How To Spring Clean Lightroom Classic

Do you have lots of Develop Presets and plugins installed in Lightroom Classic? It’s easy to forget what you have, what they are for and how to find the ones you want to use. If that’s the case for you it’s time to give Lightroom Classic a spring clean. Here are three ideas to get you started.

1. Spring clean your Lightroom Classic Develop Presets

Have you installed so many Develop Presets that you’ve forgotten what they are for? Is it hard to find the ones you want to use? If you’ve been using Lightroom for a long time you may have bought presets that seemed good at the time but are now dated. You can use the Preset Manager to hide the ones you don’t use at the moment, making it easier to find the ones you want. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to delete any Develop Presets, you can hide them instead, in case you change your mind.

Click on the plus icon in the Presets panel (or right-click on a Group) and choose Manage Presets from the menu.

The Manage Presets window appears (below).

The Preset Manager lists all the available Develop Presets Groups. If this is the first time you’ve opened the it every Group is checked. Uncheck the Groups you want to hide and click Save. When you return to the Presets panel any groups you unchecked are no longer there. You can return to the Presets Manager at any time to bring them back if you change your mind.

Adding Presets to Favorites

Another way of managing your Develop Presets is to mark the ones you use the most as Favorites (right-click the preset and choose Add to Favorites).

Favorited presets are marked with a white star icon and displayed at the top of the Presets panel under the heading Favorites.

You can remove a preset from the list by right-clicking and choosing Remove from Favorites from the menu.

Removing Develop Presets from Lightroom

If you’re certain you won’t use certain Develop Presets again you can remove them permanently from Lightroom Classic. Go to the Presets tab in Preferences and click the Show Lightroom Develop Presets button.

This takes you to the Settings folder, which contains the .xmp files Lightroom Classic uses for presets. Move any presets you don’t want to appear in Lightroom Classic (not even in the Presets Manager) to another folder for safe-keeping and restart Lightroom. The presets you moved are no longer there.

Get to know your Develop Presets again

If you’ve forgotten what some of your Develop Presets are for, now might be a good time to get to know them again and see if they’re potentially useful. Keep them if they are.

2. Spring clean the Edit In menu

You can export photos from Lightroom Classic to external editors like Photoshop, Exposure X, DxO Film Pack, ON1 Photo Raw and many more. These options appear in the Edit In menu alongside links to all the external editors you’ve installed over the years.

If your Edit In menu is anything like mine it includes links to expired trials, old versions of currently used applications and applications that you no longer use.

It’s time to clean up. Start by deciding which of the Edit In menu options you want to delete (it might be helpful to make a list). Then decide whether you want to move them one at a time or in bulk.

Remove Edit In menu items one at a time

If you don’t have many Edit In presets to delete then you can remove them one at a time. Start by opening Preferences and going to the External Editing tab. Then select the preset you want to remove from the Preset menu under Additional External Editor.

Next, click the Preset menu again and select the Delete Preset…”chosen preset” option.

Remove Edit In menu items in bulk

On the other hand if you’ve got lots of Edit In presets to delete you’ll be pleased to learn that there’s a quicker option. Open Preferences again, go to the Presets tab and click the Show All Other Lightroom Presets button.

This action opens a folder called Lightroom. Look for a folder inside called External Editor Presets and open it. It lists all the Edit In menu items. Delete the ones you no longer need (or copy them to another folder just in case). When you restart Lightroom they’ll be gone from the Edit In menu.

Note that this doesn’t remove the applications themselves, only the preset that Lightroom Classic requires to send photos to them.

3. Spring clean Lightroom Classic plugins

There are two types of plugin in Lightroom Classic. The first type is external editors like DxO FilmPack and Exposure. These are powerful applications for developing photos.

The second type of plugin is a smaller program that’s added to Lightroom Classic and extends its functionality. Example uses include finding duplicate photos or searching using criteria not available in the Filter Bar.

You manage this type of plugin using the Plugin Manager. Many of these plugins are useful, but as they’re so easy to download and install it’s also easy to forget you have them. As a result you may have installed plugins that:

• Worked in earlier versions of Lightroom, but need upgrading to work in Lightroom Classic.
• Are limited trial versions, and need registering (and paying for) to unlock their full functionality.
• You no longer use.

It’s time to sort them out and delete the ones you don’t want to keep.

Start by going to File > Plugin Manager. All your installed plugins are listed on the left (marked below).

• A green circle indicates the plugin is installed and active.
• A white circle indicates the plugin is installed but disabled, either by the user or because it’s incompatible with Lightroom Classic.
• A red circle means the plugin is installed but not working.

Decide which plugins to spring clean

Now it’s time to go through your plugins one by one and decide which ones to delete. Go through the list to see what each plugin does and whether you’re likely to use it again. It’s also a good time to check which plugins are unregistered, need upgrading, or are trial versions.

For example, if your plugin is unregistered or needs upgrading you’ll see a message something like the ones below.

Unregistered plugins have limitations that can only be unlocked by making a payment and registering them. If you don’t use the plugin and don’t want to do that, you can delete it by clicking the Remove button at the bottom of the Plugin Manager window.

Some plugins, such as AdobeStock (see below) and Aperture/iPhoto Importer Plugin, were installed by Lightroom Classic and you can’t delete them using the Plugin Manager. But you can delete them manually by clicking the Show button and deleting the file from the folder it’s saved in. Restart Lightroom Classic for the change to take effect.

Some plugins are related to external editors and also can’t be deleted in the Plugin Manager. But you can delete them manually by clicking the Show button and deleting the file.

Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module

You can learn more about these ideas in my best-selling ebook Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module.