Can not free up storage space after deleting all photo

It is two step process deleting photos and recovering storage space. Once you select and delete the photos in Photos you have to go back and look for deleted items folder in Photos and select the photos and delete them again. When finished go to Settings/General/Storage and iCloud Usage and select Manage Storage and let the management app do its work. After completion you should see more storage in Available.

Having spent many hours over many weeks (I think, indeed, the last few months) trying to do an act that seems as though it should be stunningly achievable and straightforward - and finding ample evidence that it is not - I'm driven by my appreciation of your comments in this thread, Lawrence Finch, to 1) Officially Sign Up to be a member of this community - though I've little to offer, I'm afraid - so I can 2) pose my question to you. While it's related to this thread (and many, many others), I've not found it put quite this way: If I store all the photos from my iPhone 5 (version 8.3) on iPhoto on my iMac Mini (&/or my MacBook Pro), can I then erase them from my iPhone, confident that they will be retrievable from, at the least, the iPhoto repository? I have iCloud, and am paying some amount monthly (I'm not being coy; I don;'t remember) to be sure that I have more than enough (200 GB) to cover any possibility that I might lose things through inadequate storage. The Preferences box tells me I have 183.88 GB available, so I'm evidently uber-safe in that regard. As well, I have Time Machine cooking away in the background, for what that's worth. But so far, in all my perusal of these community pages, I keep reading tales from many folks - some of them clearly, as e.e. cummings put it, 'braver than me, and blonder than you" - i.e., not lacking it intelligence and technical savvy - who are variously stymied and steamed. I'm happy to eschew indignation -- I just want to tuck my photos away in a manner that is assuredly safe, and not ponderously difficult to update as I take more photos. If I'm out of line posting this question here, I'll submit to whatever scolding is in order -- but dearly hope that I'll be pointed in the right direction, before the door slams behind me. Heartfelt thanks for whatever useful pointers you may have for this 73-yr-old beginner (who has been with Apple since the IIe I bought in, I think, 1983, which is still up in my attic).

Well, you are my senior, by about 1 year.

If you keep photos in iPhoto you can safely delete them from your phone. However, the new Photos app on both iPhone and Yosemite/El Capitan syncs photos across all devices, so if you keep them in Photos rather than iPhoto if you delete them from the phone they will also be deleted from other devices.

Okay, Larry -- let's see if I can be coherent and even civil while assembling the germane factors as I remember/retrieve them. First of all, thank you for your reply above. I've browsed online enough (LinkedIn) to appreciate that your services are well and widely valued. I feel privileged to benefit from your knowledge. Here's the deal, du jour: You say "If you keep photos in iPhoto . . . " which I thought I had done, except there is a vast discrepancy between the photos listed on iPhoto - 1,970 items - and the number listed on my iPhone - 6,606. This is not a mere counting discrepancy; there are whole years of photos that aren't in the iPhoto compendium (I'm sure that's not the right language, but I'll go crazy trying to be terminologically correct, and I'm sure you know what I mean). Plus while the iTunes readout on my iPhone asserts that I have a capacity of 12.59 GB, with 2.07 GB free (and the graphic bar at the bottom supports that ratio), the phone itself, while agreeing that I have a maximum storage of (rounded up to) 12.6 GB, it reports a mere 742 MB available. And it's not kidding; it keeps giving me little "heads up" that I'm almost out of space, and that I should do things to maximize my storage. Most of which I've done, and the ones I've not wouldn't amount to a rat's patootie. The thing is, I'm unwilling to resort to wholesale purges because many of the pics are important for an array of reasons; and by no means only sentimental (though I don't discount that, having recently had the last two of seven grandchildren enter the fold.)

Whining is, at the least, inelegant, so I want to say this in a way that's more dignified than whining: BUT -- is there nothing left of the user-landscape where you could literally "drag and drop" **** near anything from Here to There, or from Hither to Yon, and the systems executed promptly and gracefully? That, of course, is a fruitless question. What prompted it was my yearning to be able to go to the icon of my iPhone on, ideally, my desktop; select all the photos in the phone in a simple command, then drag them to a file -- or directly onto a disk icon. Then take the disk, or thumb drive, or whatever, to my office ten miles away, and then wipe the photos clean off my iPhone, if that's the only way I can free up space.

