lawtwitts
Level 1 (4 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: How can I delete photos on Photos?

I need to free up space on my Macbook Pro. I have transferred some (about 30000) photos from my Macbook to external storage and then deleted them on my Macbook. They ended up in Recently Deleted. I then deleted all from Recently Deleted. This was a week ago but storage space still hasn't been released. I assume these photos are still held on the computer somewhere (perhaps for the 30 days referenced in the Recently Deleted photos bit?) but I need the space now. I experimented to see if deleting other photos made a difference to the storage and again it didn't. Any ideas?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 24, 2016 10:54 AM

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lawtwitts

Q: How can I delete photos on Photos?

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 24, 2016 11:02 AM in response to lawtwitts
    Level 10 (106,958 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 24, 2016 11:02 AM in response to lawtwitts

    Did you migrate your Photos Library from an iPhoto Library or an Aperture library?

     

    If the original library is still on your Mac, deleting from the Photos Library will not immediately free storage. You need to delete the same photos from the iphoto Library or the Aperture library as well.

     

    The reason is the way how Photos is saving space, Migrating a library to photos will create the new image files in Photos as hard links to the files in Aperture or iPhoto, so they are using the same enter yin the file table.  And the storage will only be released if all hard linked files have been deleted.

     

    If you do no longer need the ipHoto r Aperture library, trash them to break this link.

    See:  How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support

    Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

  • by lawtwitts,

    lawtwitts lawtwitts Apr 24, 2016 12:16 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 24, 2016 12:16 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks! However, I can't access my iPhoto library so I'm not sure how I delete the photos on iPhoto to release the space. It says I have to update the app but when I try to do that, it says "Update unavailable with this apple ID - this update is not available for this Apple ID either because it was bought by a different user or the item was refunded or cancelled". I have no idea why.