Bulk Deleting ALL Photos from iPhone

This is nearly enough for me to leave Apple. This is INCREDIBLY complicated. I've spend 1/2 hour scouring the internet for this answer. I don't want to hit select 150 times. I want to just DELETE ALL photos from my iPhone. Could there possibly be an easy answer Apple? I've tried Image Capture, I've tried Apple Photos, I've tried using the iPhone. No answers. You all seriously need to go back to the drawing board on this. My 64GB iPhone 6 is full, my photos are backed up to my MacBook. I JUST WANT TO DELETE THE DARN PHOTOS OFF OF THE IPHONE IN ONE STEP!!!! I'm on iOS 9.3.4.

Posted on Aug 11, 2016 11:11 AM

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Posted on Aug 11, 2016 11:54 AM

Assuming the photos are in the camera roll (synced photos have to be unsynced using iTunes in order to delete them), launch the Photos app. Open the Camera roll album. While in thumbnail view, tap Select in the upper right corner. Tap on the bottom left photo to select it. Then swipe across each row of photos to select an entire row at a time. You can also swipe across and up the right side, but I have better success swiping one row at a time.


After all of the photos have been selected that you want to delete, tap the trash can icon.

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Aug 11, 2016 11:54 AM in response to pjbarbour

Assuming the photos are in the camera roll (synced photos have to be unsynced using iTunes in order to delete them), launch the Photos app. Open the Camera roll album. While in thumbnail view, tap Select in the upper right corner. Tap on the bottom left photo to select it. Then swipe across each row of photos to select an entire row at a time. You can also swipe across and up the right side, but I have better success swiping one row at a time.


After all of the photos have been selected that you want to delete, tap the trash can icon.

Nov 18, 2016 9:16 AM in response to razmee209

Nonsense. Do you not understand what "ALL" photos means? Well, I think you do.

The correct answer is: you cannot! Not with out a factory reset. And then set up as a new phone.


This is the most pathetic aspect of iOS and, most recently, MacOS also.

Oh, Apple's photography prowess...


I just read a 20 page How-To about the same problem. It described appr. 20 ways to delete some ⚠

photos...


Why waste people's time?

Just say: no, ALL photos cannot be deleted in iOS in ONE go - NOT in the way you can on Windows, Blackberry, Android, Symbian, S60, S30, S40, WebOS, Maemo, MeeGo, Linux, Debian, Java, Brew, PalmOS oh and whatever else.... Because: those OSs all had it wrong. Yep!

Nov 17, 2017 1:12 PM in response to pjbarbour

Apple has only gone down the tube in its quality and user-friendliness. I can't bulk delete my photos. I follow instructions I can find on many of these mac sites but most of them seem to address only for older IOS.


Is this way of Apple to force people buy more storage? Now I can't put anything past these big tech companies. There is no real innovation but just these BS tactics. Both MSFT and AAPL are racing to the bottom.


I wish I could tell you I figured a way out but I have a number of photos I want to delete in bulk but I don't have a good solution so far. So, I am deleting in small batches as fast as possible 😟

Aug 11, 2016 11:45 AM in response to pjbarbour

pjbarbour wrote:


This is nearly enough for me to leave Apple. This is INCREDIBLY complicated. I've spend 1/2 hour scouring the internet for this answer. I don't want to hit select 150 times. I want to just DELETE ALL photos from my iPhone. Could there possibly be an easy answer Apple? I've tried Image Capture, I've tried Apple Photos, I've tried using the iPhone. No answers. You all seriously need to go back to the drawing board on this. My 64GB iPhone 6 is full, my photos are backed up to my MacBook. I JUST WANT TO DELETE THE DARN PHOTOS OFF OF THE IPHONE IN ONE STEP!!!! I'm on iOS 9.3.4.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/


when you plug your phone to pc or mac, it will read it as a camera - then from there you can bulk delete.

Aug 23, 2016 7:44 AM in response to Demo

Have the same problem here. Driving me nuts. Why so difficult Apple? If I want to delete I want to delete, not to roam the internet for 60 minutes looking for answers-how-to-delete.


Well, I tried to delete my son's iPhone manually, in the end took the above method which worked: selecting everything in Camera Roll, then hitting the trashcan. But: afterwards, there was no extra space on iPhone. Why? There is an album "Recently Deleted" that still has all those images, and I need to manually select all items again in order to permanently delete them...


In the end, I just manually selected each item to be "permanently deleted", but would rather get rid of the whole iPhone itself.


Just add: select all and a trashcan in Photos, and I am happy. It can't be that difficult.

Nov 18, 2016 9:28 AM in response to vschfrl67

The closest you get as far as I know? Create a folder on you PC or Mac with just 1 photo.

Then connect your iPhone or iPad. to iTunes. On the Sync Photos page in iTunes, tick "sync from selected folders" only!

Pick that folder with the 1 Photo. Then click "Apply" in bottom right corner... Now all photos except for those

in your camera roll will be removed...and other than that you'll only have that 1 photo to deal with.

The camera roll pics can be deleted the old-fashioned way or, if you have a Mac, do it via the Image Capture App on your Mac.

Mar 5, 2017 10:32 AM in response to pjbarbour

If you have a Windows PC, connect your phone and you can view the raw photo files in File Explorer by selecting your iPhone in the sidebar. Drill down into each folder until you see the individual photo files and hit Ctrl + A (select all) and Delete. Gone for ever! Thus the fastest, easiest way to mass delete photos from your iPhone is by using a PC!

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Bulk Deleting ALL Photos from iPhone

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