User profile for user: streptile
streptile Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

No "favorite" heart or trashcan icon on SOME iPhone photos. Why?

  • iPhone 6
  • iOS 10.3.1


For some reason, the trash can icon and the "favorite" heart icon is missing on a lot of my photos on my iPhone.


I've never had this problem before, but as far as I know I also haven't changed much apart from perhaps an auto-update.


I would like to be able to delete or favorite these photos but there is no way to do it.


Not sure if this is relevant but the photos that are missing these icons seem to be all photos that were imported from albums on my 2015 iMac running OSX 10.11.6. Many or most of them were originally taken on this same iPhone, imported to the iMac and deleted from the iPhone, sorted into albums, then re-imported to the iPhone when specific albums sync.


How can I get these icons back? Driving me nuts not to have my "favoriting" ability, which is how I sort a lot of photos on my phone for quick reference.


Any help gratefully received.

iPhone 6, iOS 10.3.1

Posted on May 17, 2017 9:46 PM

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User profile for user: FoxFifth
FoxFifth
User level: Level 10
475,401 points

May 18, 2017 8:05 AM in response to streptile

If you synced the photos from a computer via iTunes, the only way to delete them from the phone is by syncing again using different settings/selections. See the following from Keep your photos safely stored and up to date on all of your devices - Apple Support


If you don't want the synced photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch anymore, turn off syncing in iTunes and they'll be removed from your device. You can turn off syncing for some of your photo albums or all of them at once.

Stop syncing some albums

  1. Open iTunes on your computer and connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
  2. Click on the device icon in iTunes.
  3. Click Photos.
  4. Choose "Selected albums" and deselect the albums or collections that you want to stop syncing.
  5. Click Apply.

Stop syncing all photos

  1. Open iTunes on your computer and connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
  2. Click on the device icon in iTunes.
  3. Click Photos.
  4. Deselect "Sync Photos" then click "Remove photos."
  5. Click Apply.



Learn how to delete photos and videos synced from iTunes when you can't access the originals.

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No "favorite" heart or trashcan icon on SOME iPhone photos. Why?

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