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Mac Os Delete Photos Library

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!

Nov 09, 2018 Before going step by step to move your photo library to external hard, first make it sure that your external hard drive is already formatted for Mac OS Extended (journaled). If it is not formatted for Mac first erase all the data from it and format and choose the option of Mac OS Extended (journaled). Yes, this seems to be gone in iPhoto 5. The iLife designers seem to have decided that no one wants to permanently delete photos or music. However, you can permanently delete from the library from within a Smart Album, just not from within a regular album. Feb 21, 2020 If your Photos library is automatically updated with iCloud Photos, the entire contents of the library will re-updates with iCloud when the repair process completes. Bonus Tip: Create a new Photos Library. The other alternative way to repair corrupted Photos Library is to create a new Photos Library on Mac. Here are two strategies that work in Photos in macOS all the way through Catalina that can help you assemble a list of images to delete from your library while maintaining more control. To delete Photos library on Mac: Step 1 Go to Finder. Step 2 Open your system disk Users Pictures. Step 3 Drag the Photos Library you want to delete to the Trash. May 20, 2016 Good Quit iPhoto and Photos app if either app is open Open Finder on the Mac and go to your user home folder and then to “Pictures” Select the “iPhoto Library.library” file and move it to the Trash. Jan 12, 2020  In recent versions of its operating system, your Mac has been hiding the Library folder. Here's what it is and how to find it. Instructions in this article apply to devices running Mac OS.

How to delete pictures or videos in Photos for Mac

Mac Os Delete Photos Library Mac

You can select one picture or video by clicking on it, a range of pictures or videos by clicking on the first one and then shift-clicking on the last one, or a number of arbitrary pictures or videos by command-clicking on each of them in turn.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

  2. Select the picture(s) or video(s) you want to delete

  3. Right-click on an image or shift-click on a bunch and then right-click and click Delete. (You can also click on an image and press delete on your keyboard, or command + delete to skip the confirmation dialog.)

  4. Click Delete to confirm, if prompted.

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.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

  2. Click on the the Album you would like to delete.

  3. Right-click on the album you want to delete and click Delete. (You can also click on an album and hit the delete key on your keyboard, or command + delete to skip the confirmation dialog.)

  4. 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.

Mac
  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

  2. Click the Recently Deleted folder in your sidebar.

  3. Click on the pictures or videos you want to recover. A blue check-mark will appear to indicate that they've been selected.

  4. Click on the Recover button at the top right.

Mac Os Delete Photos Library

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.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

  2. Click the Recently Deleted folder in your sidebar.

  3. Click on the pictures or videos you want to permanently delete.

  4. 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!

Updated March 2019: Updated steps and made sure everything is up to date for the latest version of macOS.

Photos for Mac

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With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter.

iPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user. Like it or not, however, that all changed when Apple first introduced the software, nearly a year ago. If your Mac came from Apple with Photos already installed, you don’t need to worry about old iPhoto libraries.

A Mac that was upgraded to a new version of OS X that added the Photos app, however, can end up with what look like duplicates of their photo libraries. The first time you start up Photos after upgrading, your Mac will copy over your photo library into the new software (if you explicitly set up more than one old iPhoto library, you’ll have to copy them over yourself). It doesn’t go back and delete the old one, though.

Here’s where things get a little bit confusing: you don’t actually have two copies of your photos. Thanks to the way OS X (the software that powers your Mac, like Windows powers a PC) works, your pictures aren’t actually stored in those libraries. Instead, they’re stored somewhere else on your hard drive, and each library has what Apple calls a “hard link” to the pictures. As a result, each library can access the photos, but store separate information about them. You can delete either library safely; only if you were to delete both libraries would you lose access to your pictures.

While having a second copy of your photo library doesn’t take up that much extra space on your computer, it can still be confusing – first of all, each library reports that it’s a certain size, which can make it difficult to figure out how much room is left on your Mac. Additionally, if you need to back things up, it can be hard to figure out where your files are.

Still with us? Let’s recap:

Mac Os Delete Photo Library

  • if you upgrade your Mac from iPhoto to Photos, you’ll get a second photo library
  • if you had multiple iPhoto libraries (you would know if you did), you’ll need to copy them into Photos manually
  • the libraries each link to a single copy of your photos, rather than storing each photo twice
  • it can appear that your libraries are taking up more space than they are, thanks to the way hard links work
  • you can safely delete either photo library – only if you delete both of them will you lose access to your photos

How to delete iPhoto library on your Mac

Now that you understand why you might want to delete an old iPhoto library, and why you don’t necessarily have to, let’s talk about how to actually do it.

Before you do anything like this on your Mac – that is, delete something potentially important – you should back up your software with something like Time Machine.

Read: How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine

That way, if you accidentally delete something important, or something else goes wrong, you can always roll things back to how they were when you started. This is really easy, and there’s nothing to be concerned about; it’s just good practice to back things up (and keep them backed up) before you muck about in your computer.

First, you’ll need to open a Finder window: you can do this by clicking on the Finder icon (it looks like a square face) on the dock, or by clicking on your Mac’s desktop background and hitting ⌘+N (Command + N) on your keyboard.

Next, look at the left-hand column in the new window. You’ll see a list of locations around your Mac; find the one that says Pictures and click on it. You’ll be taken to that directory, which contains libraries for Apple’s image-related apps (Photos, iPhoto, Photo Booth, etc).

In the list of files on the right, scroll down and look for your iPhoto library – it’ll be a little iPhoto icon, and the name will read, unsurprisingly, iPhoto Library. Don’t worry about accidentally deleting your Photo Booth or Photos libraries; you’ll be able to see which one is which.

Mac Photos Delete After Import

To actually delete the library, you can do one of three things:

  1. Click on the iPhoto Library listing, and without letting go of your mouse or trackpad button, drag it until it’s over top the Trash icon on your dock. Once you’re on top of the Trash, let go.
  2. You can select (click on) the iPhoto Library, then right-click on your mouse or Trackpad (Apple will call this Secondary Click in your Mouse or Trackpad settings). A new menu will pop up; find the entry that says Move to Trash and click on it.
  3. Finally, you can also delete your iPhoto Library by clicking on it and hitting ⌘+Delete (Command + Delete) on your keyboard.

Read: How to uninstall apps on Mac OS X

Now that you’ve gotten rid of your iPhoto library, it makes sense to completely uninstall iPhoto – that way you won’t accidentally create a new iPhoto Library and have to repeat all these steps. It’s as simple as opening up your Applications folder, and deleting iPhoto (using one of the three steps we just discussed). For a more in-depth look at how to uninstall apps on your Mac, be sure to check out our guide above!

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