With Facebook being one of the most popular social media platforms, many users upload hundreds or even thousands of photos over time. While these photos may seem harmless, some may end up being embarrassing, inappropriate, or you may just want to do some spring cleaning of your old images. Thankfully, Facebook provides a way for you to delete multiple photos at once, rather than having to remove each image individually.
Why Would You Want to Delete Multiple Facebook Photos?
There are a few key reasons why you may want to delete multiple Facebook photos at once:
- Embarrassing or inappropriate old photos – We all have some cringe-worthy shots from our past that we’d rather not be reminded of or shared publicly anymore. Deleting these in bulk can give you peace of mind.
- Photos you’re no longer tagged in – When someone untags you from a photo, it may still appear on your profile unless you remove it manually.
- Changing privacy settings – You may wish to limit some old photos to just your friends rather than everyone. Deleting and re-uploading them is easier than editing privacy settings for each.
- Photos of ex-partners – After a breakup, you may want to remove all traces of those images for a fresh start.
- Creating a new look – If you want to overhaul your image, removing old photos en masse can help achieve this.
- Photos incorrectly categorized or tagged – Sometimes photos end up associated with the wrong place, event or person. It’s easier to remove all of them and start again.
How to Delete Large Batches of Photos on Facebook
Luckily Facebook provides a couple of different options for deleting multiple photos at once:
Via Facebook’s Photo Archive
Facebook’s Archive feature allows you to manage all of your posts and photos in one place:
- Go to your Facebook profile and click on the down arrow in the top right corner.
- Select ‘Settings & Privacy’ then click on ‘Settings’.
- Click on ‘Your Facebook Information’ in the left menu.
- Select ‘View next to Photos and Videos’.
This will bring up your Photo Archive which contains all of your uploaded photos and videos. From here you have a few options:
- Click the boxes next to images you want to delete then select ‘Move to trash’ at the top.
- Filter by date or location using the drop down menus to delete specific batches.
- Select a whole year or album in the left menu then click ‘Move to trash’.
One limitation of the Photo Archive is that you can only remove 250 items per day. But it provides fine-grained control over curating your photo collection.
Via Facebook’s Activity Log
Facebook’s Activity Log also provides bulk deletion options:
- Go to your profile and click on ‘Activity Log’ in the left menu.
- Click on the ‘Photos’ filter at the top.
- This will display all photos you’ve been tagged in. Click the checkboxes for any you want to remove.
- Click on the Actions drop down menu at the top and select ‘Delete’.
The main advantage of using the Activity Log is that there is no daily limit on the number of photos you can remove. You can delete your entire photo history in one go if you wish. However, it only shows photos you are tagged in rather than all uploaded images.
Other Bulk Deletion Options
If you need to delete a large number of photos in one go, here are some other options:
Use a Third Party App
Several apps are available that provide enhanced bulk deletion functionality:
- Social Book Post Manager – Browser extension that lets you filter photos by date and delete up to 1000 per day.
- Facebook Photo Manager – Android and iOS app with no limits on number of photos removed.
- Cleaner for Facebook – Mobile app that deletes photos based on filters like albums and date ranges.
The main advantage of these tools is that they avoid Facebook’s native limits on how many photos you can trash per day. Just be wary of trusting third party apps with access to your account.
Delete from a Desktop Uploader
If you originally used a desktop uploader tool to publish your photos en masse to Facebook, you may be able to use the same app to mass delete. For example, the Dropbox Carousel desktop app has an option to bulk remove uploaded photos. This avoids daily limits and provides fine-grained control.
Use Facebook’s Data Export Tool
You can use Facebook’s data download tool to export all of your photos, then delete the originals from your account in bulk via the Activity Log without hitting the removal limits. Re-upload any keepers to Facebook selectively. This is time consuming but a surefire way to remove all photos while avoiding deletion caps.
Things to Keep in Mind When Deleting Photos
Here are some final tips on effectively removing multiple Facebook photos:
- Deleted photos may still show up temporarily in tagged posts or your news feed until those caches refresh.
- If you tagged friends in deleted photos, they may still be able to access them from their Activity Log.
- Remember that preview thumbnails don’t count towards the 250 item daily Archive limit.
- You can’t delete photos posted in Facebook Groups or on friends’ Timelines.
- If you want to save copies of the photos, make sure to download them first.
Conclusion
While deleting individual photos from Facebook can be tedious, using the built-in archive and activity log tools makes it easy to remove multiple images in bulk. Just be aware of the daily limits in place and that there will often still be traces of deleted pics embedded in old posts and tags. But a regular purge of embarrassing and outdated shots can be a great way to curate and protect your photographic presence on Facebook.