Q: Delete photos from iPhone after import - Photos

I'm pretty sure the 'delete photo's after import' function was there when I first connected my iPhone. It seems that once you decided not to, you cannot change this again.
So my photo's are imported to the new Photos App, but I can't delete them from my iPhone anymore. In a while my iPhone will be full and there's nothing I can do about it

I'm pretty sure the 'delete photo's after import' function was there when I first connected my iPhone. It seems that once you decided not to, you cannot change this again.

It depends on the settings on your iPhone.  Did you change the settings since you first tried?

When I disable iCloud Photo Library on the iPhone I am seeing this option, when I enable iCloud Photo Library the option to delete after import is gone.

Yosemite's behavior is a step backwards from Mountain Lion's.  (Don't know about Mavericks.)

In ML, you were *prompted* after the import as to whether you wanted to delete the photos.  That makes sense logically-- import first, *then* figure out if you want to delete.  IIRC, you could even choose to delete selectively!

Now, the sequence is reversed--and you aren't even *asked* whether you to delete.  You have to pick deletion *before* import.  But, worse, you have to *remember* to check the "Delete after import" box *every* time you import.  If you don't, you end up with photos still on your iPhone or iPad.  Next time you come to import, it willy-nilly imports them *all* *again*.  That's unlike in Mountain Lion, where you would be notified of duplicates and that you had already imported the photos.  It would even prompt you if you wanted to import just the fresh ones.  So, in Yosemite, you can end up being stuck with gobs of duplicated photos. 

I could even live with that (not really! ) save that Photos does NOT show the image name or info below it to make locating and removing duplicates easier.

I'd be happy to learn of some preference settings in Photos that I've overlooked that could solve all this!

Now,  about those barely visible dots that replaced fully-colored items in List View... 

In ML, you were *prompted* after the import as to whether you wanted to delete the photos.  That makes sense logically-- import first, *then* figure out if you want to delete.  IIRC, you could even choose to delete selectively!

That was also risky.  You were asked, when it looked like the photos had been imported, but so far you had only seen the thumbnails. Actually, the import was still going on in the background and you could not yet enlarge and check the photos, if the originals really had been imported safely without download errors.

We have seen many cases of lost photos because of deleting right from the Import panel. The typical error in Mt. Lion or any iPhoto version:  You confirm to delete the photos after import, and the Mac starts to delete the photos from the camera/device right after the originals have been moved to a cache on the mac, before they appear in the events in the iPhoto Library. And with bad  luck the Mac crashes, because one of the photos or videos cannot be processed. Or you imported more photos than you had free storage and the mac crashes. The result -  all photos gone from the Mac, because the caches will be cleared, when the Mac restarts, and the photos will be gone from the card as well.

I would not risk that.  I keep the photos on the card until I have seen all imported photos enlarged and have at least one backup of the new import.  Then I erase the photos from the camera by reformatting the card, when the card is full.

When importing from the iPhone or iPad it will depend on if iCloud Photo Library is enabled or not.  If iCloud Photo Library is active, there is no point in deleting from the Import panel, because all photos you are seeing are in iCloud Photo Library, and you can simply delete them by deleting them on any Mac that syncs with iCloud. The device mirrors iCloud, so you delete from iCloud rather than from the device.

If iCloud Photo Library is not active, then the "delete after Import" option will be available, but I would first import to Photos without deleting from the phone, then check the import and backup the photos, and then use Image Capture to delete them from the device.

It's only risky if the programming is poor!  My focus was on the interface change.  It still makes much more sense to be asked *after* the import whether to delete the originals or not rather than beforehand!  IIRC, you could even select which ones to delete (or I am mis-remembering?)

Plus, if one believes or worries that the importing system is flawed, one can simply decline the deletion offer! 

By the way, my remarks pertain to imports off an iPhone, so there is no card involved.  And that changes the equation greatly.  One has a 16gb iPhone or iPad Mini--of which only a couple of gb are free... one then wants to delete videos and photos right after import!

How about this?   The import should happen (to iTunes and even automatically to an external backup), the photos should be displayed in iTunes, and then the user should be prompted for deletion.

In any event, there are free utilities for resurrecting photos off of cards, so even for my digicams, I'll take my chances.  It's a pain having a card fill up right in the middle of taking photos of an event.  Plus, most of what I photograph is not worth worrying about anyway--obviously, others are taking more important photos and it would be a concern. 

You have offered a really good strategy for ensuring that things aren't inadvertently deleted.

I have 200GB of useless storage on iCloud - useless because the phone doesn't push anything to it.  Instead, at the moment I try to capture a great sunset, my POS iPhone tells me storage full.  ***?  The "sticky" issue everyone is talking about is moot for me.  It doesn't work.  All photos stay in place.  So I have to go in and manually delete one by one.

I miss my iPhone 3 with whatever the **** it ran LOL.  I've tried to find and follow the instructions online but it appears those are not available anymore either

I am not sure if you were able to solve your situation.

Using the built in Image Capture software (on Macs) you are able to access your mobile device (after connecting by cable), selecting your connected devices, select the files that you want to delete (or Command + A for all) then click the red delete button.

The below link details this in some more detail.

How to delete photos/videos from iPhone after import by Image Capture App

Hope this helps,

Jason

Thank you for answering the question! A bunch of back and forth without answering the initial question.

A bunch of back and forth without answering the initial question.

Humm - the question was answered in the first post and is marked as answered and the answer shows first - obviously you did not look at the question and answer at the top of the thread

LN

I had no idea there was a sidebar, so that was useful in and of itself. Thanks.

NO

I Selected "delete items after import" on my Mac running Yosemite 10.10.5 but the photos are still present in my camera roll on my connected IPHone6.

Please advise.

HI there, I'm running Yosemite 10.10.5 and connected my IPhone 6 with the intent of transferring my camera roll photos to Iphoto. I know I can select "delete after import", so I did. However, after successful import, photos still in camera roll. Please advise. Thank you so much.

Had exactly the same problem and question. I figured out that after having imported thousands of my pictures, you just have to wait a little bit, just after the importing has finished, and you'll realize that the pics will start deleting from you iPhone batch by batch. Once it starts deleting, it will go quite fast.

Photos have not deleted from my iPhone after successful import into iPhoto.

Camera roll still full on iPhone.  Is it because they will eventually get sent to "recently deleted" album?

When I had my 4S, the camera roll immediately deleted.