Comments on: How to: Delete all photos off an iPhone

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:16:27 +0000

This worked like a charm. I had over a thousand pics trapped, purposelessly, on my phone; taking up space and laughing at my every attempt to dump them. Thank you, a thousand times!

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:18:46 +0000

Shuneka: That is really odd. If you tap once on the photo a menu does not come up on the bottom?

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:17:28 +0000

You’re welcome Kat!

By: shuneka

shuneka — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:35:47 +0000

i cant delete individual pics from my iphone because i dont have the trash can at the bottom that all of my friends seem to have…did i get a faulty iphone?

By: Kat B

Kat B — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:21:17 +0000

Thanks for the help! Yours was the first result and worked like a charm. My iphoto has imported the pics, but wouldn’t delete them and I need space. I really appreciate it!

By: Linkwoman

Linkwoman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:28:15 +0000

@kathleen: I do what you said frequently. I just want to delete the folders. I have all these empty folders (see my reply above to Barry).
thanks.

By: Linkwoman

Linkwoman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:27:32 +0000

@blimp: I do what you said frequently. I just want to delete the folders. I have all these empty folders (see my reply above to Barry).
thanks.

By: Linkwoman

Linkwoman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:25:50 +0000

@Barry: Hi. I had folders with names of 100Apple through 109Apple. I always copy pics to computer then delete them from the iPhone folders, so that what I have on my iPhone is a small # of pics. I’ve noticed that the folders are not reused; they just keep making more. A few months ago I didn’t have 108 or 109Apple. Now I have 100Apple through 109Apple and before reading your post, 100 thru 108 were empty, and 109 had the most recent pictures in it.

Ok, so per your instructions, I got rid of the photo cache folder (actually renamed it) and then for the first time ever, when I docked the iphone it didn’t show my iphone in windows explorer. That was a good sign. I took the iPhone out of the dock, took a couple of pictures, and docked the iphone again. I expected to see just 100Apple. Instead I see the 100Apple through 109Apple. 109 Apple has the 2 pictures in it and the other folders are all empty. I want to get rid of all these extra folders. Do you know how I can do that? Thanks. BTW my most recent pic name is IMG_9772.
Hope you can help!
thanks.

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:58:59 +0000

So you did this?

1. Plug in iPhone.
2. Open Image Capture.

BTW, my Image Capture version is 6.0.

By: joe s

joe s — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:02:26 +0000

Didn’t fix the problem. Didn’t really make any difference at all. Perhaps there’s just something wrong with my Image Capture software? Is that possible? I’m running Mac OS X Version 10.5.8 for what its worth and the Image Capture software is Version 4.0 (376)

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:05:45 +0000

joe s: Don’t eject it from iTunes. You don’t even have to close iTunes. Just open Image Capture. You are ejecting the iPhone and so Image Capture doesn’t see it. Just don’t eject it and you should be good to go.

By: joe s

joe s — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:33:44 +0000

Image Capture won’t recognize my iPhone when I plug it in (via USB). By default, iTunes pops up, tries synching etc. I eject it from iTunes, exit out of iTunes, launch Image Capture and it says that “No Image Capture device Is connected.” I then click on Devices from the file menu, Browse Devices and the only device it finds is something called Digital Still Camera (which I have to assume is my iPhone b/c when I pull out the USB cord it disappears), but I can’t seem to click on it to get more info or to connect to it really. I tried clicking on the “Connected” checkbox, but nothing appears to change. Any suggestions?

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:01:13 +0000

Cayce: I saw your reply on Twitter as well. You’re very welcome. I’m glad so many people (well over 500,000 people have seen this post) have found this valuable. Thanks for following!

By: Cayce

Cayce — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:17:59 +0000

Wow. Thanks so much. You saved me a lot of time & frustration. And you had PICTURES. Love it. Glad to add you to people I follow.
It turns out Image Capture also integrates with my scanner. Thanks to you its in my dock now.

By: pgiom

pgiom — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:00:53 +0000

very useful post, freed 3 GB space on iPhone.
but iTunes still showing 4,60 GB space used by photoes on iPhone…
I’ve sync just my last iPhoto event… 2 PICTURES=4,60 GB??
;(

By: kathleen

kathleen — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:13:25 +0000

for pc vista
plug in iphone
go to computers
iphone
internal storage
DCIM
and from there ull find the pictures and u call just hit the delete button

hope that helps

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:45:47 +0000

Infinitely useful post. Thanks so much!

By: Sandra

Sandra — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:38:36 +0000

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! I am a photographer and still couldn’t figure out how to erase my 3000 iPhone pix. So helpful…

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:37:31 +0000

Thanks – worked perfect!! It’s great that folks like you post this to help us newbies – good karma to you!!

By: Paper Dolls for Boys

Paper Dolls for Boys — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:16:48 +0000

Who knew I even had Image Capture! Thanks so much for the easy to follow step by step instructions and for solving such an annoying problem for me (and so many others, judging from the responses).
Cheers!

By: Barbara Knowles

Barbara Knowles — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:50:25 +0000

Thank you so much. I had over 4000 pictures on my iphone and you helped me to get rid of them all!

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:40:02 +0000

There is a command A on the iPhone? Haha. Pierpaolo – this is how to remove all photos from an iPhone using a computer.

