Can Photographers Delete the Lightroom Previews.lrdata Folder?

Yes, it is safe for photographers to delete the Lightroom Previews.lrdata folder and this tutorial explains what it is and how to do that.

[@mhaller1]

Dude! This was EVERYTHING. Thanks for taking the time and explaining so clearly.

[@fredericdirosa5863]

Very good description, easy to understand, not to fast not to slow. Perfect timing and interesting comments. Thanks a lot for your work.

[@faith6857]

This is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you so much for saving me a bunch of space!!!

[@ThatWriterWriter1]

That was GREAT. Thanks! Excellent explanation, no filler. Really clarified how previews work, why, where they're stored, what happens. Sharing with my amateur photographers group

[@amirneshati4839]

Nicely done....I read the article too. So refreshing you get to the point first, then you explain the history and other info. Thank you!

[@nomadtravelphotos]

Thanks SO much for this tutorial. I have been going through my 60k+ landscape and wildlife photos, purging, keywording (thank you Lightroom Queen!), and trying to figure out how to save on space on my SSD drive. THIS will help a ton. Thank you for all your hard work and good info Jeff!

[@phototacopodcast1026]

Glad it helped!

[@dailynmatthewsstudio]

You explained this so well. Every time I have a problem with Lightroom, I hold my breath. Thanks for making it easy to understand. I have more questions . . . .!!

[@filippotraversa]

Thank you! Finally I can delete 100 GB in my Hard disk!

[@juangarcia1974]

Thank you so much for the detail explanation!

[@a.k.jamanahmed835]

Thank you so much. This is exactly what I was looking for.

[@katiebrumberg1435]

Great explanation with the perfect amount of detail. This was well-paced and easy to understand. Thank you!

[@kentb8198]

Thanks for this video! Nice work and very helpful.

[@miguelangelarandadetoro4856]

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for.

[@jonwarr3265]

Great video!! So helpful, thanks!

[@PhilipLMcAlary]

Really helpful, thank you 🙏!

[@amoergosum3]

Thank you so much for the information!

[@cyanophage4351]

Thank you for this and showing what actually happens when you delete that folder. So many other places just said "you can't. don't do it". I had previews going back over 10 years over 73,000 photos. I really don't need previews for all of those. I would much rather have my 37GB back :)

[@ianbarnett]

Hi Jeff, That was a great video. It has really helped me as my preview file was N of 100Gb. On a new MacBook Air with only 250Gb I was heading for full disk very soon. I didn’t know I could do this. It should make life a lot easier. I have subscribed but sadly it looks like you have stopped producing videos for quite a while. Hope all is well with you. Anyway, thanks again Ian

[@stellaq3306]

Thanks so much, this removed a few ?’s for me. I’m off to have a big fat purge 😬👍

[@mosheovadya]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@michellestevens897]

Super helpful!! Thank you! My preview file is 202GB 😂 So I can now safely delete that and know what to expect 😊

[@michaelgrobin6781]

Mine was 378GB lol 😂

[@b.e.francis1272]

Great content my macbook is very low on memory so I need to free up as much as possible. I have a few questions. After you change the files size do you discard smart previews first? And should you not have your lr library on your desktop?

[@tanstudio7998]

thank you very much

[@angelicaandrade9854]

Obrigada, ajudou bastante!

[@RenaudBE]

tes !very good tuto

[@fylphotography9269]

What if you are using "embedded sidecar" to preview with the JPEG previews? When I delete this folder, I can no longer use the embedded preview and it loads a Lightroom preview when I revisit those images. It is rather frustrating if I go back to cull photographs on a later occasion, not to mention the JPEG previews are still stored in the RAW files, just Lightroom doesn't use them anymore.

[@DevinTrent88]

Thanks alot!

[@ernestmartinez8752]

any advice for the folder titled "mobiledownloads.irdata" ? it takes up sooooo much space

[@ariyanium]

Thank You Thank You Thank You

[@maghowe386]

That was educational, but I was hoping to learn where smart previews fit into the picture too

[@shaladdis]

Legend! Just deleted 400+ gb!

[@jposada01]

Deleted 3TB of Previews from my 4TB SSD C drive...I have over 1MM images on 2 20TB externals.

[@shawneeward2570]

So can I delete the preview folder to free up about 10 gigs of space, and then just rebuild previews for the photos I am currently working on? It would save a lot of space and then when I have time to come back to the old photos I could rebuild them then. Since it doesn’t mess with the adjustments I made? Is there really any repercussions except for that until I rebuild the previews, the library module will be slow to load the previews?

[@SusanneGeert]

I would like to know this as well ;-)?

[@anthonydonofrio1061]

Thank you for explaining this, but I have a question. My situation is as you have described. I have a 500GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. The LR backup files to date, are taking up 135GB on the SSD. I have tried many options and it seems that they can't be moved to the D drive (HDD). But, it seems, I can configure LR to start saving the backup to the D drive from now on. The question then is, should I reconfigure to send backup files to the D drive the next time I close LR and then simply delete the 135GB of backup that has collected on the SSD? Thank you for your time if you are able to respond.

[@phototacopodcast1026]

Change where your backup is located in LrC so that it goes to your D drive, then move the backup files that were on your C drive to that same location. Once a backup is made LrC doesn't really track or care about it. You have to manually go and delete really old ones yourself when they build up over time.

[@anthonydonofrio1061]

@@phototacopodcast1026 Thank you very much for taking the time. Much Appreciated!

[@sportshots5799]

If you move the .old file to another location you can test to see if anything bad happens yes or no? And then reconnect it to the catalog?

[@phototacopodcast1026]

Yes, that is a great way to test things and make sure there is no impact to things like plugins you may be using in Lightroom Classic

[@manuelwalser4973]

thanks dude! Great video. You said, only die library is affected. So no adjustments get deleted, right? Thanks in advance.

[@phototacopodcast1026]

Lightroom Classic only uses these files with the Library Module, yes. None of the adjustments you make anywhere in Lightroom Classic are stored here. You can try it before making it permanent by renaming the folders and see what happens.

[@Elazarko]

Any new upcoming video uploads?

[@LuisAlvarez-fj5ny]

Men...you have free up 200GB of SSD for me...thank you very much!

[@icanhearyoucanyouhearme9164]

Me and my hardrive thank you.

[@udinponcot649]

where i can find Lightroom Previews.lrdata Folder???

[@marcoFVD]

this was a really bad idea :-( i use smugmug app integrate with lightroom to publish all my 200.000 photos after i did what you explain lightroom change all the metadata from all photos that means i have to upload all my 200.000 photos again to smugmug........that takes weeks!!! shit

[@sportshots5799]

I was about to do it till I saw your post. Thank you