Deleted My Whole Camera Collection

[ChasZuck]

A grave mistake. I thought the catalog was just a collection of the photo information and not the photos themselves. I wanted to remove some folders and learned it removed them from my hard drive. I wish when one selects to remove an album there would be a warning that it will be removed from the hard drive! Lightroom gives the option of removing from the catalog or removing it from the PC. Fortunately my photos are backed up, but still extra work to reinstall the camera photo folders.

On my PC I have a Pictures directory with many sub folders. Several of the sub folders are different cameras I have used. Then I have lots of other photos such as scanned photos and photos sent to me. I wanted to remove the camera photos because these are not kept on my PC, but an external hard drive with the exception of the current year. The other photos are on the PC and the external hard drive. Changes that I make in the photos in XnView need to be saved the the photos. I wanted the other photos on the PC to be separate from the camera photos to make it easier to save changes done in XnView.

On another note, I wish there was an updated manual similar to the Beginners Manual by Roger Carter as some things have changed in the current version of XnView. Maybe there is one and I just have not found it.

[xnview]

do you have removed an album or photos from an album?

[ChasZuck]

do you have removed an album or photos from an album?

I had removed my whole Canon album, but I had it backed up and reinstalled it. I thought it would only remove it from the catalog similar to Lightroom, where they give you the option of removing from the catalog or the catalog and PC.

[jkm]

do you have removed an album or photos from an album?

I had removed my whole Canon album...

I thought the catalog was just a collection of the photo information and not the photos themselves. I wanted to remove some folders and learned it removed them from my hard drive. I wish when one selects to remove an album there would be a warning that it will be removed from the hard drive!

I understand that you actually deleted some pictures from your hard drive, but you are mistaken about your terminology and what actually happened, and that will inhibit getting help or avoiding similar mistakes in the future.

When you delete an ALBUM in XnViewMP, it just removes the virtual album: no image files are deleted from the drive.

So you did not delete any files by deleting an ALBUM.

When you delete a FOLDER in XnViewMP (like in the Folders pane or in the Browser), it deletes the folder and its contents (images) from the hard drive.

That is probably what you did.

Actual ALBUMS are shown in the Catalog Filter pane.

If you browse into an ALBUM, and consider removing images inside it, you will have a couple of options:
- Remove from this album (or Remove from all albums): This removes the image from the virtual album, but does NOT delete any image files
- Delete: this will actually delete the file from your hard drive, wherever it is.

If you want to remove folders from the Catalog, but without deleting them from your hard drive, this is easily done.
Go to Tools->Settings:Catalog. In the Catalog screen, click on the folders you want to delete, and click the Delete button.

If you remove a folder from the Catalog in that way, you can re-add it back to the catalog by browsing to it again.

If you want a warning before you actually delete files, you can have one. Go to Tools->Settings:General:File Operations. There you will see two options: Confirm file delete, and Use Recycle Bin. Check them both, and click OK.

It's good you had backups...

Hopefully this helps...

[ChasZuck]

"When you delete a FOLDER in XnViewMP (like in the Folders pane or in the Browser)"
That is what I did. Thank you again for the good information. I have so much to learn. Obviously I need to learn the difference between fold and album. So, I am starting over. I uninstalled the program and then re-installed it. Now, before I do any work within XnView, I am looking at videos and the links on the beginners page of this forum.

[KB9]

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Recuva is good app to restore deleted files from HDD/SDD. Try it!

[ChasZuck]

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Recuva is good app to restore deleted files from HDD/SDD. Try it!

Yes, I have used Recuva already. I have multiple backups, so I didn’t need it this time. Thanks for replying.