How to delete photo albums on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Learn how to delete albums your no longer need in Apple Photos on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to clean up and organize your image library.

Albums in iPhone Photos app

Maybe you’re created dedicated Photos albums to hold images you no longer need, unneeded screenshots, or old wallpapers. Getting rid of albums you no longer need is one way to clean up your library. Don’t worry, deleting an album doesn’t remove any images and videos from your library.

With iCloud Photos set up, deleting an album on one device removes it from all your others. And while you can recover deleted images and videos, deleted albums are removed straight away instead of being moved to the “Recently Deleted” section.

iPhone and iPad

Open the built-in Photos app on your iPhone or iPad, scroll to the Albums section, and hold an album in the list, then choose Delete Album and confirm the action.

Deleting album in iPhone Photos app

Or, open an album, tap the three-dotted menu icon in the top-right corner, and select Delete Album.

Deleting photo album on iPhone using three dots menu button

You must delete albums individually as the Photos app doesn’t support selecting multiple albums. But if you use iCloud Photos, you can delete multiple albums at once on your Mac and they’ll be removed from your iPhone and iPad, too.

Mac

Unlike Photos for iPhone and iPad, the Mac version lets you delete multiple albums. To delete a single album, right-click it underneath the Albums section in the sidebar and select Delete Album.

Deleting one album in Mac Photos app

To delete multiple albums at once, expand the Albums section in the sidebar. Now hold the Command key while clicking the albums you’d like to delete, then right-click the selection and choose Delete N Items.

Deleting several albums at once in Mac Photos app

If you have many outdated albums in Photos you never use, it’s probably high time you remove them to streaming your library. Are you going to triage your albums in Photos? Let is know in the comments down below.

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