=topic=114'5.msg76645#msg76645 date=1288'55227]
Just delete them in windows explorer.
[/quote]

That's what Paul did to start with. Now, Lr is complaining it can't find them.
 
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