Hi everyone,
For those of us who take a lot of photos and videos (especially video!), storage space becomes critical to manage after a while. If you Google for this issue, everyone has the same advice: plug your iPhone in, make sure it's granting the computer access (tell it to "trust" the computer), then open Image Capture, select the files you want to delete, then hit the delete button and let the computer take care of the rest. For me, usually I sort either by file type or file size using the tabs at the top, then select the top item, scroll down to the bottom one, hold shift and click it to select every file between the first and last selection, and then hit delete. It takes a while in most cases, but then I'm left with having all of my photos in place (which take far less space) and no videos on my phone (all videos already downloaded to and archived on my computer).
After updating to iOS 13 this method no longer works for me. It will seemingly delete one file and then stop, ultimately timing out as the phone locks itself again. This happens even if I choose a smaller subset of files. I installed the beta of macOS Catalina (10.15) and the same behavior occurred.
I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I was in a pickle and really needed to clear off my videos. So here's an easy and simple, perhaps less intuitive way to do it from your iPhone (or iPad).
Open Photos. Tap the Search button and type out "video" - it will show you a few options, but one should be about a media type for videos. Select that. You'll now have a screen with at least a few videos; you can tap on "show more" to display more. Selecting them all is the part that isn't intuitive, but here it is: tap on "select" and then, starting with one video, swipe from right to left (or left to right), which should result in those three videos having check boxes assigned to them as if you had tapped all three of them individually. Without lifting your finger up, slide your finger down toward the bottom of the screen. Now all videos in the rows below it will be selected, and if you're low enough, your device will begin automatically scrolling downward, selecting everything as it goes by. If you have a lot of videos (as I did) it can take a while to scroll to the bottom, but at least it's effortless. Once you've selected everything, hit the trash button to delete. Don't forget to empty the trash; I don't recall how to do this in Photos, but it can also be accomplished through Settings > General > iPhone Storage (or iPad Storage) > Photos, and there should be a button to empty the deleted folder.
Image Capture remains the superior option, and hopefully in the future it will be fixed. Otherwise, it's nice to know that the same thing can still be accomplished directly from the device. It takes a bit more time but isn't as labor-intensive as it would seem.
I hope you've found this helpful!
For those of us who take a lot of photos and videos (especially video!), storage space becomes critical to manage after a while. If you Google for this issue, everyone has the same advice: plug your iPhone in, make sure it's granting the computer access (tell it to "trust" the computer), then open Image Capture, select the files you want to delete, then hit the delete button and let the computer take care of the rest. For me, usually I sort either by file type or file size using the tabs at the top, then select the top item, scroll down to the bottom one, hold shift and click it to select every file between the first and last selection, and then hit delete. It takes a while in most cases, but then I'm left with having all of my photos in place (which take far less space) and no videos on my phone (all videos already downloaded to and archived on my computer).
After updating to iOS 13 this method no longer works for me. It will seemingly delete one file and then stop, ultimately timing out as the phone locks itself again. This happens even if I choose a smaller subset of files. I installed the beta of macOS Catalina (10.15) and the same behavior occurred.
I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I was in a pickle and really needed to clear off my videos. So here's an easy and simple, perhaps less intuitive way to do it from your iPhone (or iPad).
Open Photos. Tap the Search button and type out "video" - it will show you a few options, but one should be about a media type for videos. Select that. You'll now have a screen with at least a few videos; you can tap on "show more" to display more. Selecting them all is the part that isn't intuitive, but here it is: tap on "select" and then, starting with one video, swipe from right to left (or left to right), which should result in those three videos having check boxes assigned to them as if you had tapped all three of them individually. Without lifting your finger up, slide your finger down toward the bottom of the screen. Now all videos in the rows below it will be selected, and if you're low enough, your device will begin automatically scrolling downward, selecting everything as it goes by. If you have a lot of videos (as I did) it can take a while to scroll to the bottom, but at least it's effortless. Once you've selected everything, hit the trash button to delete. Don't forget to empty the trash; I don't recall how to do this in Photos, but it can also be accomplished through Settings > General > iPhone Storage (or iPad Storage) > Photos, and there should be a button to empty the deleted folder.
Image Capture remains the superior option, and hopefully in the future it will be fixed. Otherwise, it's nice to know that the same thing can still be accomplished directly from the device. It takes a bit more time but isn't as labor-intensive as it would seem.
I hope you've found this helpful!
