Batch delete the JPEG's from all my RAW/JPEG pairs?

Sorry, once they're paired, they are inseparable. It's a good suggestion for 'Provide Aperture Feedback' under the Aperture menu.

A suggestion for the future... (Since it appears that you aren't a RAW purist, so JPEGs do the job much of the time. Maybe obvious.)

When you first import your images, just import the JPEG files. Before you reformat your cards, skim the JPEGs and Flag the one's that might benefit from tweaking the RAW files. Go back and import the matching flagged RAW files, either as paired or separate files.

Paired vs. separate masters is a nice feature but I can't present a sound reason why you shouldn't/wouldn't want to be able to separate paired files and delete one or the outer file type.

I wanted to do the same thing awhile back and found out it couldn't be done. I'm thinking of a brute force method to delete them but I haven't tried it and I don't know what could go wrong. Use my idea at your own peril.

You could go into the library package and find the matching RAW and JPG files in the Masters folder. They are organized by year/month/day for when they were imported, not shot. Delete the JPG files (or move them out temporarily to see what happens first).

I'm not saying this is a good idea. It's just an idea.

If you delete the JPEGs by 'brute force', the database doesn't know about it and I expect it's going to show some kind of 'image not found' glyph. That's going to be real annoying going forward. Reaching under the hood and ripping out wires rarely yields good results.

I think this might be one of those rare occasions when reaching under the hood can work. I decided to test my idea and deleted the JPG image from a RAW+JPEG pair (after quitting Aperture). Before I did it Aperture was set to use the RAW file as the master.

After deleting the JPEG, there was no indication on the photo inside Aperture of any issue. One thing I noticed is the "Set JPEG as Master" contextual menu command disappeared from that photo and the corresponding Photos->Set JPEG as Master command was grayed out. Aperture kept the "R" badge on the image thumbnail but it knew there was no JPEG and removed the option to switch to it from the menu.

Just for fun, I quit Aperture, put the photo back where it came from and restarted Aperture. All was back to normal.

Again, another untested idea for you. You should try it with one image first and Please! make sure your library is backed up first.

Select the Photos group from the Library pane to show all photos in the browser.

Set your view to Browser only.

Clear any filters in the top right if they are set.

Click the Filter icon at the top right.

If it's not already there, add the rule for "File Type" using the popup menu.

Set the filter to show Filetype Is RAW+JPEG.

You are now looking at all of your RAW+JPEG pairs in your entire library.

Make sure all the images are set to RAW as Master.

Select all the photos (test just one first!) and File->Relocate Masters. Choose an external disk with enough room.

Once all the masters are moved out of the library to a new location (this could take awhile if you have many photos), Navigate to the new location of the masters and remove the JPEGs. Sort by filetype in the Finder to make it easier.

Back in Aperture, Select all the RAW+JPEG pairs in the filtered browser and choose File->Consolidate Masters. (Now that the JPEGs are gone, I don't know if Aperture will complain. That's why you should test this first on 1 image)

If this worked, you should now have only RAW masters in your library.

I repeat myself: I didn't test this. Please test on a fully backed up library on only 1 image first. Good luck.

This has become a really interesting thread with great ideas.

Another way out of your disk capacity crisis is to selectively move Masters to another drive. I'm guessing you have an iMac, so that drive would be external.

You do this with Aperture's "Relocate Masters..." in the File menu.

Let's assume that photos which are older than a certain date of shooting AND have a rating below "X" stars are ones that you could move to a slower disk with causing you pain.

So set up a Browser filter for those conditions, select all the images and do the "Relocate Masters..." with a destination on the other drive. This will physically move all the masters which were selected to that drive, shrinking your library.

Important points.

Those external masters will NOT be included in an Aperture Vault. YOU must back them up.

NEVER mess with those Masters. Don't move them or do anything else with Finder. If they need to be moved, used Aperture's "Relocate Masters" again, otherwise Aperture will get confused.

This solution may give more long term expandability

Uhum. Good idea, wish I had thought of it...

Yes, but the JPEG files are actually gone right? So you've reduce the size of your library. The only issue remaining is it shows as RAW+JPEG pair via the badge but you can't actually set the JPEG as master anymore.