# Keyboard shortcut to permanently delete single pictures?



## august9 (Sep 5, 2016)

I'm a newbie in Lightroom. One thing I really miss is a fast way of deleting pictures I do not want to keep.

In most programs when you get a dialogue where you have to choose between several options (for instance between Remove, Cancel and Delete from disk as in this case, the keyboard-arrows can be used to navigate. Not so in Lightroom... Or am I wrong?

Specifically what I want to do is this: 

Hitting backspace on the keyboard, hitting left arrow twice then enter to delete a picture (in both develop-mode and library-mode).

I don't like using the mouse when I don't have to, so the best would be to delete it in one or two key-strokes (backspace - "Are you sure you want to permanently delete?" Yes/No. 

Anyway: how do you guys delete a picture fast in Lightroom? Or what best practice do you suggest for sorting out/deleting picts you don't want to keep?


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 5, 2016)

There is a fast delete, but it is dangerous because you don't get any warning and there is no 'undo' if you make a mistake (like hitting this with multiple pictures selected when you wanted to delete only one). It's Cmd-Option-Shift-Delete. 

A safer way is to hit the 'X' key to mark the image as rejected and continue. Then at the end of the day, you go to the 'All Photographs' view and choose the 'Delete all rejected images' menu.


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## august9 (Sep 5, 2016)

Thank you my friend! I knew there would be some kind of better way to do this  Rejecting is the way to go..!


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## Gnits (Sep 5, 2016)

Why not just use the  Delete key ..... it works in the Library and Develop modules (and probably others).

You are given a message to confirm if you want to delete and choose between removing from the catalog or the disk.





There are times when it is appropriate to flag an image and delete later. Often, when dealing with a revised version of a large psd I may wish to delete the previous version immediately, when the reason to delete it is fresh in my mind.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 5, 2016)

Gnits,
If you look at his screenshot, you will see that's what he did. However, it's rather time consuming to have to click this dialog every time you delete an image (if you are going to delete quite a few images). That's why using 'X' and then later deleting all of them at once is the better option.

Another reason why this is a better option is because hitting the Delete key works differently if you are in a collection. If you are in a collection, hitting that key will only delete the image from that collection, not from the catalog or from the disk.


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## rob211 (Sep 5, 2016)

Since I have to save myself from myself, I sometimes do the X reject, but when it comes time to actually delete them I put them in a folder for that year called "trash." I have backups, of course, but sometimes the X-d images turn out to be something I needed and this makes it easier to recover them. And it also inspires me to be more aggressive in my culling. YMMV.


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## Gnits (Sep 5, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> If you look at his screenshot, you will see that's what he did.



I do not argue with any of the specific suggestions you are making...... but I read the opening post several times looking for where the Delete key was used and found none.

I also read :



august9 said:


> so the best would be to delete it in one or two key-strokes (backspace - "Are you sure you want to permanently delete?" Yes/No.



...... which seems to me to mirror the behaviour of the Delete Key.

Either way, various options are presented and hopefully will meet the need.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 5, 2016)

Gnits said:


> I read the opening post several times looking for where the Delete key was used and found none.



I read 



august9 said:


> Hitting backspace on the keyboard, hitting left arrow twice then enter to delete a picture



as hitting the Delete (Backspace) key to bring up the dialog, hitting left arrow twice to go to the 'Delete from disk' button, and hitting 'Enter' to press that button.


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## clee01l (Sep 5, 2016)

Confirmation screens are put there by the programmers to try to head off "Stupid User Mistakes". It is there intentionally to slow things down so that you might think about your irrevocable actions.  I wish Adobe would remove the short cut {Cmd}{Optn}{Shft}{Del}.   I think the short cut is a bad practice and a dangerous habit to get into.  I can't is good conscience recommend this option to any user, especially a new LR user.   We all make stupid mistakes and often when we've been up late and are tired try do "one more thing".  If you are perfect and don't make mistakes (ever) then the shortcut key might be for you.  It is not to be used when you are in a hurry and not thinking about your actions.


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## august9 (Sep 5, 2016)

(Original poster posting this 

The x-click-solution is quite nice for me. The bad thing with cmd+option+shift+backspace is that it's not undoable (cmd+z). 

The bad thing with using backspace and confirming is that the arrow-keys can't be used to navigate the dialogue-box...! 
Which is pretty strange considering thats how every other program I use on my mac operates. Actually it seems that's the case in all dialogues in Lightroom, that you cant navigate with arrow-keys (or TAB). 

Using the keyboard is just faster than pointing and clicking for every thing you need to do.. Especially on a macbook!

Thanks for contributing to the subject! I'm happy this is an active community


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