How to Delete All Your Google Photos: What You Need to Know Before You Start

Google Photos makes it easy to back up and organize your images — but when it comes to deleting everything, the process is less obvious than you might expect. Whether you're switching platforms, reclaiming storage, or simply starting fresh, understanding exactly how deletion works in Google Photos will save you from some costly surprises.

Google Photos Stores Two Separate Copies of Your Images

This is the most important thing to understand before deleting anything: Google Photos separates your backed-up cloud copies from the local copies stored on your device.

When you delete a photo from Google Photos, you're not automatically deleting it from your phone, tablet, or computer — and vice versa. The two are linked but not the same. This distinction matters enormously if you want a complete wipe, because you may need to take action in multiple places.

Additionally, deleted photos aren't immediately gone. Google moves deleted items to a Trash folder, where they remain for 60 days before being permanently removed. During that window, storage space isn't released, and the photos can still be recovered.

How to Delete All Photos from Google Photos (Web)

The most reliable way to select and delete everything in bulk is through photos.google.com in a desktop browser.

Here's the general process:

1. Open photos.google.com and sign in
2. Click the first photo in your library
3. Scroll down to the bottom of your library — this is important, because only loaded photos can be selected
4. Hold Shift and click the last photo to select all visible images
5. Click the trash/delete icon
6. Go to Trash and select Empty Trash to permanently delete immediately

⚠️ The scroll-and-select method has a practical limitation: Google Photos loads images progressively. If you have thousands of photos, you may need to repeat this process in batches, scrolling further each time to load more images before selecting them.

Deleting from the Google Photos Mobile App

On Android and iOS, bulk deletion works similarly but with a different interface:

• Tap and hold a photo to enter selection mode
• Tap additional photos or drag to select multiple
• Tap the trash icon to move selected items to Trash
• Visit Library → Trash and choose Empty Trash

The mobile app doesn't offer a true "select all" button for your entire library. Selecting hundreds or thousands of photos manually is time-consuming, which is why the web browser approach is generally more efficient for large-scale deletion.

What Happens to Local Copies on Your Device 🗑️

If you've enabled Backup & Sync (or Backup in newer versions of the app), your photos exist in two places:

To remove photos from your device, you'll need to delete them through your phone's native gallery app (like Google Gallery, Samsung Gallery, or Apple Photos) or through your file manager. Simply deleting from the Google Photos app may not touch the local files, depending on your device and settings.

Google Takeout: Export Before You Delete

If there's any chance you'll want your photos later — even some of them — consider using Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) to download an archive of your entire library before deleting. Google Takeout exports your images as ZIP files, preserving original quality and metadata where available.

This step is irreversible to skip. Once you empty the Trash and the 60-day window closes, there's no recovery path through Google.

How Deletion Affects Your Google Storage

Google Photos counts toward your Google Account storage, shared across Gmail, Drive, and Photos. Deleting photos can free up significant storage — but only after the Trash is emptied. Photos sitting in Trash still count against your quota.

If your goal is to stop paying for a Google One storage plan, make sure you've both deleted the photos and emptied the Trash before downgrading your plan.

The Variables That Change Your Approach

How you should go about deleting everything depends on several personal factors:

• How many photos you have — a few hundred versus tens of thousands changes the time and method involved
• Whether you have local copies on your device or only cloud backups
• Whether you've shared albums — deleting your library doesn't remove photos you've shared to other people's libraries
• Whether you use Google Photos with a Google Workspace account — deletion rules and storage behavior can differ slightly
• Whether you want to keep certain photos — a full wipe is different from a selective cleanup

🔍 Users with Pixel phones or older devices running specific Android versions may also find that their camera app is tightly integrated with Google Photos, which can affect how local and cloud copies behave when one is deleted.

Shared Albums and Partner Sharing Behave Differently

If you've created shared albums or enabled Partner Sharing, deleting your own library doesn't automatically remove those photos from other users' accounts. Photos that someone else has saved to their own library will remain in their account regardless of what you do with yours.

This is worth knowing if privacy is part of your reason for deleting — a full data removal may require additional steps beyond clearing your personal library.

What Makes a "Complete" Delete Harder Than It Sounds

For most people, deleting everything from Google Photos isn't a single button press. The combination of progressive image loading, separate local and cloud storage, the 60-day Trash delay, and shared content behavior means there are several distinct layers to work through.

Your specific situation — how many devices you use, how your backup settings are configured, whether you share content, and what you plan to do with your photos after — determines which of these layers actually apply to you.