Locked/Protected images will not delete in Lightroom

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Hey all. I'm getting an error in Lightroom saying that I cannot move some images to the Trash (on a Mac). The images in question were all "locked" on my D500 after shooting (press the key button during review), something I almost never do but I was doing a lot of large burst shooting at a sporting event over the weekend with time to peep between contestants, so I would press the lock button on the keepers and occasionally do a Delete to get rid of the rest so I didn't wind up with thousands of images to get the 30 or so I needed.

I'm assuming this is at the heart of the problem because everything else that I shot afterwards and didn't lock deleted fine. Alas, for the life of me I cannot find a way to unlock them in Lightroom. If anyone knows it would be appreciated as it would be a PITA to sort through the directory for the non-keepers, and truthfully I'd like to remove the lock on those as well.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Hey all. I'm getting an error in Lightroom saying that I cannot move some images to the Trash (on a Mac). The images in question were all "locked" on my D500 after shooting (press the key button during review), something I almost never do but I was doing a lot of large burst shooting at a sporting event over the weekend with time to peep between contestants, so I would press the lock button on the keepers and occasionally do a Delete to get rid of the rest so I didn't wind up with thousands of images to get the 30 or so I needed.

I'm assuming this is at the heart of the problem because everything else that I shot afterwards and didn't lock deleted fine. Alas, for the life of me I cannot find a way to unlock them in Lightroom. If anyone knows it would be appreciated as it would be a PITA to sort through the directory for the non-keepers, and truthfully I'd like to remove the lock on those as well.

Hi -

I hope this can help you. It's the same question asked by a Canon user, but I imagine the brand of camera doesn't matter to Lightroom. (The answer is initially answered for an Apple computer, but someone chimes in at the end with the relevant Windows info also.)

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/comm...era-locked-images-canon-from-lightroom.24512/

(BTW, where in Joisey are you?)
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Dang, seems it's a finder thing and not something you can do in Lightroom. Guess that's the last time I'm using that feature unless there's a way to unlock everything in camera before you import. What a PITA.

As for Jersey, upper left corner in Warren County.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Dang, seems it's a finder thing and not something you can do in Lightroom. Guess that's the last time I'm using that feature unless there's a way to unlock everything in camera before you import. What a PITA.

As for Jersey, upper left corner in Warren County.

Sorry I couldn't help you with doing it in-program in Lightroom.

Small world. I'm in Sussex County, and part of my daily broadcast schedule is being the traffic reporter for WRNJ (Hackettstown). Go figure....
 

Skwaz

Senior Member
Hi Jake, have you still got them on sd card , I think you can remove protection of all relevant shots at once , instead of looking for them individually, hope it helps
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Hi Jake, have you still got them on sd card , I think you can remove protection of all relevant shots at once , instead of looking for them individually, hope it helps

The card isn't the issue, they get wiped out when I reformat, which is how I erase almost all the time. I'd actually have to recover the card if I wanted to circle around that way.

The problem is post-import onto the computer as I guess it carries over all the file information. So now I have 185 images with copy protection and 150 I want to delete and 35 I don't, and there doesn't seem to be a way for me to manually unlock all of the 150 at once. First world problems, but I'll never use that again.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Yes, you can... Continue to shoot as you were doing... locking and deleting... When you're all done, the only thing on the SD card should be the "locked" photos that you want... You already deleted what you didn't want. Just before you "Import" the photos, select ALL the photos on the SD card and change the Attribute. Then do the Import... Or did I miss something...

Nikon isn't doing anything other than changing a basic DOS file attribute
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Yes, you can... Continue to shoot as you were doing... locking and deleting... When you're all done, the only thing on the SD card should be the "locked" photos that you want... You already deleted what you didn't want. Just before you "Import" the photos, select ALL the photos on the SD card and change the Attribute. Then do the Import... Or did I miss something...

Nikon isn't doing anything other than changing a basic DOS file attribute

They are already on his Mac and he can't delete them from Lightroom.

Jake, just a thought although I don't know if it will work... Is there any way to drag the images back onto the card? I'm wondering if it's possible to reinsert the card back into the camera and see if you can change the settings there. Then import to your Mac again in hopes of overwriting the original files. Not sure it would work though.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Sure... he can change all the attributes in a folder first...
[h=2]Apply permissions to all items in a folder or a disk[/h][FONT=&quot]
  1. On your Mac, select a folder or a disk, then choose File > Get Info.
  2. Click the lock icon
    314aad0915d1135d3070820482bc2166.png
    to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password (or, if your Mac has Touch ID, use Touch ID).
  3. Click the Action pop-up menu
    77dd27f9e7f1275209461fdaf84e1137.png
    , then choose “Apply to enclosed items.”

    Change the attributes to read/write and then Delete what you want...
[/FONT]
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Yes, you can... Continue to shoot as you were doing... locking and deleting... When you're all done, the only thing on the SD card should be the "locked" photos that you want... You already deleted what you didn't want. Just before you "Import" the photos, select ALL the photos on the SD card and change the Attribute. Then do the Import... Or did I miss something...

Nikon isn't doing anything other than changing a basic DOS file attribute

What you missed is that I only did that for part of the day, so after the sporting event there were other images that I did not lock or unlock. The problem I have is that I've done this kind of change on Windows but not on a Mac so I had to do some digging. What I found is that you cannot do it with the finder set the way I normally have it, but if you change it to List view then you can select all and change the Lock attribute universally.
 

nickt

Senior Member
Small world. I'm in Sussex County, and part of my daily broadcast schedule is being the traffic reporter for WRNJ (Hackettstown). Go figure....
By chance are you familiar with the Holland American Bakery, rt23 in Sussex? We stop in there a few times a year to get sugared up.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
By chance are you familiar with the Holland American Bakery, rt23 in Sussex? We stop in there a few times a year to get sugared up.

Hell yeah! That place ROCKS. My wife loves the stollen and the windmill cookies. I love whatever I can fit in my mouth.
 
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