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Delete an album in Photos app on the iPhone 5?

A few days ago you posted a piece about how to add new photo albums in the Photos app on my iPhone 5 so I could better organize my exploding photo library [see Create Albums in Photos app on the iPhone or iPad]. Helpful. But now I have a ton of albums and want to prune things down, but am afraid of losing photos if I delete my new photo albums. Suggestions?


Dave's Answer:

Glad my article was helpful, first off, but it appears I need to reiterate how the albums work on your iPhone (or iPad): they're really more of a keyword tagging capability and even though they appear to move photos from "Camera Roll" to the new album, that's not actually happening. The result is that you can safely delete any album you've created within Photos without any risk of losing even a single picture. They're all still jammed into your overflowing "Camera Roll".

Handy, really.

Where this doesn't hold true is if you could delete an album that's managed by your computer. If I were to delete "Photo Library" or "☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆", for example, those photos would indeed be removed from my iPhone or iPad. Fortunately, perhaps, the Photos app won't let you do that.

In terms of deleting an album, it's pretty darn easy.

Here's what my Photos album list looks like:

"Camera Roll" are the photos I've taken with my iPhone, "Cute" is an album I created on my iPhone within the Photos app, "☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆" is an album automatically managed by Aperture on my OS X system, and "Photo Library" is a collection of photos also downloaded from my computer via iTunes.

To delete any of the albums, tap on "Edit" on the top right.

You can see that "Camera Roll" and "Photo Library" are special: no 'reorganization' button shows up, and there's no red "-" allowing you to delete the album. In fact, I was wrong earlier too: notice that the five-star album cannot be deleted either though you can shuffle it around a bit. Apparently you can only delete albums that you've created within the Photos app. Okay, now we know!

Pick an album that you can delete -- I'll choose "Cute" since it's my only option -- and tap on the red circle with the white dash.

The button rotates and a new button appears:

Again, remember, you're not deleting a single photograph in this process, just the "keyword" album. To proceed, simply tap on "Delete" then confirm:

Done? Done. Easy enough.


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Categorized: Apple iPad Help , iPhone and Cell Phone Help   (Article 10523, Written by )
Tagged: digital photography, ipad photos, iphone photography, photo management, photos app
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Reader Comments To Date: 5

Wendy said, on March 22, 2013 11:00 PM:

I have a question:

How do you delete photos and videos from the "Photo Library"? I see no way to delete them directly from my iphone 4s.

When I have my phone connected to my computer, they do not show up anywhere in iTunes that I can see.

These are old photos, that showed up when I restored from my iphone4 to my 4s when it was new. They are driving me crazy on there, taking up space.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Wendy

Dave Taylor said, on March 24, 2013 2:07 PM:

Wendy, those images should be showing up in iPhoto or Aperture, separate photo management utilities for your Mac system. Look in there. Also, when the phone's plugged in to your computer, go to the "Photos" tab on the iTunes config and see where it's drawing its images from. Worst case, you might need to do a complete restore where it'll zero out the phone and reinstall everything so you're in sync with your computer data.

Dubd said, on April 1, 2013 12:46 PM:

Has jailbraking iphone5 been known to cause issues with the "edit" function in Photos? I ask bc upon enter "edit" I only see icon for resorting list, and the (-) delete icon is not on the left side column of any albums I created on iPhoto (desktop).

It seems Photos and iPhotos should really mirror each other (functions and wysiwyg) when synced.

PhilB said, on May 13, 2013 4:51 PM:

Plug iphone5 to PC
Open iTunes
Select PHOTOS button from summary bar
Check SYNC PHOTOS FROM (top)
Choose SELECTED FOLDERS
Click SYNC (bottom right)

Phone will sync & remove unwanted photos. ALL of them except the ones in your CAMERA ROLL.
I originally had 172 photos (PHOTO LIBRARY & 2 folders).
After the sync, I have only the photos in my camera roll.

Shirish B said, on May 23, 2013 4:52 AM:

to delete albums from i phone 5, i tried your suggestions but i am not getting the 'red circle' with white horizontal line to tap & 'delete' the album.

Hence I can't delete the albums.

I get that empty space where that red circle should appear but not the actual red circle.

Thanks,

Shirish B

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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