When I delete photos from Photos, why don't I gain any storage space? (Yes, I emptied the "Recently Deleted" photos.")

do you still have your iPhoto library that was the source of the Photos library? If so then you must delete from there too or delete the entire iphoto library is you are absolutely sure you longer want or need it

LN

two separate libraries as documented - you can migrate an iphoto library to Photos but that does not change the iphoto library and both programs can continue to be used - both libraries use hard links to share the masters and previews as of the time of the migration - all hard links must be deleted before the disk space is available so you either have to delete in both libraries of delete one library

Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

LN

It's a shame that if you delete a photo in Photos that it does not delete it in the iPhoto Library as well. If they are linked, why did Apple not allow this to happen. I've been deleting lots of photos to recover disk space and I'll never remember all of those that I deleted to go back to iPhoto to delete them. I certainly cannot delete my iPhoto Library as I will no longer have any photos (at least that is the way Apple explained it to me when I first migrated to Photos).

Mary T. Carter wrote:

It's a shame that if you delete a photo in Photos that it does not delete it in the iPhoto Library as well. If they are linked, why did Apple not allow this to happen. I've been deleting lots of photos to recover disk space and I'll never remember all of those that I deleted to go back to iPhoto to delete them. I certainly cannot delete my iPhoto Library as I will no longer have any photos (at least that is the way Apple explained it to me when I first migrated to Photos).

no - what would be a shame would be if you delete a photo in one program and it did delete in a totally unrelated and different program without notice which would be a major mess - the photos are not "linked" each library is "hard linked" to the same source file and the source file is not removed until all hard links are deleted thereby allowing maximum flexibility for users and developers while saving a great deal of storage

And yes you certainly CAN delete your iPhoto library as Apple has said and as was posted here and as has been done by many people who are done with it - deleting it only affects iPhoto exactly the same as deleting from Photos only affects Photos - there is absolutely no linkage between the two in any way

And if anyone from Apple told you differently then you need to report them to their manager as they have no idea in the world what they are talking about and they are spreading totally false information

and it is also very unfortunate that you have chosen to ThreadJack another user's correctly solved thread with this way off base post which will confuse future readers

LN

So you are saying both the iPhoto and Photos programs are linked to a separate database (source file) and that if I delete my iPhoto library it will not affect my photos in the Photos program and I will still have that database (source file) on my Laptop?

I migrated right after Photos was released and perhaps the Apple Rep that I talked to may have been confused. There was a lot of confusion when it was first released.

I was a little taken aback with your attitude towards me. Quite unusual for Apple people to be that way, especially someone with your experience who seems to like to help people.