Thanks, Larry for your patience with the grumpy, frantic lot of us -- and congratulations on living a life that has been both contributory and, clearly, personally rewarding. Happily, I feel that way about my own journey to date as well -- though it's been a markedly different trajectory, to be sure. Here's the sketch, if you're curious: http://www.rogetlockard.com/bio.php

All best -
R.

This is very useful, Gerard. After doing the routine that Lawrence mentioned, I still had a lot of usage and no photos listed. I downloaded the demo copy of PhoneView and found the photos that are a problem. PhoneView lists them as "Phantom (679)". But since it's a demo copy, it doesn't allow you to delete. Since this is the only reason I would get PhoneView, the price seems very steep to make a one time fix that is clearly and Apple bug. Is there any way to get to those photos and delete them without purchasing PhoneView? Thanks!

Also, I cannot get the work around to work. Seems I'm caped at 1025 photo's for some reason. I clean off 100 phones and some video's. 1st the iphone says I have some space - say 75MB - but then after a few minutes, it goes back to saying I have 0 space. What is going on? Is icloud using up the rest of the space I just free'd up. iphone 5c, 5.3gb capacity, v8.4, 1002 photos, 24 videos. No space.

Crash354 wrote:

1st the iphone says I have some space - say 75MB - but then after a few minutes, it goes back to saying I have 0 space. What is going on? Is icloud using up the rest of the space I just free'd up. iphone 5c, 5.3gb capacity, v8.4, 1002 photos, 24 videos. No space.

iOS needs space on the phone for temporary storage, about 750 MB. If you don't have that much available the phone will not work reliably. 75 MB is not enough free space. iCloud uses ZERO space on the phone.

This was the VERY best and most helpful post I have ever found on Apple discussions. Thank you soooo much for sharing this incredible solution. My iPhone was practically gutted out trying to reduce memory yet it only had 278 kb's of memory available. I just gained 12 gb back thanks to you. And I have been searching the net for WEEKS trying to find a solution!

For anybody who still has this problem, go into your settings, find the iCloud tab, click on it and then find the photos tab, tap on it. No you should see two options. You should see optimize iPod touch storage, and download and keep originals, tap on optimize iPod touch storage and all that space will be freed up.

Hello! Any other helpful tricks up your sleeve when changing the date doesn't work? Deleted folder still says 0 and I've deleted pictures, videos, and apps - including everything in the deleted box. I've restarted my 5c phone a few times as well. I'm on ios 9. Appreciate any suggestions, thanks!

I DID IT!!!

Or at least I think what I did worked. You have to delete all your photos from you iCloud account as well. When your iPhone is plugged into your computer open up windows explorer (not sure what that is on a Mac) and click on iCloud photos. Delete all the photos from your iCloud cache and then relaunch iTunes. Your photos should be gone. NOTE: Make sure you back up your photos to your computer before you delete them from iCloud.

Hope This Helps,

JSTR82

Hi,

im facing a similar problem now (Obviously in 2016), than was was discussed last year in this forum.....

the issue being that ive tried all the tricks that you mentioned of going back 2 Yrs or so, & then returning to see all the deleted photos still hanging arround in the deleted folder.

tried all that ..but still in the storage, my Photo & camera is showing 746 MB, when i don't have a single photo or video in my roll. even the deleted is empty (after even doing the 2 yr back log thingy).. in short nothing has worked.

please can anyone help ?? i dont have much on my storage & need help.

thanks

sheroy

Hello Lawrence!

I'm currently facing the same problem as soonmuven however mine is a 64GB running on iOS 9.1 and I have tried the methods mentioned here to no avail.

Appreciate if you could share any solutions for us to fix this issue.

Thank you!

Do you have iCloud Photos turned on? If you do then all of your photos are synced to your phone. If you turn it off they will be removed from the phone but kept in iCloud.

If it's off you will have to restore iOS, as there must be data corruption in your storage. First restore using iTunes and restore your backup when prompted. If the problem recurs you will have to restore and set up as new. The restore will also upgrade iOS to 9.2.1.

I have the same issue ever since the 1st of March 2016... Slimmed down about 2 GB of storage but this is not being reflected in the settings panes. Even more annoying, the phone keeps telling me it is out of space...

Clearly I am not the only one around here with this issue, may be a bug?

(iPhone 6, 16GB iOS 9.2.1)