How to restore deleted photos in Lightroom Classic?

[quintana]

So when I delete photos in Lightroom Classic it asks me if I want to delete them just from the catalogue or from the disk. If I choose the latter Lightroom tells me that I can find deleted photos in the recycle bin but they just don't show up there.

Is this just a wrong setting in Lightroom or on my Mac or what could be the cause here?

 

[Ken Seals]

Apparently, this is something that is happening on some Macs. Go to the Adobe Community forum for Lightroom Classi c and search the issue there.

Once the photos are deleted from disk via Lightroom Classic, all the information and processing is also gone from the LrC catalog.

You could go to your photo backup and reload the desired photo files from there into the folder where the original was located. Once you do that, you will have to do a "Synchronize Folder" in LrC and then start all over on the image processing.

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[quintana]

Thanks for pointing me to the Adobe Community forum. Looks like the issue is known for almost 2 years now and still not solved. Also like you mentioned only some users are affected. Really annoying and not the answer I was hoping for.

 

[Zeee]

Thanks for pointing me to the Adobe Community forum. Looks like the issue is known for almost 2 years now and still not solved. Also like you mentioned only some users are affected. Really annoying and not the answer I was hoping for.

They show up in the bin for me. They always have. Running Sequoia 15.5 and LrC 14.3.1.

I just did it.







--
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

 

[Zeee]

Ken said some Macs. My 2019 Intel iMac, 2017 Intel MacBook Air, 2020 Air M1, 2024 Air M3 and my 2024 M4 Mac Mini all went or got the trash.

 

[Zeee]

So when I delete photos in Lightroom Classic it asks me if I want to delete them just from the catalogue or from the disk. If I choose the latter Lightroom tells me that I can find deleted photos in the recycle bin but they just don't show up there.

The Mac OS itself can't do anything when it goes onto the bin. You have to go in there and manually get the file out.

What Ken said is normal. If you choose Delete From Disk the file goes into the bin and the metadata is removed from the catalogue. I've never used Remove From Lightroom but I imagine the metadata is also removed. I just tried it on one file and as expected it disappeared LrC but was still there in OS folder structure. I would find Remove From Lightroom very inconvenient to use because now the file/s still exist but I can't see it/them in LrC. For me over the years it would create a massive clutter.

If you use Delete From Disk and still don't see the file in the bin there are a few things you can try. Sometimes re-setting preferences can solve unusual problems. If not try an LrC reinstall.

Is this just a wrong setting in Lightroom or on my Mac or what could be the cause here?

Just in case. I don't know how well you understand how the LrC catalogue works. Sorry in advance if you know this but I have seen people get into trouble. Just because you have to import LrC does not mean it creates its own set of files. The catalogue is just a database that keeps a record of your adjustments. The only reason for importing is so LrC can read the files metadata and add it to the database. Also it tells LrC (the database) where your files are located. You have total control over from where you import and where you want to store the files. LrC does not control that.

This is why I mentioned that when I used Remove From Lightroom it disappeared but when I looked in the folder structure where I store my files it was still there.

Here is an example of my OS file structure which is on an external drive. I keep all my files there.



Here is the LrC library. It just mirrors the OS structure. I can open any developer and I'll see the same thing. NOTE. LrC starts at year 2011 because that was when I started using it. I did not import the previous years so it does not know those files exist. If I had of imported them then it would be identical to the above example.



One more. Here is what I see when I open Canon's DPP.



















--
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

 

[Zeee]

All of these years and I've never read this lol. It does as advertised in both cases. For me anyway.







--
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

 

[Zeee]

Looks like a permissions issue.

1. Remove "Full Disk Access" to LrC in the Privacy and Security.

2. Restart the system.

3. Give LrC "Full Disk Access"

From here.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-lr-cannot-delete-files-from-a-drive-that-doesn-t-support-trash/m-p/14422076

 

[quintana]

Looks like a permissions issue.

1. Remove "Full Disk Access" to LrC in the Privacy and Security.

2. Restart the system.

3. Give LrC "Full Disk Access"

From here.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...drive-that-doesn-t-support-trash/m-p/14422076

Thanks for all your effort, really appreciate it.

