As I have written in another post, I am a big advocate of importing files using the Embedded and Sidecar Preview workflow. With my Fuji X-T2 set to Raw+JPEG, it allows LR to quickly display full resolution previews from the sidecar JPEGs.

But once I have reviewed the pictures I no longer need the JPEGs for any purpose, and they use up storage space, so for a couple of years I have been using this little JPEGs sidecar killer script.

It simply loops through the selected raw files, looks in the Explorer/Finder folder for JPEGs with corresponding names, and deletes any it finds. Other JPEGs, for example ones which you shot on the phone and don’t match a raw file, are ignored.

Two little details:

• The script can’t tell Lightroom that the JPEG has gone, so you’ll still see RAW+JPEG on thumbnails. You can get rid of this by either:
  • Doing a Folder > Synchronize – which is what I do
  • Running batch rename – what I used to do
• As far as I can tell, once LR has built its own previews from the sidecar files, there is no longer any role for the JPEGs. So if you do import with the Embedded and Sidecar Preview option, you can delete the JPEGs immediately afterwards.

It’s free and therefore not supported.

Installation instructions are at the start of the file.