Removing Photos from the iPhone

You remove such photos in the same way the photos were transferred to your iPhone - via the iTunes sync process.

Deselect the folder that contains these photos via your iPhone sync preferences followed by a sync to remove all.

Selecting individual photos to be transferred is not supported. If all these photos are available in a single folder, you must create additional folders or photo albums and place the photos in the appropriate folders or albums.

If you have multiple folders or albums, have a parent folder that contains nothing but folders or albums that contains photos and not any separate photos. Select the parent folder via your iPhone sync preferences and the folders or albums available in the parent folder selected will be transferred to your iPhone.

I use iPhoto on my Mac which allows for creating photo albums - similar to an iTunes playlist. Via my iPhone sync preferences, I select the albums I want transferred. I can add or remove photos from selected albums followed by a sync (similar to adding and removing songs from an iTunes Playlist that is synced to my iPhone). Or I can deselect an individual iPhone album followed by a sync to remove the entire album.

If you choose to store photos manually, you must perform some additional manual steps for the sync process.

You're welcome.

It's kind of unusual, that you can select music to download into the iTune's library, but you don't have the same options for photos.

I believe you are referring to when manually manage music and videos is selected for your iPhone sync preferences - manually dragging a song from your iTunes library to your iPhone.

All photos transferred to an iPhone are optimized for viewing on the iPhone, which is done as part of the sync/transfer process.

I believe there is a supported Windows application for storing photos that serves the same or similar purpose as iPhoto on a Mac - creating photo albums, etc. Even on a Mac, if you choose to manually manage your photo storage, additional steps are required since the iPhone is designed to transfer photo folders or albums.

Allan Sampson wrote:
I believe there is a supported Windows application for storing photos that serves the same or similar purpose as iPhoto on a Mac - creating photo albums, etc. Even on a Mac, if you choose to manually manage your photo storage, additional steps are required since the iPhone is designed to transfer photo folders or albums.

Adobe Photoshop Albums is one, but you don't need any special application. Create a folder for your iTunes photos (e.g., "iPhone photos" in "My Documents"). Create sub-folders in this folder (e.g., "iTunes photos\Summer Vacation") and copy the photos you want on the phone into these subfolders. Each subfolder will be an album on the phone the next time you sync. To add or remove photos on the iPhone add or remove them in the subfolder "albums" on your computer.

Before the next sync, with the phone connected click on it in iTunes then tap on the Photos tab and browse to the top-level folder you connected.

I use Google's Picasa to manage photos on my computer; I use the Export button to place the photos I want on the phone in their proper folders. I also reduce the resolution to 640 during the export so I don't waste space on the phone.

Thanks, but I provided most of this with my original post in this thread.

Hi, Allan; So you did. I only read your 2nd response. My apologies.

Pardon me but I am new to iPhone with the iPhone 3g and I need a step by step explanation of:
"Deselect the folder that contains these photos via your iPhone sync preferences followed by a sync to remove all."

1. How and where do I set my iPhone sync preferences? Does my iPhone need to be connected via USB to my Mac in order to set those preferences, and if so won't iTunes automatically start syncing based on previous preferences as soon as I connect the iPhone?

2. Again in the paragraphs starting "If you have multiple folders..." Are you telling me to first create a brand new "parent folder" that has no individual photos but only other folders and then move (or copy) individual photos from my current folder into those subfolders of the parent folder etc.

3. I do not currently have a version of iPhoto on my Mac that even "runs" with OSX 10.5.4. Do you recommend my purchasing iPhoto 08, and can I only get that by purchasing iLife 08?

melringel wrote:
Pardon me but I am new to iPhone with the iPhone 3g and I need a step by step explanation of:
"Deselect the folder that contains these photos via your iPhone sync preferences followed by a sync to remove all."

1. Connect the iPhone to your computer using the included USB cable. Be sure to use a USB 2.0 connection on the back of the computer, not a hub or a USB 1.1 connection.

2. Wait for the iPhone to be recognized. You will see it in the left panel of the iTunes window. Click once on the iPhone label in the left panel.

3. You will see a bunch of tabs in the right panel. One of them is labeled Photos. click on this tab.

4. You will see the folder and sub folders selected for syncing photos.

5. Uncheck either the top checkbox to remove all photos, or selected folder checkboxes.

6. Click the Sync button in the lower right.

1. How and where do I set my iPhone sync preferences? Does my iPhone need to be connected via USB to my Mac in order to set those preferences, and if so won't iTunes automatically start syncing based on previous preferences as soon as I connect the iPhone?

Yes, you must connect your iPhone to the mac. If you don't want it to sync automatically the Preferences menu selection has a place to disable automatic syncing. If it does sync automatically just follow the steps above and sync again.

