How do you delete a picture or video, bring it back, or make sure it's gone for good? With Photos for Mac and iCloud!
Updated March, 2017: Updated to reflect Photos for macOS Sierra.
Whether you're trying to free up storage, battling duplicates, eliminating personal photos no one else ever needs to see, or just cutting out the bad shots, Photos for Mac makes it easy to delete single or multiple pictures or videos in a snap!
If you're using iCloud Photo Library, anything you delete on your Mac will also be deleted on all your other iCloud Photo Library-enabled devices, including your iPhone and/or iPad. Deleted pictures and videos can be recovered for up to 30 days (unless you have zero storage space on your computer), or can be deleted immediately and forever. Here's how!
- How to delete pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
- How to delete an entire Album in Photos for Mac
- How to recover deleted pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
- How to permanently delete pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
How to delete pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
You can select one picture or video by clicking on it, a range of pictures or videos by clicking on the first when, then shift-clicking on the last one, or a number of arbitrary pictures or videos by command-clicking on each of them in turn.
- Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Select the pictures or videos you want to delete
- Go to the Image > Delete Photo menu item. (You can also right-click, hit the delete key, or command + delete to skip the confirmation dialog.)
Click Delete to confirm, if needed.
How to delete an entire Album in Photos for Mac
You can also delete some or all of the pictures or videos intelligently grouped by Photos into an Album.
- Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Click on the the Album you would like to delete.
- Go to the Album > Delete Album menu item. (You can also right-click, hit the delete key, or command + delete to skip the confirmation dialog.)
Click Delete to confirm.
The Album will no longer appear in your sidebar.
How to recover deleted pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
If you delete a picture or video by accident, or later regret it, you have 30 days to reverse it.
- Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Click the Recently Deleted folder in your sidebar.
- Click on the pictures or videos you want to recover. A blue check-mark will appear to indicate that they've been selected.
Click on the Recover button at the top right.
How to permanently delete pictures or videos in Photos for Mac
If you want to make sure a deleted picture or video is eradicated immediately and can't be recovered, you can do that as well.
- Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Click the Recently Deleted folder in your sidebar.
- Click on the pictures or videos you want to permanently delete.
Click on the Delete button at the top right. A prompt will appear on screen: just hit delete, and you're good to go!
Any Photos for Mac questions?
If you need help deleting pictures or videos, or have any questions at all about Photos for Mac, drop them in the comments below!
Reader comments
How to delete, recover, and eradicate pictures and videos in Photos for Mac
I love how I to click through 3 links just to read the article one I want!
Sent from the iMore App
I didn't have to click at all...?
Excellent article, but this is just irritating to me that Apple hasn't implemented a standard "trash can" implementation for deletion of files. The "recently deleted" section is nothing more than the same trash can, but effectively *hidden* from the user for some reason.
This means to actually delete a file, you have to take four steps, deletion, confirmation, (and if you've figured out the location of "recovered files"), deleting the file in the trash can, and confirmation of that.
Why not just have a "trash" the same as every email program and every media library app ever made?
Deleting entire moment is super specially when you have a large amount of photos to delete.
So the new Photos app has inspired me to finally organize my photos, but I'm running into a problem.... I can delete any number of photos from the Photos app and then from "recently deleted" but they still are showing in the iPhoto app on my mac. It seems like all I did was remove a hard link from the one app and the photos I thought I deleted, really aren't. I really want to clean house, not leave garbage in the closet. Must I do so in both places? And would that even really get rid of it. I've searched the inter webs and haven't found an answer yet. I'm not using iCloud for this at all. Does anyone know?
Did you find the answer? Apparently it is that you can't delete photos (even though the option is still in the menu) unless you are using iCloud Photo Library. If you're using Photos as a standalone application, as I am and as I'm guessing you are, you simply (apparently) can't delete photos. Totally ridiculous and unacceptable, but I'm working on a solution. If I find it, I'll post here.
Hi, did you find a solution? I have the same problem, I want to use Photos to organise the photos in the folders. If deleting in the app means that they won't show there, but they are still in the folders, what is the point?
Thanks in advance
In Aperture, I only saw the most recently edited versions of my photos. In Photos, original and edited versions appear, but I don't know which is which. Can I hide the originals from view when I open my albums?
It is hard to believe you are posting this with a straight face. You make a big deal out of the fact that I can find a file, highlight it, and send it to the trash, and empty the trash. . This has been the standard way to remove files for decades. In windows I could remove pictures below a certain sized for about 20 years. Removing files that fit certain rules should be the norm not an impossibility. Moreover it take hours to remove a a large number of files.
This article contains incorrect information. Photos cannot be deleted from Photos (yeah, I know; I didn't choose the product name!) unless you have activated iCloud Photo Library. If you choose not to use iCloud for your photos, apparently you CANNOT DELETE photos at all. The delete option still exists in the menu, but it has no effect. Dumb, dumber, and dumberer.
i suggest that you use "Long Path Tool" its an amazing tool google it AND will solve your problem
The long path tool sounds like it belongs to Windows. My problem has to do with deleting and moving photos in Photo andI am using Photo in Mac. It seems like a bad program. I am wondering if I can delete it safely.
Can anyone explain to me why when I import to photos on my mac from my phone using lightning cable i keep getting "new" photos to be imported which are ones i already have in my library, some are 5 years old or more. i get like 15 or 20 overtime i do an iPhone import. Also, why are all my videos being duplicated every time i open photos on my mac?
Hope someone can help!
Thanks
Sometimes it works.