I have a lot of duplicate photos that I found by title in photos but they won't delete. So I opened iCloud to see if I could delete them there but, no, I can't find them there.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 26.0
Pictures that are transferred through a cable from a computer, perhaps with iTunes, can be shown by Photos, but they're not "owned" by Photos. So these pictures can't be edited or deleted by Photos, and they can't be synchronized by iCloud Photos The idea is that they are kept on the computer and transferred to the phone temporarily. One way to delete them is to use the computer to transfer an empty set of "pictures" to the phone, and the empty set will replace the others. In using iTunes for this, it may give the option to deselect the pictures that are already there. If you have a Mac, then you may be able to do it with the app Image Capture in your Applications folder.
Another way to get rid of all the non-deletable pictures is to momentarily turn on iCloud Photos. You get a scary warning that these will be deleted. When you say OK, then they're trashed, Photos will start to transfer the other pictures to iCloud, but you can turn off iCloud and stop that before much happens.
If you want to save some of these non-deletable pictures, then you can use "Share" to save them to Files. Then re-import them from Files to create fully useable versions.
Pictures that are transferred through a cable from a computer, perhaps with iTunes, can be shown by Photos, but they're not "owned" by Photos. So these pictures can't be edited or deleted by Photos, and they can't be synchronized by iCloud Photos The idea is that they are kept on the computer and transferred to the phone temporarily. One way to delete them is to use the computer to transfer an empty set of "pictures" to the phone, and the empty set will replace the others. In using iTunes for this, it may give the option to deselect the pictures that are already there. If you have a Mac, then you may be able to do it with the app Image Capture in your Applications folder.
Another way to get rid of all the non-deletable pictures is to momentarily turn on iCloud Photos. You get a scary warning that these will be deleted. When you say OK, then they're trashed, Photos will start to transfer the other pictures to iCloud, but you can turn off iCloud and stop that before much happens.
If you want to save some of these non-deletable pictures, then you can use "Share" to save them to Files. Then re-import them from Files to create fully useable versions.
I found the way to do it. Get info told me the date the photos were created so I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled way back to that date and deleted the photos. I wish there was an easier and quicker way to do it.
Also, there is supposed to be a Search bar in iCloud Photos but I can't see it.
Does Apple want to hold onto all of our photos for their AI research? Meanwhile we pay them for the service.
How can I delete old photos that won't delete?
