Learn iPhoto Week: Safely delete photos from your library

Keeping your iPhoto library tidy can be a bit of a mission, it fills up so quickly that in a couple of months you can easily have added a few hundred photos. Luckily you can easily delete photos from iPhoto using the backspace key. It means you can rattle through your library when doing a little virtual dusting and get rid of those snaps that are blurry, lopsided or just not the best example of your normally exemplary camera skills. While this system is quick and easy, the fail-safe means that the deleted photos still exist in iPhoto’s trash. This is great if you need to retrieve a photo, but not so much if you want to keep your hard drive from cracking under the strain. The solution is of course to empty the trash – but obviously not before you have checked there aren’t any potential award- winning snaps lurking in there. Two clicks and the photos will be removed.

Step 1: Menu or shortcut

You can delete iPhoto trash a number of ways. The simplest is to remember the keyboard shortcut or alternatively use the iPhoto menu at the top of your screen (which is where you can learn the shortcut).

Step 2: Are you sure?

As with all permanent moves on your Mac, you will be prompted to check that you are sure you want to proceed. Click OK and then wait while your snaps get deleted.

This tutorial is the First in our Learn iPhoto Week series; for more articles just like this, visit the Learn iPhoto Week tag. At the end of the week, we’ll be giving away a prize to one lucky person who gets in touch with a question or problem related to iPhoto on Mac or iOS. To get involved, simply tweet your question, plus the hashtag #LearniPhotoWeek, to @iCreateMagazine or post on our Facebook wall.