How to delete invisible, hidden photos on an ipad?

Question

Level 1

10 points

How to delete invisible, hidden photos on an ipad?

I have zero photos on the iPad. However, the consumption bar shows 492.4MB, with 388 photo's.

When I take a picture, I import it into iTunes and delete it from the iPad ASAP. (16GB iPad 3) The iPad generally has less than 2GB free.

When I go to the Photos tab in iTunes, it shows no photos, Sync Photo is unchecked.

How can I figure out what has these apps and how to remove them? I don't want to do a complete reset as there are many apps I do not want to lose the settings/preferences etc.

Troubleshooting Notes:

I originally used a different Apple ID to set up this iPad, but logging in to that account does not show any photos, either.

I have restarted the iPad.

I have emptied the trash on the computer when logged into either account.

I have taken photos and imported them, then used "delete from iPad" after importing.

I do not use email on this iPad, so the images cannot be inside email messages.

I do not use Face time, Facebook, or any other social apps that could be storing images.

I noted a bug when loading movies for the Video app, after deleting the movie the space is often put into "other" until I restart the iPad. This is a separate problem.

Any idea how to get rid of these 388 invisible images?

iPad, iOS 6.1.4

Posted on Sep 1, 2013 2:12 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 1, 2013 3:09 PM in response to StarsEnd

Restore from your back up. If that fails, restore as new.

Best of luck.

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Answer 2

StarsEnd Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 2, 2013 1:14 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Thanks, but Restore from Backup apparently does not restore the apps/data. (just contacts/settings) It would be a fair amount of work to restore 12 pages of apps/folder organization, etc. Not to mention if I lose any app settings, a few of which are important. If I were to backup/restore, it would need to restore ALL apps back to the state and page they are currently.

I just wanted to eliminate the 400MB of hidden/invisible photos. There ought to be a simple solution to this bug.

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Answer 3

StarsEnd Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 2, 2013 2:40 PM in response to StarsEnd

I note that using System Prefs:Usage:Photos, the 461MB shows up under "Photo Stream".

Then I went to Photo and clicked on Photostream in Photo app. Then hit the edit button on hte upper right.

That gives me trash can to delete photos. Unfortunately, there is no way I could find to delete them except clicking on one by one, all 500 of them, then deleting. Took a while. Glad I foud this before there were thousands. Bulk delete Apple! and why enable this by default? I never enabled it.

But that solved the problem!

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Answer 4

flyerMH

Level 1

8 points

Jul 28, 2015 6:24 AM in response to StarsEnd

Yes, thats what it is for sure. It's the iCloud Photo Sharing pictures that are stored on the device. Even though they are in iCloud they are also stored on the device as well, this is so the pictures aren't always re downloaded every time you want to go back into iCloud Photo sharing to view them. Thanks for your help! Appreciate it.

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