How to save 1500 photos of 47000 and bulk delete those?

I downloaded over 45K photos over 2 yrs doing home inspections. Of those, 1500 are personal and would like to keep however the rest, I want to delete from the MAC. I have attempted to delete photos in each album, delete the album but all photos remain in the library. Without having to click on each photo to delete, looking for a way to delete bulk photos without spending time, holding down a key and clicking each one which is massive time consuming :( The only option showing appears to be "select all" which will no doubt delete my personal photos which I wish to hang onto. Should I just contact Apple Support?

I also have not been able to locate "HOW TO" for iPhotos. Thanks for any assistance.

Posted on Apr 20, 2020 7:49 AM

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1 reply

Apr 20, 2020 10:41 AM in response to teachgranny101

Deleting Photos from a Photos Library


1 - regardless of where you are in the library, i.e. Photos, Memories, Favorites, People, Recents, Imports, albums or smart albums, select the photo(s) you want to delete and use the key combination of Command+Delete to move the photos to the Recently Deleted smart album.


2 - click on the Recently Deleted smart albums in the sidebar.


NOTE 1: If you're using Photos 1.2 or earlier use the File  Show Recently Deleted menu option.


3 - in the Recently Deleted album you can opt to let the photo automatically delete after the 30 day waiting period is up, delete them immediately or restore them to the library.


NOTE 2: deleting a photo from an album, slideshow, book, etc., with the Delete key only deletes the photo from that item. There is no key combination that will delete a photo from a project and move it directly to the Recently Deleted smart album.


NOTE 3: deleting a photo from a Moment or Collection (the Photos window) or the All Photos window deletes ALL occurences of that photo in the library.


One way to do what you want is to add a keyword to all of your personal photos. Then create a smart album with this criteria:



Then you can delete batches of photos (I wouldn't try all of them at once in case Photos gets overwhelmed by the number - it has in past versions) as described above.


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How to save 1500 photos of 47000 and bulk delete those?

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