Q: Deleting all photos in iOS 9

While your phone is plugged into your mac, open Image Capture on your Mac.  CMD+A to select all photos, then delete from there.  That's the easiest way.

You may have to review what settings you have turned on or off in Settings > iCloud > Photos.  If you are using the iCloud Photo Library then everything is syncing via the cloud.  If that option is off, then what is stored on your Camera Roll and what is stilling on the server are two different things.  My Photo Stream in itself is a huge mess as the server only keeps those photos for 30 days.  if you device has downloaded them then you will see them for a long time in your My Photo Stream on that device, but should you restore your device, only the last 30 days would download for My Photo Stream.  If you are using the iCloud Photo Library, then everything is technically hosted on your iCloud account and your devices are just looking there for photos additional and deletions (its the sync point).  If you are unsure if deleting the photos will make them disappear entirely, use Image Capture to import all of your photos and videos to a folder on your computer where they will be safe until you figure out what you are doing and how it's going to affect your Photo Library.

Figured this one out, but it's a bit of a hack.

1. Open the Photos app.
2. Go to the "Albums" tab.
3. Press "Edit" and delete all of your custom albums (if you have any). All photos will be deleted within, so it's quick win.
4. Go into your "Camera Roll". You should be at the bottom, most recent picture.
5. Press "Select" and begin drag-selecting from the most recent picture upwards.
6. Now, the hack: Without releasing your selection drag, tap the title bar to cause the album to scroll to the top. Your selection should follow.
7. Press "Delete" and confirm the number of deletions
8. Wait - it takes a while even for only 2000.

Hope this helps.

Well, that kind of worked for me, thank you ShALLaX .  Me: 5S, iOS 9.0 whatever the current is now.  9.0.8?  And my PC.

Did a full iPhone backup to my PC so I wouldn't lose all my really SERIOUSLY cool pictures from Pinterest, Twitter, and FaceBook, and my own.  Yes, a HP Envy 700 Series running Windows 10.  NOT an Apple.  Also, iCloud upload is automatic.

I had no "photo stream" album.  It was called something else.  All Photos or something similar.  I chose Edit, hit the bottom photo and selected and HELD DOWN while I pulled my thumb up to the title of the album.  It took about three minutes for the "select process" to select every photo, I was listening to Heavy by Collective Soul on my desktop iTunes, and it took the whole song, and finally all but two photos were selected in the album.

With over 1,068 pictures selected, I clicked on the trash can.  The iPhone appeared to hang, but don't panic.  It is just working.  Took maybe five minutes to delete all the pictures.

Now my problem is that I have two albums.  All Photos with the two pictures this procedure did not select, and Recently Deleted which has all 1,068 deleted photos in it.  Now how do I free up the space in that !@@#$% Recently Deleted folder?!?!?!?!  What I did, whgatever THAT was, iTunes says I have about a Gig more space on the iPhone than I did before, so it helped some kind of way.

HELP!  How do delete the effing Deleted Photos now?  I dunno!!

RandomKarma wrote:

 

 

HELP!  How do delete the effing Deleted Photos now?  I dunno!!

Open the Recently Deleted Album.  Tap Select in the top right corner, then tap Delete All in the bottom left.

Thanks to Shallax and Jay-Ray. Was astounded that Apple removed the "delete all photos" option from ios 9, but Shallax's work around seemed to work well.

Thanks so much! This ended a massive amount of frustration. FYI if you import into the OS X photos app and forget to check "delete after importing" that batch of pics will stay on your camera roll indefinitely. When you amass over 2000 it becomes a problem. The fact that the old methods of deleting all were removed is annoying (ahem, apple) but this "hack" solved the problem quickly.  Cheers!

Thanks! This totally worked. Why Apple makes it impossible for you to have control over your own media is beyond my understanding.

It is easy. But please note that when you delete a photo from My Photo Stream on an iOS device, Mac, or PC, that photo will be deleted from the My Photo Stream view on all your devices after you connect each device to Wi-Fi .

On how to delete them from My Photo Stream, please visit http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204022, you can find all answers you need.

BRILLIANT!  With 6895 photos to delete, this saved about an hour or more of selecting moments method... 

Cheers!

Brilliant!! Haven't been able to find this trick anywhere!!