2. Again in the paragraphs starting "If you have multiple folders..." Are you telling me to first create a brand new "parent folder" that has no individual photos but only other folders and then move (or copy) individual photos from my current folder into those subfolders of the parent folder etc.

Yes.

3. I do not currently have a version of iPhoto on my Mac that even "runs" with OSX 10.5.4. Do you recommend my purchasing iPhoto 08, and can I only get that by purchasing iLife 08?

It is my understanding that iPhoto comes with ALL Macs. At least it came with my two, which originally ran Tiger. And it still works under Leopard 10.5.x without upgrading. If yours doesn't launch you have a problem on your Mac; you need to get this fixed. It prompts to upgrade to iLife 08 when launched, but you can refuse.

1. How and where do I set my iPhone sync preferences? Does my iPhone need to be connected via USB to my Mac in order to set those preferences, and if so won't iTunes automatically start syncing based on previous preferences as soon as I connect the iPhone?

Regarding automatic syncing when your iPhone is connected, not if you turn off automatic syncing, which I recommend.

This can be done via your iPhone sync preferences or with iTunes.

Via iTunes go to iTunes > Preferences. Under the Syncing tab select Disable automatic syncing for all iPhones and iPods.

Do this before connecting your iPhone to your computer.

After connecting your iPhone to your computer and after launching iTunes if not already launched, select your iPhone in your iTunes source list to select your iPhone sync preferences.

2. Again in the paragraphs starting "If you have multiple folders..." Are you telling me to first create a brand new "parent folder" that has no individual photos but only other folders and then move (or copy) individual photos from my current folder into those subfolders of the parent folder etc.

Yes, if you don't want all photos available in your current folder that is used for storing photos to be transferred to your iPhone. If this current parent folder includes other folders that contain photos that you want available on your iPhone, you can transfer those folder to the new parent folder.

If you want photo albums available on your iPhone, you need to create/utilize folders to serve as albums. Place the photos in the appropriate folders or albums that you want transferred to your iPhone. Place nothing but the folders/albums in the new parent folder that you want available on your iPhone. There should be no photos only available in the parent folder.

Select the new parent folder under the Photos tab for your iPhone sync preferences.

In order to have iPhoto 08, you need to purchase iLife 08, which I believe costs only $79 for all applications included.

Thank you so much for your patient response to my query. Following your instructions I easily removed over a thousand, not very well organized photo's that I had synced to my iPhone from my Mac. I then used your technique to move a much better organized set of 66 photos by creating one (Parent) folder containing several "sub folders" each subfolder containing a few photos.

As I mentioned earlier, when I attempt to open the very old version of iPhoto (2.0.1 copyright 2002-2004) that came with my PowerMac and that I never attempted to use until a few days ago I get a message saying "You cannot use this version of the application iPhoto.app with this version of Mac OS X."

Although I agree that $79. is not so much to pay to get iLife08, it is not clear to me what advantages iPhoto 08 have over the "create your own albums by creating your own folders" procedure that you have suggested. Could you tell me what the iPhoto 08 advantages are?

More importantly I saw somewhere that there is a way to UPLOAD the one & only "Camera Roll" folder that comes with the iPhone to my Mac (by a sort of "reverse sync"?). Can you tell me about that?

My "Camera Roll" folder on my iPhone currently contains photos that I took with my iPhone as well as photos that were attached to emails that I received on my iPhone which I was able to "Save" on my iPhone but ONLY to my "Camera Roll" so I would like to get them "up" to my Mac.

You're welcome.

Although I agree that $79. is not so much to pay to get iLife08, it is not clear to me what advantages iPhoto 08 have over the "create your own albums by creating your own folders" procedure that you have suggested. Could you tell me what the iPhoto 08 advantages are?

You can see for yourself here - there is a video included.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/

iPhoto is the equivalent of iTunes for photos. You can email select photos direct from iPhoto, create a web gallery (if you have a MobileMe account), iPhoto includes editing tools, you can create photo calendars and photo books, etc., etc. IMO, $79 for iLife 08 is worth it for iPhoto alone. I couldn't imagine trying to manually manage over 1000 photos, but to each his/her own. iPhoto make that process easy.

More importantly I saw somewhere that there is a way to UPLOAD the one & only "Camera Roll" folder that comes with the iPhone to my Mac (by a sort of "reverse sync"?). Can you tell me about that?

You can use iPhoto for this but since you don't have a compatible iPhoto version, you can use the Image Capture application for importing photos from a digital camera including from your iPhone. When your iPhone includes photos that were captured by your iPhone, it is also detected as a digital camera when connected to your computer. The Image Capture application is included with OS X and is located in your Applications folder.