Why can’t I delete photos/videos after updating to iOS 11?

Turn off iTunes syncing

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.

Have you tried accessing your camera photos via "Image Capture" on the Mac (connect device via usb as you would for iTunes), if they appear in the main section of Image Capture try selecting the option to deleted (should be available along the bottom once you highlight one or more images).

Also, bottom left is a small upward arrow, if clicked it shows what operations can be done once imported - you can tick "Delete after import", then click "Import All" to see if they get transferred to your Mac followed by being deleted from the device.

Justapersona wrote:

Yeah, I kind of hate Apple for syncing confusion like this...Why is this so hard?

It is all very confusing I must agree, the number of options now available to move images around is mind bending, when I last looked you could sync via iTunes (auto), import via Photos (auto), import via Image Capture (manually), Import via iCloud My Photo Stream (auto) and Share via iCloud Photo Library (auto), I've left off Share Albums via iCloud Photo Sharing (auto) because it could be viewed as part of the previous ones.

I believe some of the problem is that Apple have tried to maintain the legacy methods (iTunes and Image Capture) as they have introduced the new "cloud" options, which led me to decide a while back that it must be an either or choice or you could end up with a mess - I opted to stick with legacy and only use Image Capture which with all the other option turned off or not used still gives me the tick box to delete following import. Yes, I'm left with manually archiving the images, storing remotely for safety and manual transfer if I want some on another device, but I stay in control.

If iCloud has been used but you decide later to turn off this article may help to avoid firstly losing any important ones in the process and secondly getting back some cloud space afterwards http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/04/21/how-to-remove-cloud-photo-library-conten t/

These are my options for just using Image Capture which has "No application" set so images import to Desktop (I can also select "Delete after import" if required).

iTunes "Sync Photos" is turned off for all devices.

iCloud Photo options are all turned off.

Obviously the last needs to be done on all your devices as well, plus it can be wise to check following a software update that they haven't been re-enabled for some reason.

Yeah, I kind of hate Apple for syncing confusion like this, and here we are a few years later, it just seems to bobble between incomprehensible and mysteriously broken.

I have a work Mac, and a personal Mac, and one iPhone. I take a lot of whiteboard photos at work; I grab dozens of photos each weekend for fun. A week of vacation and I have 100+ from that.

I import my whiteboard photos to my work computer, but cannot delete them from the phone while I'm sitting at my desktop (I used to do this, with that check box everyone is missing, "Delete after importing.")

I import personal ones to my personal Mac when I get to it... same problem.

My phone seems to have 1000's of photos, most of which got imported somewhere, once, and I just can't make sense of it any more.

I turned on iCloud photos briefly. That seemed to just put more photos back onto my phone ("from the cloud") mysteriously. I've just turned that off on all devices (and am told now I have 1000's of photos there... Oye Vey).

Even better, I just turned on Image Capture -- I think (?) I used that last year to just wipe all photos off my phone, but that doesn't seem to be available now.

Why is this so hard?

I used iPhone X and the problem that when you sync photo with you itune (for me, macbook 2015) after you delete photo from your folder but the photos are still in you iphone. My solution requires internet connection. In iphone, go to "Setting" and select "iCloud", tap "Photos". Turn on "iCloud Photo Library", the pop-up box will ask you to remove the photos (those are from your itune-syncing photos). Tap OK and wait. Check your app "Photo" again, the synced photos are deleted slowly (depend on your internet signal) and the photo from iCloud library (if you have) will be here instead. After the process completes, go to "Setting" again and turn off "iCloud Photo Library" again.

I hope this may help your problem 🙂

I am having this issue also. I love opening photo and seeing photos of exboyfriends and friends that can’t be deleted. It is comical that there is so much discussion about this issue and I am STILL sifting through replies trying to understand how to correct it. Apple over complicating things as usual. I’m getting tired of wasting so much time on them.

I want to stop syncing individual folders, and I have unchecked all but my favorites album but for some reason when I sync my Iphone 7+ it isnt removing all of the other photo folders from the phone and it is taking up a huge amount of space. HELP!!!

I have this same issue too. I cannot delete photos. I delete them and then 5 seconds later they re appear.

Hello,

And how does one delete photos taken with the phone’s camera (that were NOT transferred to my iPhone from a computer)?

Thank you

The problem isn’t with deleting photos that are from the computer, the problem is not being able to delete photos taken on the phone/device. How can we delete photos that we took on our phone.

Tu

Sorry, there is no step 4 when I follow the instructions. More time wasting complexity (i.e. garbage) from Apple.

I have just turned off iCloud on my laptop and on my iphone - will never use it again, very user unfriendly but Apple dont care about user friendliness, only selling products.

Hey Guys don't waste ur time apple= Waste of the time like all other restricted OSs I am so sorry for apple and it's devices 6 7 8 Plus all the same Sh.... 😟

Is your phone working fine now? I just encountered the same issue. Is there any way to fix this?