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I recently deleted a large number of photo folders from My Albums and want to make sure they're permanently deleted, to save storage space. But I don't have a "Recently Deleted" folder in the Photos app and the deleted photos are not in the Trash Bin either. Where did the deleted photos go?
Thanks,
Rick
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
When you delete an album you get this warning:
You need to do what Tony pointed out to remove the photos from the library and free up disk space. However, the resulting free space increase is not always indicated immediately so don't worry about it.
So to clarify - if you delete folders, then the folders (and all folders and albums underneath) are deleted. But the images are not (they are left in the library). This is because images might be in more than one album or folder, and protects users from deleting images in one place, and unexpectedly deleting them from everywhere. Folders and albums don't go into recently deleted - only images do.
Thank you all so much - now I'm getting it. I'm a long-time PC user and still learning about the differences on a Mac. I am now been able to see the duplicate images in My Library that I was trying to delete. And I found a posting about the 'Photos Duplicate Cleaner' app, so I'll be trying that next to clean up all of my duplicates. Thanks again!
Thanks for the replies. I was deleting entire folders by hovering over the folder name (under My Albums in the left-side navigation bar), then right clicking to 'Delete Folder'. Then I got this message and clicked on Delete.
So if these folders aren't truly deleted and are still in the Library, then where are they? Further background: these are folders that I copied over from an external HD (PC backup). I ended up with a bunch of duplicate folders by accident, so I was deleting the extra ones. Thanks for any other insights or suggestions.
Hi
When you are viewing an album, if you hit delete, it doesn't delete the photo from the library, it only removes it from that album. If you want to fully delete while viewing an album you have to hold down the CMD key while executing delete (either the delete key, or image>delete)
In the image menu if you drop it down and press/release the cmd key, you can see the operation change from remove to delete and back again.
Note - this does't apply to the library view, to smart albums or to the automatically created "albums" such as media types - these are just different views of the library, so CMD is not required to delete in these cases.
So I was able to actually delete a photo using the CMD+delete technique and I now have a "Recently Deleted" folder. But I'm still perplexed where photos or folders go when I "delete" then without pressing CMD. I don't see it anywhere, but you're saying it's still in My Library? This is really confusing - never expected deleting a file would be so complicated.
When you delete a folder or an album, just the folder for album vanishes, but not the media (photos, videos) inside. Just the structure will be removed. The photos are still in the library.
When you use the delete key ⌫ while viewing an album, it defaults to "remove from album", not to "Delete photos". Albums are not storing photos, they are just linking to the photos in the library. And the delete key will remove the link, but the photos will stay in the library and all other albums. Recently Deleted is only saving deleted photos, but not photos we remove from albums, as the photos have not been deleted.
.moved
Regarding duplicate cleaner apps, the two reccomended around here are photosweeper, and power photos.
Where are deleted photos on iMac?
