Is it safe to delete the .jpg images in my music folder?

Question

I'm new to Ubuntu and have used Windows all my life so I don't really know what is normal and what is not.

When I put my music on a flash drive to copy over to Ubuntu from Windows, a huge number of .jpg images come with them but you can only see them in Ubuntu. I was wondering if those where like my album pictures that are on the music, or is it safe to delete them?

They are really bothering me but since I don't know how things work outside of Windows I don't know what's safe and what's not. I would really like to delete them, but not if it means removing my cover art from my music.

If it is album art, they can be deleted. Can you upload an image, and add the URL just to be certain? — Mitch, Aug 12 '12 at 17:07
I wouldn't know how to do that, and I can't look at them to see what they are because they just wont open in any image viewer. Like say I click them or tell them to open somewhere, nothing happens. — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:12
are you sure they are .jpg files then, if nothing will open them? — Rory Alsop, Aug 12 '12 at 17:13
How? Sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable with computers, but if you could tell me I could do it. — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:15
@Joeeph_carp Try right clicking one of them use the "open with" option and select Image viewer. (rather than double clicking to open it) — stephenmyall, Aug 12 '12 at 17:15
I tried that, I've even downloaded a couple of different image viewers to see if that was the problem. — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:16
Okay, depending on which one I try to do, one of two things happens. It either says, "That file type is not supported! See supported types." or it will tell me to start upload and when I do, it just sits at 0% for a while and doesn't do anything. It's not like they are large images or anything the average size is like 20Kb. Also, my internet is working just fine so it's not that. ALL of the images are .jpg. — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:24
Back in my Windows I had it so NONE of my files were hidden and all where showing so I don't think that is the case. Also, when I click properties it just says a series of random numbers and letters .jpg that's it. — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:26
http://askubuntu.com/questions/24350/i-cant-open-jpg-files-what-to-do — Mateo, Aug 12 '12 at 17:30
Other .jpg images open just fine. I just tested it. Do you think they are safe to delete thing or to just leave them alone just in case? — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:33
they may have been links to images on the Ubuntu system for the album art... what program where you using for music in ubuntu? — Mateo, Aug 12 '12 at 17:35
possibally the real images are here? http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7952626 — Mateo, Aug 12 '12 at 17:44
When I went to look, only 3 of my music's cover art images were there. But I just counted the number of .jpg's in my Music folder and there are exactly three less images than I have songs... What in the world does that mean??? — Joseph_carp, Aug 12 '12 at 17:49
As suggested in one of mateo's links, try (in Ubuntu) running file <filename.jpg> for one of these files, and let us know what the output is. — Steve Kroon, Aug 13 '12 at 07:45
without the <> things http://askubuntu.com/questions/87363/where-can-i-find-the-command-line , use cd to navigate folders and ls to list the contents of a folder or dir get to the folder and run that command on one of the files file randomnumbers.jpg replace randomnumbers with the file name. — Mateo, Aug 13 '12 at 12:58

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 13 '12 at 13:18

I would suggest to first move the files to some other location and observe if something is unusable. If nothing notable happens for quite a time, you can delete them permanently. Otherwise just restore the files.

Although, this approach is not always good, it works sometimes.

Is it safe to delete the .jpg images in my music folder?

1 Answers1