/google-photos-delete-tool

Tool for deleting all photos from the Google Photos

Primary LanguageJavaScript

Google Photos Delete All Tool

If you have ever wanted to delete your thousands of photos from the Google Photos but failed to find an easy way to do so, then this is the tool for you. This script goes through all your photos in Google Photos app on the desktop and deletes them. You can visually see the process while it happens!

Getting Started

Follow the step-by-step instructions below to run the tool.

Prerequisites

Assumptions

The manual steps assume that these steps are performed on the Google Chrome Browser. If you're using a different browser, the steps still remain the same, however, the keyboard shortcuts or browser specific keywords may not be same for you, as described below.

Steps

  1. Login into your Google Account.

Google Account Sign-in Page

  1. Go to Google Photos.

Google Photos Page

Note: If you're logged into Google, you will see your images.

  1. Open Developer Tools. You can do so by following either of the three options

    • Keyboard Shortcut

      Press the three keys together in the sequence - CTRL + SHIFT + I

    • From the Page

      Right click on an empty area with your mouse and select Inspect (last option)

      Google Chrome Right Click Pop-up Menu

    • From Menu

      1. Click on the menu button Google Chrome Menu Icon on Google Chrome (By default, the button is present on the top right corner of the window).

      2. Select More tools.

      3. Select Developer tools.

      Google Chrome Menu Developer Tools

  2. After opening the developer tools, click on the Console tab. Google Chrome Console on Google Photos page

    Note: This console lets you run custom code, like this tool! You can learn about it on Google Console page.

    You will see a warning from Google to stay cautious. If you run code in this console that's malicious, you could be hacked. Therefore, make sure that you only run the code that you understand.

  3. Copy all the code in the file delete_photos.js and paste it in the console. The Code in Chrome Console

    Note: The script allows you to delete all photos or any number of photos. To delete a specific number of photos, change the value of maxImageCount as provided in the example.

  4. Hit ENTER button after pasting the script in the console. The script will start running upon hitting ENTER key.

  5. Done! Now, you should see the script delete all your photos in the batch

Debugging

The script may not work as expected in case your internet speed is considerably slow. In that case, you may want to increase the DELETE_DELAY_CYCLE by few thousands of milliseconds. This is to ensure that the page has refreshed before the tool tries to delete the images again.

FAQs

  1. It checks and unchecks the photos, but doesn't delete them.

    • Set the browser Language to English and try again.
  2. It stops after deleting some images.

    • Increase the DELETE_DELAY_CYCLE by thousands of milliseconds as described in the Debugging section.
  3. There was a delay in loading images and the tool exited.

    • In case this happens, you can simply paste the script again and hit enter. The script will continue doing the operation. If you're using, you wouldn't have to copy and paste again. If you press the up arrow key, it will load the last command that you ran in the console. Hit ENTER key and the script will start again.