THE PROBLEM
I recently ran into a rather big problem in the iOS world. I completely filled up my phones 32 gigs of memory with photos, and realized to late that it is not terribly efficient to delete them manually on the phone. I have had my iphone for a couple years and have always chosen the “keep photos” option after downloading the images into iPhoto – which I use solely to manage my iPhone images – preferring Lightroom to manage the library for my ‘big boy’ cameras.
iPhoto gives you the option to delete photos after every download, however if you press the "Keep Photos" button as I often did, it will not give you the option to delete those specific images ever again.
When my iphone indicated that its’ memory was full, I figured that I could simply plug the iphone into my computer, browse to the iphones photo library in iPhoto or Finder, and delete the photos as a batch. As it turns out, the iPhone’s iOS is set up in such a way that you cannot browse the iphone’s photo library like you would a digital camera’s memory card using the Finder. Because the Finder cannot see the iPhone’s photo library, apps like Adobe Bridge and Lightroom also cannot see the iPhones photo library making it impossible to leverage these apps to batch delete the images on my phone. Not wanting to take the time out of my life to manually delete the images in the iphone’s photo library, I set out looking for another solution to the problem.
THE SOLUTION
The solution of how to delete the photos as a batch from my iphone’s photo library came in the form of a under appreciated native mac os app called image capture.
Image Capture was the only app I could find that could browse the iPhone's photo library and batch delete the images.
Here is how to use Image Capture to access the iPhone’s photo library and batch delete photos from the phone (Note – This is a Mac solution only)
1 – Plug your iphone into your computer.
2 – Go to Applications>Image Capture
3 – Click on your iphone icon
4 – In the right hand column of Image Capture you will see all the images in your iphone’s photo library load.
5 – Select All (Command+A)
6 – Hit the little red delete icon at the bottom of the Image Capture Window.
7 – Wait patiently as image capture deletes all the images in the iPhone photo library.
With Image Capture you can browse and batch or singly delete any image in your iPhone's phones photo library.
That’s it! Easy as pie.
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For all my friends out there that have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
For all my friends out there that have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
For all my friends out there that have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
For all you guys out there who have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
For all you guys out there who have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
For all you guys out there who have filled up their iPhone’s memory with photos – here is how you can batch delete the images.
You are a genius! I have struggled and bemoaned this situation for a long time. Thank you for taking the time, Jonathan! It works! Aloha
You are a genius! I have struggled and bemoaned this situation for a long time. Thank you for taking the time, Jonathan! It works! Aloha
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
My sentiments exactly Babs! Thanks Jonathan.
Thank you so much! Do you have a similar trick to batch delete movies? For some reason, Image capture won’t allow me to select them…
When using this to delete, you must make sure that you change the ‘connecting this iphone opens’ to NO APPLICATION, OR SOMETHING OTHER THAN iPHOTO. Otherwise it will not allow you to delete.
Hi Johnathan, i follow the idea of what to do, however, where do i aquire the app, “Image Capture”?
Terence
Hi Terence, On the Mac go to your Applications folder and search for Image Capture. It ships with every mac and should be hiding in there somewhere.
I’m on OSX 10.5.8 and Image Capture 4. Iphone 4. Image Capture will not allow me to delete any photos. This did not happen with my last iphone. I have all my settings correct. I have 1400 photos to delete. I’m a sad dog. I cannot go one by one on the phone. I cannot find anywhere to download Image Capture 6. But on OSX 10.5.8 I’m not even sure it would work. Sigh. Help. thx
Sorry to hear that Andrew. Will your Mac run 10.6 smoothly? It is well worth the upgrade if it will. Less than $30 if you can still find the disks.
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