How do I delete photos that are not in albums without trash icon on 4th gen iPad Air running iOS 17.7.1?

Question

How do I delete photos that are not in albums without trash icon on 4th gen iPad Air running iOS 17.7.1?

4th gen iPad Air, 17.7.1 iOS. I deleted all photos not included in albums on my iPad , then I sync’d to my MacBook with selections to sync selected photo albums but I did not select any albums to sync. Goal is to remove all photos from my iPad. I have a couple thousand photos remaining on my iPad. There is no delete icon for any of them and there are zero albums on my iPad. These photos are in albums on my MacBook and these albums were previously sync’d to my iPad. The sync removed thousands of other photos and all the albums but not these photos. There are still photos, live Photos and videos remaining. Have tried sync multiple times to remove them but no luck. How do I remove these photos without doing a hard reset?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Photos, need method to delete photos that are not in albums and don’t have trash icon

iPad Air, iPadOS 17

Posted on Aug 5, 2025 11:12 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 5, 2025 11:26 AM in response to Jonathan San Jose

If there's no delete or edit options, then these pictures were probably transferred by cable from a computer. Those pictures aren't really under the control of Photos, but they belong to the computer, and they have to be deleted that way-- by "syncing" an empty set from the computer.

Another method is to turn on iCloud Photos. Since these pictures aren't at iCloud and aren't in Photos' control, they will be erased before anything else happens. You can then turn off iCloud, and you won't have used any space there. That may be the simplest solution.

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Answer 2

Aug 7, 2025 08:19 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Turning on and then subsequently turning off, iCloud worked like a charm. Thank you.

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Answer 3

Aug 7, 2025 08:24 AM in response to Jonathan San Jose

Cool! Glad it worked for you!

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