Delete Pictures on an iPad
Do you have too many photos clogging up your iPad's storage space? Cleaning out your old photos can free up a lot of room, but the process can be a little confusing, especially if the photos were synced from your computer. See Step 1 below to learn how to delete any photo off of your iPad.
Contents
Steps
Camera or Downloaded Photos
- Open the Photos app. There are essentially two different types of photos on your iPad: those that you added directly to the iPad, either by downloading them or by using the camera or screenshot function, or those added from your computer using iTunes. To delete photos added through iTunes, see the next section.
- Find the photos you want to delete. When you start up the Photos app, you will be shown a list of your albums. Open the album that contains the image(s) you want to delete. You can only delete images from within a single album at a time.
- You can also select photos from the Collections or Moments pages.
- If you delete images from the My Photo Stream album, they will be deleted across all of your devices. Photos on your Camera Roll will be removed from your device only.
- Delete a single image. To delete a single image, tap it to open it, and then tap the Trashcan icon in the lower-right corner. Tap the "Delete Photo" button that appears to confirm that you want to delete the image.
- Deleting an image is permanent, and it is not especially easy to recover a photo after it has been deleted. See Recover Deleted iPhone Photos for details on how to recover any photos that you accidentally deleted.
- Delete multiple images. You can delete multiple images from an album at once by selecting them all before deleting. To select multiple images, open the album you want and then tap the Select button in the upper-right corner. You can then tap each picture you want to delete to add it to the selection.
- Once you have all the pictures you want to delete selected, tap the Trashcan icon in the upper-left corner, and then tap the "Delete (#) Photos" button to confirm.
- Delete an album. You can delete any albums that you have created on your iPad. Deleting an album will not delete any of the images in it. You cannot delete albums that were synced from your computer (see the next section).
- To delete an album, open the Albums page in the Photos app. Tap "Edit" in the upper-right corner, and then tap the "X" button in the corner of the album you want to delete. Images will be returned to their original location (Camera Roll, My Photo Stream, etc.).
Photos from iTunes
- Connect your iPad to your computer. Photos that have synced from your computer need to be unsynced in order to delete them. If you try to delete these photos directly from your iPad, the Delete option will not be available.
- Open iTunes. You will need to manage your synced albums in order to delete the photos from your iPad. Select your iPad from the Devices menu.
- Click the Photos tab. You will see a list of albums that have been synced to your iPad. You can only sync and unsync full albums.
- Uncheck the albums you don't want anymore. Scroll through the list of synced albums and uncheck any that you don't want appearing on your iPad.
- If you want to remove individual images, you will need to remove them from the album on the computer.
- Sync the iPad. Once you have made your adjustments to your selected photos, click the Sync button. iTunes will resync your photo albums, removing the ones you unchecked from your iPad's storage.
Tips
- You don't have to open an album to view its contents. You can get a sneak peek by placing two fingers on the album and slowly moving them apart to view the photos within.
- Deleting an album will not delete the photos within it. They will remain in your iPad's photo library until you delete them.
- If you delete photos from your library that are also used in an album, you will be given the option to delete the photos everywhere, rather than simply deleting photos from the album.
Warnings
- Deleting a photo from your Photo Stream will also remove it from the Photo Stream on other devices such as an iPhone or Mac.
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