Removing a library completely

If you encounter permanent issues with a library, you may in rare cases need to reset parts of it to work around the problem. Before you resort to deleting a library catalog that already contains collections or other high level organization structures, please get in touch with us in order to avoid losing any work.

Removing library caches

Specific metadata fields, as well as thumbnail representations of all images in the library are kept in a set of caches. These caches will be regenerated automatically, so they can be safely deleted while the application is not running.

All caches are contained in the .cache folder of the Aspect library folder. Since this is a hidden folder, you may need to enable showing hidden items in the file manager (Explorer/Finder). Simply delete the .cache folder, Aspect will recreate all caches when loading the library next time.

Removing revisions

In order to allow synchronizing library instances correctly, regardless of how much has changed on each instance since the last synchronization, a history of changes is recorded. If the library is only stored on a single device, these revisions can be safely deleted, otherwise beware that the synchronization may result in unexpected results.

In order to delete the revisions, delete the .revs folder that is contained in the Aspect library folder.

Removing the catalog

Note that the catalog contains any collections, taxonomies and saved searches that you may have created. So while your folder structure and metadata will stay available, any such advanced organization will be lost and a new library will have to be created from scratch.

Caution!

Deleting the catalog and the library folder should usually be the last resort! Also, be absolutely sure that there are no important files left in the library folder before deleting it!

Deleting the catalog is a two-step process:

1. Removing all external folders

   If you can, this step is most easily done within the application:

   1. If you have selected any events using the event selector functionality, choose Library → Select folders as events… and remove any checkmarks in the folder tree that appears
   2. Go to File → Settings (Aspect → Settings on macOS) and remove any checkmarks found under Library → Scanned folders

   Otherwise, delete any file with an .aspectnode extension within any external folder that was registered in the library. This works analogous to step 2.2 below.

2. Removing all catalog files in the library folder

   1. Delete the Aspect Library File.aspectnode within the Aspect library folder
   2. If there are any images stored in the library itself, delete all Aspect Event File.aspectnode/Aspect Individual Photos File.aspectnode files found in the nested sub folders of the library folder

If you have any photos/videos stored in your library folder (e.g. there are any numbered year folders), now is the time to move them to a location outside of the library folder. Also, there may exist folders named lost-and-found or remotely-deleted that contain files that you may want to back up. Once all files are safe, you may delete the Aspect library folder to clear any remains.