Unable to delete photos in Photos app

Question

Level 1

9 points

Unable to delete photos in Photos app

Hi,

Recently I need to free up some space on my Mac and I wanted to delete photos from Photos Library.

When I click Delete or Command+Delete on any picture, there is a popup window saying photo is being delted, but then nothing happens and all photos are still in library. I don't have iCloud sync and I don't see any Recently removed folder anywhere. This was working perfectly fine before update to Catalina. I'm kinda lost at this point, struggling with this for a week and I'm looking for any help

Thank you,

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 22, 2020 4:14 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Mar 22, 2020 6:25 AM in response to justyna214

Which album are you viewing, when you are trying to delete the Photos? Are you in All Photos or Recents, or Imports?

Try to delete photos while viewing the "Days" or "All Photos". And you may want to wait a bit with deleting. Photos 5.0 is a bit unresponsive when we are trying to delete photos directly after the upgrade, when Photos is still updating the library.

And you may want to check, if iCloud is really still disabled, i.e., check if My Photo Stream is off.

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Answer 2

justyna214 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 22, 2020 7:32 AM in response to léonie

Hmm, that was silly of me. I have iCloud sync turned off all the time, but somehow I had the My Photo Stream on. Turns out I have no idea what this is doing and why it's on :) Once disabled I can delete photos again. Thanks!

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Answer 3

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Mar 22, 2020 6:50 AM in response to justyna214

Did you transferred the data through migration assistant , how was the Mac OS catalina was installed was it an archive installation or you erased the hard drive and installed the os .

Is your Mac compatible with the latest version https://www.apple.com/in/macos/how-to-upgrade/ , and is updated https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchlpx1065/mac

When Mac is set up with iCloud by just signing in with Apple ID and password in system preferences - iCloud photos box is checked , the iCloud photo library and its preferences is set up https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204264

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht5156cc968/4.0/mac/10.14

Make sure photo stream is turned off if you are syncing some iPhone with Mac , you are using single system photo library ( if photo libraries are split up combine them ) https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT209528

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Mar 22, 2020 7:50 AM in response to justyna214

That seems to be a recent problem. Another user also reported, that My Photo Stream prevented the deletion of photos from the "All Photos" view.

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