Thomas,

I don’t see any clean way to do this. I’ve been digging around and someone online has a method that involves going into the package, but even that was Aperture 2.

What you can do is simply delete the files from the Finder, and even though the little [R] icon will still be on the photos, the option to switch to JPG will no longer be there. Aperture doesn’t seem to mind if they are missing and doesn’t report any missing file errors, even in the referenced file manager. I tried repairing and rebuilding the database to see if it’d recognize that it was only a RAW file now and remove the icon, but no go. I also tried updating from master, but nothing would get rid of the icon. But again, other than that being there, everything appears to be fine.

Since you’re working managed, you’d have to get them referenced first. You can relocate using the File > Relocate Masters… command, which will bring both the RAW and JPEG out. Swap all your files to RAW in Aperture, then delete the JPGs in the finder.

I did try to consolidate (bring them back to managed) after that, and it worked, however every missing JPG threw up an error on consolidate. But other than that, no issues that I could see.

Honestly it’s probably not worth the hassle. Drive space is cheap… I’d just leave it alone.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert