How do I delete multiple albums - with all their contents - in Photos?

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Level 1

11 points

How do I delete multiple albums - with all their contents - in Photos?

I am cleaning up my library., and would like to delete multiple albums in one go, together with all their contents.

a) I have not found a way to highlight more then one album at a time (in order to carry out a single delete operation across multiple albums). Am I missing something?

b) My understanding is that if I delete an alum, the photos remain in the library. Is this correct? And if yes, how do I delete photo contents of an album at the same time as deleting the album?

Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 29, 2017 7:20 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Nov 29, 2017 7:30 AM in response to guy toronto

you can not

to delete the contents of an album open the album, select all and press command delete - this will move all photos to the recently deleted album where they sit for 30 days or until you go and delete them sooner - this must be done for each album you wish to delete the contents of

To delete an album right click on it in the sidebar and select delete album - this must be cone for each album you wish to delete and this deletes only the album, not the contents

LN

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Nov 29, 2017 8:12 AM in response to guy toronto

once again in answer to your question

you can not

to delete the contents of an album open the album, select all and press command delete - this will move all photos to the recently deleted album where they sit for 30 days or until you go and delete them sooner - this must be done for each album you wish to delete the contents of

To delete an album right click on it in the sidebar and select delete album - this must be cone for each album you wish to delete and this deletes only the album, not the contents

LN

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Answer 3

guy toronto Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 29, 2017 8:07 AM in response to LarryHN

Thanks, Larry. I seem to recall that previously (perhaps in the days of iPhoto), you had the chance of erasing contents when you erased an album. (If I remember correctly, delete would simply delete the album, leaving contents in the library, while some key combination (option-delete???) would erase both album and contents. Has that functionality disappeared?

And is there really no way to at the very least select multiple albums so that I can streamline the delete operation (ie 1 time for multiple selected albums?)

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