Photos deletion issues and iCloud photos mismatch

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Photos deletion issues and iCloud photos mismatch

How to delete files from Photos: according to my iCloud storage account there are 4718 photos stored. However, there are only 1.048 currently in Photos. I frequently erase unwanted photos but these are very seldom visible in recently deleted. I guess that all the many alterations made to original picture files are retained in Photos. How do I maintain Photos so that I only have the picture files I wish to retain? The previous time I had this problem I erased everything in Photos and started anew.

iMac 24″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Dec 14, 2025 4:35 AM

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Answer 1

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Richard.Taylor

Level 6

17,041 points

Dec 14, 2025 8:09 AM in response to amgreven

amgreven wrote: …I frequently erase unwanted photos but these are very seldom visible in recently deleted.

I wonder what sort of "erase" you are doing. In Photos, if you delete a picture from an album, it doesn't erase the picture from other albums or from the Library. Albums are just lists of pictures, not containers of pictures, so images can be added to multiple albums without taking any more storage. And deleting a picture from an album just means removing it's name from the album list.

In a album, selecting a picture and hitting "Delete" only removes the picture from the album. Using Command-Delete will remove the picture from the album, from all other albums, and from the Library, going to Recently Deleted for 30 days before it is removed permanently.

Could it be that you are not using Command-Delete to erase pictures from the Library?

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