Photos won't delete

Go in your trash and see if the pictures are in your trash folder

I was trying to delete pictures once and this is what I did to permanently delete them! Good luck!

Did you create your new Photos Library by migrating your previous iPhoto Library? Then the Photos Library is sharing the videos and original image files with your previous iPhoto Library. Both libraries are storing the media on exactly the same disk blocks (using hard links). This way the storage is only used once. But that is why deleting the media from the Photos library will not free the storage immediately, as long as iPhoto is still using the items. You have to delete the items from both libraries. If you migrated all items from iPhoto, you can now delete the iPhoto library completely (make a backup copy on a backup drive, just in case).

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

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

Sometimes photos are stored in the Photos > Master folder in the Photos Library, that failed to delete, perhaps because of a crash of Photos.

Usually the photos will appear again, when you repair the library.

Repairing the Photos Library is explained here: https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/index.html#/pht6be18f93

SMurphy wrote:

I am trying to make space on my Mac and it says there are a ton of photos/videos taking up space. I went through the photos and videos in iPhoto and deleted a bunch - I even emptied the iPhoto trash as well. Yet still I came across the videos in MacKeeper when reviewing Video files taking up space.

You mention that you have MacKeeper on your computer. The first thing you should consider doing is removing it.

See Limnos's answer in this thread:

How to I completely remove MacKeeper from my MacBook Pro

SMurphy wrote:

Sorry - it's called CleanMyMac3 by MacPaw. Not MacKeeper...

Same thing. Just as bad for your computer. Delete it.

Sorry - it's called CleanMyMac3 by MacPaw. Not MacKeeper...

That is even worse. Don't let CleanMyMac 3 touch your Photos Libraries. It is one of the dangerous cleaning apps that will remove files directly from the Masters folder, downgrade the quality of your original image files by replacing them by the edited versions, making errors when relinking the files, and corrupt photo libraries this way beyond repair.

Yet still I came across the videos in MacKeeper when reviewing Video files taking up space.

That probably is your problem - Mac Keeper is one of the worst Malwear packages in existence - do not run it and get rid of it now - see Do not install MacKeeper

Clean up packages like MacKeeper, CleanMyMac and others damage your system and cause major problems - do not use any of them!

LN

Do I need to manually delete those images from the Master folder as well?

Photos should automatically delete the original image files from the Masters folder, when you delete the photos from Photos and then empty the "Recently Deleted" album.

If that does not happen, there are four typical reasons.

1. Sometimes we think, we deleted the photos, but actually just removed them from an album. Then the photos vanish from the album, but are still inthe library, visible in the moments.
2. Or photos crashed right after deleting the photos, or could not write to the library because of permission problems, an incompatible file system, or similar.
3. If the library has been migrated from iPhoto or aperture, it may contain externally edited photos that cannot be accessed any longer. For example, if you used PhotoShop and saved the edited photo from Photoshop with a new name in its original place, it will not be accessible from Photos.
4. And if CleanMyMac replaced original files and linked them incorrectly, Photos cannot access them as well.
5. Or you may have actually imported the photos twice.

If you restore the library from your backup, check if you now can delete the photos using Photos properly.