Delete multiple photos from iCloud

I just spent some time on the phone with Apple. They confirmed it: There is no way to select a lot of photos in the icloud on a Mac and delete them. You have to do it one by one. Grr. But there is one shorter workaround.

My trouble was I kept on getting notifications to upgrade my iphoto (i.e., pay more) because my icloud was full. All I wanted was "My Photo Stream" option on (in photos preferences on a Mac), so only the latest would appear on my devices. I wanted the remainder of the older photos just on my hard drive. But since they were already up there on icloud, I kept on getting the full message.

I found one workaround to save a little time getting older photos off the icloud.

1. Set your preferences in photos on your Mac, ipad, etc., to "My Photo Stream."

2. Then get on your iphone, and open photos. (This would not even work on my ipad either, so iphone's it). Try "albums" first. You should be able to "select," "select" again, then hit the trash sign. If not, look at "Collections," and try it again. It gets rid of groups of photos.

3. Check in Albums whether you have one called "Trash." Delete it too.

4. Complain to Apple.

The capability to use Select was removed. The only way to select multiple photos now is to hold down the command key and click each photo.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

I agree, this does feel like a ploy to have people spend more money on storage.

I have an external hard drive I use to store my photos from my phone periodically and backup my computer. I ended up deleting my entire photo library on ICloud using the link below. I plan on turning backup on again after the 30 days:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204247

Summary:

Delete backups and turn off iCloud Backup for your device

Use these steps for your device.

iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

iOS 10.3 or later:

1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.
2. If you use iOS 11, tap Manage Storage > Backup. If you use iOS 10.3, tap iCloud Storage > Manage Storage.
3. Tap the name of the device you are using [i.e. (Device-name) This (device type)].
4. Tap Delete Backup > Turn Off & Delete.

iOS 10.2 or earlier:

1. Go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage.
2. Under iCloud, tap Manage Storage.
3. Tap the name of the device you are using [i.e. (Device-name) This (device type)].
4. Tap Delete Backup > Turn Off & Delete.

When you delete a backup, it also turns off iCloud Backup of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Hi, I've just discovered quite fast way how to delete multiple photos in few seconds - on my device, iPhone 6 with 10.2.1. update I went to Photos - all - select and hold your finger on first photo and mark it, then move your finger diagonally and you should see all photos are being marked. I hope it works for you bros

Absolute ******** Apple, so frustrated with this, ******* **** take! Now selling my ipad Air 2 and Iphone as already have 2 business online clouds that cost money, not ******* paying you as well just to store my own photos when I have storage. Go ******* shoot yourselfs..........

There is still a way to select all and delete. Trust me its working 🙂

First Select "Photos" (Moments), and on the right side of the moment you see "Share" button, click on it, it will select all the images, now click on the "Delete" icon on the top right.

Please follow below steps to delete multiple photos at a time from icloud:

1. Open icloud.com. Open photos.

2. Select All photos (shown in image attached)

3. Select '+' icon on top right corner. This icon will be visible for All photos tab only.

4. Once you click on it, all the photos of corresponding album will be selected.

5. Finally click Delete icon and select move to trash.

This way all the photos of that will move to trash. From trash all the photos will be deleted within 40 days automatically.

Though you cant delete all the photos at once, atleast you can delete "Date/Moments" wise reducing the no:of deletes and much faster than deleting individual photos.

1. logon on to icloud.com

2. Click on photos, to go to moments

3. Against each moments/date wise photos, click on the "+" button (on the right-hand corner)

4. click the "delete" button

Thank you guys for all the answers above.

I did encounter the same issue while moving thousands of photos from iCloud to other online photo services. The way I resolved this issue is using Photo application on iMac (OS X El Capitan). Here is what I did, hope it will be helpful to anyone who has the same issue:

1. Open Photos app on Mac desktop (iMac, Macbook, ..., as long as it's Mac OS X).

2. Turn on iCloud Photo Library sync in Photos app, choose "Optimize Mac Storage" option to make the sync progress faster.

3. Then all photos and albums will be synchronised to your local Photos app.

4. Beware! What actions you take on these photos in Photos app will be applied to iCloud photos as well, which means you delete one photo, the photo on iCloud will be also deleted.

5. Select as many photos as you want for deletion in "All Photos" album. My case is all for deletion.

6. Check "Recently Deleted" album to confirm "Delete All" and make them permanently gone. This is to make sure the restoring is impossible after leaving iCloud photos service.

7. Done.

In my case, I also working on "Album" tab of Photos app to remove all albums. This is because I don't want to use iCloud photos anymore. Perhaps someone wants to keep. :-)

Good luck~

I do not see the "Select Photos" in the upper right window. I want to delete multiple photos at once and not click one by one.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

The capability to use Select was removed. The only way to select multiple photos now is to hold down the command key and click each photo.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Click here to send Feedback

I found a work around, so you can speed things up if you want to DELETE ALL PHOTOS asap in your browser iCloud.com:

1. click on top item in list "Photos"
2. every day you see a 'stack of photos' click on the 'share icon' top right of each stack... This selects ALL THE PHOTOS of that day...
3. hit DELETE top right

This way all pics of that day delete. I deleted over 1000 pics within 1 minute, yey ;-)

Apple love you, and hate you. Please be GOOD^

Great information. Viewing icloud.com on windows computer looking at pictures from new iPhone 7. Looking at pictures in icloud.com using "CTRL" held down and selecting multiple pictures to be removed with mouse selections then clicking trash can. Works quickly. Delighted to find work around from individual deleting pictures, one at a time. Would be handy to have "Select" icon.