iOS Tip: Mass Deleting Photographs On Your iOS Device

This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.


How To: Mass Delete Photographs On Your iOS Device

There are three ways to mass delete photographs from your iPad or iPhone.

Delete Via Camera Roll:

Proceed to your camera roll on your device until you see the following screen:

If you enter via the Photos app on your iPhone you will be presented with a slightly different layout but the process is the same.

Simply tap the action button at the bottom of the screen as highlighted above. This will then take you to the select items area which allows you to select and share the photographs via email or upon selecting multiple images as shown below you will then be able to press delete.

Delete Via iPhoto

You can connect your device to your Mac and import the photographs into iPhoto. After the import you will receive the following option:

Simply click Delete Photos and those imported photographs will be deleted from your iOS device.

Delete Via Image Capture

Rather than use iPhoto go to your applications folder and locate the Image Capture application. It comes free with the Mac OS and in many ways is better for importing than iPhoto.

Image Capture will allow you to delete images in bulk on your device without importing them first. Please be aware that once you do this you will not be able to get your photographs back, so double check selected images before proceeding.

Simply select the amount of images you wish to delete. You can in this application perform a Select All function. Then when ready to delete simply click the Delete Selected Items button as highlighted in the image above.

You will receive the following popup as the last chance to press cancel before all your photographs are deleted from your device.

Please remember your photographs are irreplaceable. Make sure you have them backed up prior to deleting them on your device.

Mark Greentree

Mark Greentree is the principle blogger and podcast creator of Everyday Mac Support. His aim is to inform users at all levels of experience how to get the most out of the Apple hardware and associated software. He is the lead host of Not Another Mac Podcast, an Apple based round table discussion with Mac users and experts from all over world.