I got back late from a concert I shot, but I wanted to see the pics so I loaded them into Lightroom, did a preliminary scan/delete, and then went to rename the files. And noticed that the rename was taking a long time, so I checked the status bar and it was busily renaming thousands of files.

I got caught by the notorious Lightroom feature that you cannot delete files from disk when looking at them in a collection, so you have to be in "All Photographs". After deleting files, I did not go back to the collection but selected all and renamed.

Gasp. This wiped out a lot of work renaming files with model and performer name included. This would take forever to fix.

So I reloaded from my last backup, and then corrected what I had done since then, and voila...back in business. I had to back up both the photos folder and Lightroom catalog folder, which I back up at the same time.

So remember, boys and girls, always be safe and backup regularly.

It makes zero sense that you cannot delete a file via a pointer to that file. It's lazy programming plain and simple. Since the collection knows where to find that file based upon the pointer that it created, it can easily perform any file action on that photo. This is not a feature, it's called crap programming.

BTW - EVERY TIME you click on a filename on a computer, you are clicking on a POINTER FILE. That filename is NOT the file, it's a pointer that says "Go to this sector and read the xxx bytes back." Based upon this REALITY of computer science, Adobe's decision to not allow deleting files from a collection is pure BS.

I happen to be a computer programmer, so I know EXACTLY what I am talking about. MOST software that uses any sort of collection system (iTunes, Windows Media Player are two examples) simply PROMPTS THE USER "Do you want to remove this file from the library or delete it permanently" THAT IS CALLED INTELLIGENT PROGRAMMING.

Your statement "and it prevents brain dead users from doing just what the OP did" is nonsensical and delusional, since if "and it prevents brain dead users from doing just what the OP did" then HOW did the OP do it? It PREVENTED NOTHING, and CAUSED A GREATER LOSS.

Feel free to continue your pathological defense of Adobe, thinking people can see that you are merely emotionally attached to an inanimate object, which is a pathological condition in it's own right.

I've been writing code since the days of PAL & COBOL, I know just what I'm talking about. And it did prevent the OP from removing all photos because he had to go somewhere else to do that. This is a simple programming decision made by a programmer. Its easy to second guess why its done, but you know as well as I do that this is not a simple program. It deals with databases and record locks, and these are an entire different animal than normal OOP's. You blame programming because someone selected all photos and hit delete. Not the programs fault

I am not an Adobe fan boy either, I believe there are many things that can be improved, I regularly make suggestions to Adobe. You are the one that seems to be a pathological attack for some reason. What is your dog in this fight?

It makes zero sense that you cannot delete a file via a pointer to that file. It's lazy programming plain and simple. Since the collection knows where to find that file based upon the pointer that it created, it can easily perform any file action on that photo. This is not a feature, it's called crap programming.

BTW - EVERY TIME you click on a filename on a computer, you are clicking on a POINTER FILE. That filename is NOT the file, it's a pointer that says "Go to this sector and read the xxx bytes back." Based upon this REALITY of computer science, Adobe's decision to not allow deleting files from a collection is pure BS.

I got back late from a concert I shot, but I wanted to see the pics so I loaded them into Lightroom, did a preliminary scan/delete, and then went to rename the files. And noticed that the rename was taking a long time, so I checked the status bar and it was busily renaming thousands of files.

I got caught by the notorious Lightroom feature that you cannot delete files from disk when looking at them in a collection, so you have to be in "All Photographs". After deleting files, I did not go back to the collection but selected all and renamed.

Gasp. This wiped out a lot of work renaming files with model and performer name included. This would take forever to fix.

So I reloaded from my last backup, and then corrected what I had done since then, and voila...back in business. I had to back up both the photos folder and Lightroom catalog folder, which I back up at the same time.

So remember, boys and girls, always be safe and backup regularly.