I tried that multiple times and it doesn't seem to work for me. I was hoping that macOS Sequoia 15.5 might fix it but the problem persists after the update I just did.

 

[EJ Fudd]

Update you OS or your Mac

 

[quintana]

macOS 15.5 didn’t solve the problem

Update you OS or your Mac

--
"The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it."
A Great Quote by Edward Weston...

 

[quintana]

I recently upgraded from my Mac Mini M1 to the new Mac Mini M4. Unfortunately this changed nothing. Also the M3 Macbook Air of my SO has the same issue.

It's really strange that I have this problem with all 3 machines I have used Lightroom with yet so many others seem to have no problem at all. This has to be a wrong setting somewhere.

 

[Zeee]

I recently upgraded from my Mac Mini M1 to the new Mac Mini M4. Unfortunately this changed nothing. Also the M3 Macbook Air of my SO has the same issue.

My new Mac Mini M4 is OK. So is my MB Air M3.

It's really strange that I have this problem with all 3 machines I have used Lightroom with yet so many others seem to have no problem at all. This has to be a wrong setting somewhere.

I don’t think we mentioned this. Have you tried resetting the Preferences? Sometimes that solves unusual issues.

If not reinstall LrC from the CC app menu. Reboot the Mac between each steps.

 

[Zeee]

Not sure if we chatted about this. You can reinstall the OS without loosing anything. I do this about once a year.

 

[quintana]

I don’t think we mentioned this. Have you tried resetting the Preferences? Sometimes that solves unusual issues.

If not reinstall LrC from the CC app menu. Reboot the Mac between each steps.

I did a clean new install with my new Mac Mini M4 which means that I didn't use a time machine backup that might have conveyed this issue.

Of course I am still working with the same LR catalogue but creating a new catalogue didn't solve the problem either in the past.

 

[Zeee]

I don’t think we mentioned this. Have you tried resetting the Preferences? Sometimes that solves unusual issues.

If not reinstall LrC from the CC app menu. Reboot the Mac between each steps.

I did a clean new install with my new Mac Mini M4 which means that I didn't use a time machine backup that might have conveyed this issue.

Of course I am still working with the same LR catalogue but creating a new catalogue didn't solve the problem either in the past.

This would be my last crack at this because I'm out of ideas. I was going to suggest you ask at this site and/but found this thread post. 5 steps.

Verifying…

Not sure if you contacted Apple or Adobe. I/m not sure I'd bother because they will likely blame each other and just give you the basic restart instructions. Next is starting a thread at the above site and/or doing extensive searches on the web.

Good luck

 

[Greybeard2023]

I don’t think we mentioned this. Have you tried resetting the Preferences? Sometimes that solves unusual issues.

If not reinstall LrC from the CC app menu. Reboot the Mac between each steps.

I did a clean new install with my new Mac Mini M4 which means that I didn't use a time machine backup that might have conveyed this issue.

Of course I am still working with the same LR catalogue but creating a new catalogue didn't solve the problem either in the past.

Apologies if you already answered this but where are the files you are trying to delete? Are they on an external drive and what is the filesystem?

 

[quintana]

Apologies if you already answered this but where are the files you are trying to delete? Are they on an external drive and what is the filesystem?

On my M1 Mac Mini they were on the 1 TB internal SSD, on the M3 Macbook Air they are on the 256 GB internal SSD and on my M4 Mac Mini they are on an external 2 TB SSD. All are formatted with APFS.

 

[quintana]

This would be my last crack at this because I'm out of ideas. I was going to suggest you ask at this site and/but found this thread post. 5 steps.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/comm...annot-be-deleted-to-trash.49557/#post-1328942

Not sure if you contacted Apple or Adobe. I/m not sure I'd bother because they will likely blame each other and just give you the basic restart instructions. Next is starting a thread at the above site and/or doing extensive searches on the web.

Good luck

Thanks for pointing me to that website. Probably I will have to post the issue there as the 5 step workaround didn't work for me. When I delete the file in Finder first and then want to delete it in LR I can not choose anymore to delete it from disk but only delete the metadata from the catalogue as LR already seems to have noticed that the corresponding file is missing.

Thank you very much for all your effort. I really appreciate it.