By: Pierpaolo Caricato

Pierpaolo Caricato — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:35:40 +0000

Why not just click the “remove” button down below in the acquire application? You can select either all (command-a) or specific pictures to be removed from your iphone in a flash! Without having to re-import them

By: blimp

blimp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:01:35 +0000

ran into this too with some 3000pics

Well on WINDOWS, just go into the the phone which is recognized as a camera from explorer

Within a DCIM folder you’ll find several Apple101, Apple104, Apple999 folder

simply delete the files in there directly.

relatively hassle free and fast.
should be possible in finder on mac too nay ?

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:22:13 +0000

Ronnie: In the world of computers a folder is actually a directory. So, yes. Create a new folder. Dump the photos simply means “save them there”.

By: ronnie

ronnie — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:18:23 +0000

“Create a new directory to dump your iPhone photos to”.

“Create a directory” – you mean a folder?

“dump your iPhone photos to” – do I dump them? andwhat do you mean by “dump them”

Sorry to be so stupid but you have lost this non technical user here!

By: Montana

Montana — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:20:07 +0000

Dhillon, that’s what we’ve been trying to figure out. Lots of people say the only way to take pictures off an iPhone is to take them off the computer and re-sync (something my father doesn’t want to do) But I’m pretty sure that you can also delete it by simply moving the photos you don’t want on your iPhone to a different folder, then re-syncing the iPhone.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:37:23 +0000

Using the Image Capture app as a method to delete photos from my iPhone that I didn’t want to import never came to mind.

Thanks!

By: shawn

shawn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:34:04 +0000

how do i do it on vista ?

By: Ceez8r

Ceez8r — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:40:15 +0000

I appreciate the information. Great help for us who know enough about Macs, but still need a little boost of assistance from others.

Cheers

By: teri

teri — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:50:32 +0000

Brilliant! Genius! Thank you so much – I would have never thought of that. I had 800+ photos and it was a total drag.

You rock!

By: Anand

Anand — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:55:52 +0000

thanks

By: kate

kate — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:35:09 +0000

thanks SO much!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:22:21 +0000

Thanks, this worked perfectly. Google to the rescue

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:34:08 +0000

Thanks! Your directions worked perfectly!

By: Lynn

Lynn — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:59:41 +0000

Thank you so much for sharing this information! It was very helpful!

By: kyork

kyork — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:55:38 +0000

I’ve checked my programs folder in XP and do not have Open Image Capture app. Where do i get. Can’t seem to Google for it.

By: Jayne Rose

Jayne Rose — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:53:26 +0000

Hi there…did u get an answer re: inability to delete one by one photos when u dont see the “trashcan”icon on photos that were uploaded? I’m having the same prob and the answers mainly pertain to using a mac….I dont have a mac..I have Windows Vista, but no one seems to know how to do it via Vista?
Any help u can give me, using windows would be most helpful.
Thx….

By: Neha

Neha — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:59:51 +0000

Thank you for your post. IT HELPED A LOT! I did what you said.. but by mistake i changed my import settings.. I have windows vista.. and now whenever i plug in the usb cable to my computer it downloads the pictures and deletes them from the iphone (thats precisely what i wanted) BUT i changed the path of the iphone photo folder.. now i dont know how to change the settings back?? any help??

By: Corné Wielemaker

Corné Wielemaker — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:45:37 +0000

Great tip, thanks for sharing!

Corné.

By: Barry

Barry — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:51:13 +0000

To clear things up for those who are trying to get rid of the separate photo albums in their IPhones….In windows the Iphone creates a folder in your Picture file called I-Pod Photo Cache. You have to delete this file before resyncing your photos to your I-phone or else your I-Phone will create a duplicate folder of the same pictures in your Photos called I-phone photo Library as well as the folder in your windows Picture folder where you have put the photos you want on your I-Phone. DOn’t forget to Delete that I-Phone Photo Cache file or you will have the same pictures in two separate files

By: Phillip

Phillip — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:16:59 +0000

Thanks for this — very hand indeed.

Like many others I am amazed and hugely disappointed with Apple in that they appear to be getting more and more stupid and Microsoft-like: overlooking such an obvious basic requirement, forcing us to do things in a dumbed-down stepwise fashion and utterly failing to think from the users’ point of view. Similar to the way Spotlight will only sort by kind, size and date last opened, and won’t allow columns for “date created” and “date last modified”.

By: ena swansea

ena swansea — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:30:56 +0000

thanks SO much, I have been struggling with this through two iPhones.
very generous of you to figure this out.

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:32:47 +0000

thanks bud, much appreciated

By: Donna

Donna — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:49:42 +0000

Thanks so much! Worked like a charm – you’re the best!

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:35:30 +0000

This worked perfectly. Thanks for posting the clear instructions for this solution.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:40:40 +0000

I can’t even delete pics one by one, which is what I’d like to do. the ‘camera’ roll (photos taken using iphone) does have a trash can icon, but the new folders (imported from iphotos) does not, so i appear to be stuck with them, unless i take the syncing option?

Can anyone tell me how to delete individual pics?

thanks

By: Kip

Kip — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:50:59 +0000

Thank you so much! Simple and works nice.

By: Gerald

Gerald — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:43:42 +0000

Great stuff mate, worked like a charm, this had baffled me for ages, a simple and effective solution, thanks for taking the time to post this, much appreciated.

By: FPPP

FPPP — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:53:44 +0000

GREAT !!! Simple finally got my memory back !!