Photos in "Photo Library" folder undeleteable?

[wildonrio]

Ok, in my Photo Albums there are two folders - "Camera Roll" which has all of the pictures I've taken with my phone, and then there's one called "Photo Library". In there right now is a HIDEOUS picture of a friend I have on facebook. I don't have a clue how it got in there, but what's worse is that there is no way to delete it! There is no trash can anywhere to click or an edit button of any kind. How do I delete this photo?

So you can understand my pain, here is the picture that is polluting my iPhone:

[Tinman]

Ok, in my Photo Albums there are two folders - "Camera Roll" which has all of the pictures I've taken with my phone, and then there's one called "Photo Library". In there right now is a HIDEOUS picture of a friend I have on facebook. I don't have a clue how it got in there, but what's worse is that there is no way to delete it! There is no trash can anywhere to click or an edit button of any kind. How do I delete this photo?

So you can understand my pain, here is the picture that is polluting my iPhone:
Ugh, poke my eye out with a sharp stick, why dontcha!

Are you sure you only have those two albums on your iPhone? On mine Photo Library merely shows every photo from every album on my iPhone. If there's something in there it is in one of my other albums.

Also don't think you can delete photos from albums on the iPhone itself. I can only get photos off of my iPhone by unchecking its folder (which removes all photos in that folder from the iPhone) or by going to the folder the photo is in and either deleting it, or moving it to a folder that is not synced with my iPhone.

Again, this is on a PC.



--
Mike

[wildonrio]

Ugh, poke my eye out with a sharp stick, why dontcha!

Are you sure you only have those two albums on your iPhone? On mine Photo Library merely shows every photo from every album on my iPhone. If there's something in there it is in one of my other albums.

Also don't think you can delete photos from albums on the iPhone itself. I can only get photos off of my iPhone by unchecking its folder (which removes all photos in that folder from the iPhone) or by going to the folder the photo is in and either deleting it, or moving it to a folder that is not synced with my iPhone.

Again, this is on a PC.
--
Mike

Well if I go into Camera Roll there is a little trash can in the lower right hand corner but Photo Library has nothing. And why would that picture be in there? I've never even looked at it on my iPhone or anything.

So you're saying I have to go into iTunes to delete that picture...

[Tinman]

Well if I go into Camera Roll there is a little trash can in the lower right hand corner but Photo Library has nothing. And why would that picture be in there? I've never even looked at it on my iPhone or anything.

So you're saying I have to go into iTunes to delete that picture...
Yes, I think so.

I would assume it's in a folder you have set to sync with iTunes. Either don't sync that folder or remove the offending pic from it. Next sync it'll be removed from you iPhone.

I have about 3,000 photos that I have synced to my iPhone and have probably only viewed 200 of them--and even out of that 200 there were a few "surprises."

In my case I keep a lot of my photos (on my PC) in the My Pictures folder. This is the folder I have selected in iTunes to sync to. iTunes then lists the folders within My Pictures with checkboxes to enable/disable syncing to those individual folders (the folders in My Pictures).

Unfortunately, iTunes does not allow me to select folders below folders within My Pictures. This is wasteful in my case since I might have My Pictures\2007\June\Web and that folder has everything that My Pictures\2007\June has, only at reduced resolution. Yet on my iPhone I get them all.

Looks like I'll need to create folders just for my iPhone, as My Pictures ain't working out. It was nice having all most of my photos with me, but the dups are just too much to deal with. (And now I use SoonR and can get to ALL photos on my PC.)



--
Mike

[wildonrio]

Yes, I think so.

I would assume it's in a folder you have set to sync with iTunes. Either don't sync that folder or remove the offending pic from it. Next sync it'll be removed from you iPhone.

I have about 3,000 photos that I have synced to my iPhone and have probably only viewed 200 of them--and even out of that 200 there were a few "surprises."

In my case I keep a lot of my photos (on my PC) in the My Pictures folder. This is the folder I have selected in iTunes to sync to. iTunes then lists the folders within My Pictures with checkboxes to enable/disable syncing to those individual folders (the folders in My Pictures).

Unfortunately, iTunes does not allow me to select folders below folders within My Pictures. This is wasteful in my case since I might have My Pictures\2007\June\Web and that folder has everything that My Pictures\2007\June has, only at reduced resolution. Yet on my iPhone I get them all.

Looks like I'll need to create folders just for my iPhone, as My Pictures ain't working out. It was nice having all most of my photos with me, but the dups are just too much to deal with. (And now I use SoonR and can get to ALL photos on my PC.)

--
Mike

Ok so the picture was probably in my My Pictures folder for some reason, ok that makes sense. Thanks again.

[network23]

Yes, I think so.

I would assume it's in a folder you have set to sync with iTunes. Either don't sync that folder or remove the offending pic from it. Next sync it'll be removed from you iPhone.

I have about 3,000 photos that I have synced to my iPhone and have probably only viewed 200 of them--and even out of that 200 there were a few "surprises."

In my case I keep a lot of my photos (on my PC) in the My Pictures folder. This is the folder I have selected in iTunes to sync to. iTunes then lists the folders within My Pictures with checkboxes to enable/disable syncing to those individual folders (the folders in My Pictures).

