/ How to

How to Delete and Remove Photo Albums From iPad Device Storage

Managing and organizing photos on your iPad can be challenging, especially as your photo library grows over time. With large photo and video files taking up significant storage space, learning how to delete albums you no longer need can help free up room on your device. Follow this guide to properly remove albums from both your iPad device storage as well as from iCloud.

View Photo Album Storage Usage

The first step is understanding just how much storage space your photo albums are actually taking up. To view this:

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPad
  2. Select General
  3. Choose iPad Storage
  4. Under Storage, tap on Photos to view storage usage details

This will show a breakdown of how much total storage space photos and videos are using. It also shows individual album sizes, making it easy to identify large unused albums that are good candidates for deletion.

Delete Albums from iPad Device Storage

Deleting albums from your iPad device storage removes them fully from the device, but does not delete them from iCloud if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled. Use these steps to remove albums from just the iPad:

  1. Open the Photos app
  2. Tap on the Albums tab at the bottom
  3. Swipe left on the album you want to delete and tap Delete
  4. Confirm the deletion by tapping Delete Album when prompted

Repeat this for any other albums you wish to remove from the device itself. This frees up storage by erasing the album contents completely from iPad storage.

Remove Albums from iCloud Photo Library

If you use iCloud Photo Library across your Apple devices, deleting an album from iPad storage does not remove it from your iCloud storage or other synced devices. To fully delete albums from your iCloud Photo Library:

  1. Open the Photos app and select the Albums tab
  2. Press and hold on the album thumbnail until a menu appears
  3. Tap on Delete Album and confirm deletion twice

Note: This will permanently delete the album and all its contents from iCloud and any other synced devices. Only do this if you no longer need the album or its photos at all.

Manage Photo Storage with Optimize iPad Storage

An alternative approach to manually deleting albums is enabling the Optimize iPad Storage option. Here’s how:

  1. Go to Settings > Photos
  2. Toggle on Optimize iPad Storage

This automatically manages your photo storage by keeping full-resolution versions in iCloud, while only storing lower-resolution versions on your iPad itself. This frees up a significant amount of storage space on your device while still allowing you to view thumbnail previews of all your photos.

Whenever you need to access a full-resolution version, simply tap on the thumbnail and it will automatically download from iCloud only when needed. This is the easiest way to save storage space while still keeping your entire iCloud Photo Library available.

Use the Files App to Browse and Manage All iPad Content

For advanced local storage management, you can view and manage all content stored directly on your iPad (including photos, videos, etc.) using the built-in Files app:

  1. Open the Files app on your iPad
  2. Select Browse in the sidebar to view local storage
  3. Navigate to the DCIM folder to access all your camera photos and videos
  4. You can swipe left on files or tap Select to delete content as needed from your iPad storage here

Just be careful not to delete anything you still need! The Files app provides power-user access to all content outside of the Photos app itself.

Turn Off iCloud Photo Library

If you wish to only store photos and albums locally on your iPad, you can turn off iCloud Photo Library:

  1. Go to Settings > Photos
  2. Disable the iCloud Photos option

This stops all syncing of photos to iCloud from this device. Just be aware that any photos you delete from the iPad will be gone forever with no iCloud backup, so only disable this syncing if you have a different backup solution in place.

Related Posts