Identifying and deleting original photos in bulk on iPhone's Photos app

You can also use image Capture to download all remaining originals from your iPhone to a folder on your Mac, then delete them after importing the photos (and checking them, if they have been downloaded correctly). Then import the photos from this folder into your Photos Library. If there are photos you already imported to photos they should be recognized as duplicates on import, so you will not import them twice.

I do not use the "Delete after import" option when downloading photos from my iPhone or or iPad or from my camera. It is risky because we are deleting the photos before we could check if there have been transmission errors and the photos are damaged. I am always checking the imported photos first, and if a photo is damaged, I can repeat the import. Then I am making a first backup of the new photos and only then I delete the photos from the camera. The Drawbacks of Delete Items After Import When Importing to Photos

CESNET wrote: …I didn’t check the box 'delete from phone after import' when importing to the MacBook,

Good. It's never ever a good idea to delete things automatically. First Rule of Computers: Never delete anything before checking that what you thought was happening really was.

Do you know if there’s a simpler way to do this?

Well, the simplest way is to use iCloud. I use "Optimize Storage" on my phone so that it keeps the Originals at iCloud.com, and the phone keeps smaller screen sized files. But the originals are always available for editing and so on. My Library is 140GB, but all those pictures use only 5GB on my phone. That costs $3/month.

I also have two Libraries on my Mac (well, really more) so that one Library is for sharing with other devices. That's the one that's 150GB, the one I connect to iCloud, the one that's on ly 5GB on the phone. But I have larger archive Libraries on my Mac to choose those from.

OK, that didn't address your immediate problem. I'm guessing that you looked at the Duplicates view, and you don't see them there? If they do show as duplicates, that will give the file sizes, and you can deal with them there. Maybe that's too easy to be true.

If that's not woking, then the answer is to use your Mac to do it. Everything is easier on a Mac. Pictures copied from a computer to a phone by cable are severely handicapped-- they can't be edited or even deleted. It's a mess. So I would get rid of all the transferred pictures in Photos on the phone and start over. You can erase the non-trash pictures by signing on to iCloud Photos. You'll get a message that it will delete all the troublesome pictures. Say OK, and then turn off iCloud after it has deleted them, and before it has started copying.

I don't know how you made lower resolution pictures, but I think that I would start over on the Mac. Select the pictures you want on your phone. Here's one way to do that:

Choosing Favorites using Keywords in Mac … - Apple Community

or however you want. Mark them with a "favorite" symbol or a keyword so you can find them later. You can use File>Export>Export nn Photos to produce picture files of any size you want. Then you can send them to the phone from folders, or you can put them in their own Library, designate that as the System Library, and sync from there. They'll be un-deleteable, again. Or, better, you can put all the picture into a separate Library, buy one month of iCloud for $3, sync Photos, and then turn off iCloud. Those pictures will be be transferred and delectable.

More than you asked for, probably. If some of that made no sense, ask for clarification, or even more ideas…

Do you have a Mac computer or access to one?

If you do you can connect your iPhone to it with its charging cable and launch Image Capture.

With Image Capture you can select the photos you want to delete in a batch and delete them all at once.

Hi Richard,

the manual syncing has reduced the photo size right from the beginning, specific for each device. The size reduction has been larger for iPhone or iPod than for iPads. And so the Mac has been keeping a separate iPod Photo Cache folder for each synced device, where it has been storing the downsized, optimized versions. The size reduction is only happening when syncing from computer to the mobile devices, not when we are downloading photos from the mobile devices.

The downsized versions on the iPhone or iPad have been an annoying source for duplicates. Whenever I used a downsized version on my iPhone or iPad and edited it, it created an edited version that would appear as a duplicate on my Mac with the next download from my iPhone, also in My Photo Stream. I was so glad when we finally has iCloud Photos and identical libraries on all devices in the full resolution and a complete syncing of edited versions. It made life much easier.

CESNET wrote: … it's just that I'm older than you probably :-)

I wouldn't count on it.

Therefore iCloud would cost me 10$/month. that's in my opinion too much.

Not if you use multiple Libraries.

you say "I don't know how you made lower resolution pictures". the answer is, I don't, the sync process does it.

I haven't done the cable sync in year, so that surprises me.

I just want to know if there is a way in the phone, to display only the ones from the "camera roll".

There isn't on the phone.

It is a versatile app and also can do scans from a connected scanner.