Unfortunately, iTunes does not allow me to select folders below folders within My Pictures. This is wasteful in my case since I might have My Pictures\2007\June\Web and that folder has everything that My Pictures\2007\June has, only at reduced resolution. Yet on my iPhone I get them all.

Looks like I'll need to create folders just for my iPhone, as My Pictures ain't working out. It was nice having all most of my photos with me, but the dups are just too much to deal with. (And now I use SoonR and can get to ALL photos on my PC.)



--
Mike

I'm not at my Mac, so I can't check this, but I have the same problem. The photos in my undeletable Photo Library are from the first set I took with my iPhone. When I transferred them to my Mac, I told iTunes NOT to delete them after the copy...now I can't delete them at all (ever, apparently). No, it's not an album I set up to sync with iPhone either. I only set up one album to sync with (named iPhone) the iPhone. I've looked everywhere I could in iTunes and could not find a place to delete them there either.

Very frustrating.

Okay. I spent a couple more minutes looking at the albums and I think you are indeed correct. Just by adding up the photos in my 3 synced albums, the total number adds up to the number of photos in the Photo Library, which is, as you said, just a "view all" display of all the images (outside the current Camera Roll) synced to the iPhone. Good to know. I thought it was extra pictures I wanted to delete to save space.

[TPO_Hisself]

Okay. I spent a couple more minutes looking at the albums and I think you are indeed correct. Just by adding up the photos in my 3 synced albums, the total number adds up to the number of photos in the Photo Library, which is, as you said, just a "view all" display of all the images (outside the current Camera Roll) synced to the iPhone. Good to know. I thought it was extra pictures I wanted to delete to save space.

this library folder is a real pain, anyone got any ideas on how NOT to have a folder with all the pics in it?

All I want are my sub dirs with their associated photos. I think the darned thing is actually doubling the storage space too. keeping an actual copy of the photos in both locations.

when I set up a Portfolio dir and sub dirs called A and B each with 100 photos, iPhoto converted 400 photos.... (Yawwwwn....)

any ideas? surely there's someone out there that's smarter than me who's solved this by now.

[722ish]

i have no idea how to get rid of them either, is there anyone that can help with this?

i have a pc, and i have a helluva time syncing the two, its odd.

[Tinman]

i have no idea how to get rid of them either, is there anyone that can help with this?

i have a pc, and i have a helluva time syncing the two, its odd.
You can't get rid of them, since they are only on the iPhone once. The Library album is merely a view of all albums combined--it isn't a duplicate of all photos.

If you get into the photos directly, with an app like Tanzee iPhone Transfer Photo (http://www.tansee.com/iphonetransferphoto.html), you would see the photos are stored numerically as 100.jpg, 101.jpg, all the way up to the last photo (e.g., 1878.jpg).

During the conversion process there are extra thumbnails created, but this is to speed the viewing of thumbs--it has nothing to do with the Photo Album album..


--
Mike

[Norwest]

For the guy with 3000 photos...

Try Goggle Picasa to organize them into folders and then only sync the ones you want. Nice photo organizational tool.

[Spokendisease]

Okay so I googled this very same question, but I have something happen that I guess others didn't get blessed with.

I had an iphone 3G and added a folder of pics to it from my computer. I never had the photo library thing happen to my iphone. It was just the camera roll then the folder named "Melissa". But, then, my nephew decided he wanted to hide my iphone and then forget where he put it, after 2 days of trying to find my beloved iphone and not being able to locate it, I relunctly went out and bought another one. Well, while trying to add the pics back on, it did add the folder or album titled "Photo Library" and it was annoying to see all the same pics again. I'm wondering why my first iphone didn't do this but the second one did? I would have noticed the dumb little sunflower on the first one and it would have annoyed me then as well. Now I wish I still had the old one.

[Snazy30]

Ok. the only way to get rid of it is through Syncing on itunes... go to your photos tabs through itunes for the iphone. Sync/choose your folder. if you dont wanna any pictures at all just click sync. but dont check off any folders

[ramonlgarcia]

ok, i have a new twist on this issue. i have an iphone that i have synced with different PCs. I have some pics on my phone that are no longer on my pc and i want to delete said photos but they have no trashbin. When i connect to itunes, these albums don't show up.

Is there something I can do about this, since I don't have a full backup of my iphone (hd crash on previous PC)? I use both PCs and Macs and would be open to solutions for both.

[japull]

I know this is an old post, but I thought I would put my 2 cents in. I just installed a free application called Roll Swap. It allows you to swap the current camera roll with a different one. You can back up your photos how ever you want to, click and drag (pc) or iphoto (mac) swap the roll with the app and delete the application. When you delete the application, all data gets deleted with it. Make sure you have a copy of the photos you want to keep before you get rid of the application.

[EvilRufusKay]

Nice tip. Works for the camera roll but not for the photo library though..

[Locrieth]

I have a similar problem where I copied some photos from my pc directly to my iPhone via my computer. These photos aren't in my camera roll because I deleted all photos off my camera roll so it's empty but I still have these 10 pic in the library folder and there's no delete and it doesn't show them now when I navigate to my computer. Any ideas? Tempted to do a full factory reset and restore from backup.