[Feature] Delete from web and sync to mobile

[rantanlan]

The feature

Tried to search for a feature I would love to see, seems no one mentioned it yet?

The abiliy to delete a photo in the web frontend and it also get's deleted on the synced phones... often I take pictures of notes, reminders, several picture of the same subject so sort them out on a big screen. Currently if you delete a synced file, it will show up in the webfrontend again after the next sync so I'm not really sure what the delete button on the web currently does.. (besides deleting photos which are not on your phone anymore)

Or do I miss something?

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[marianjanco]

Hello, I would also appreciate this function. I am a hobby photographer and my common real workflow is like this:

1. take pictures with camera (let's say on a vacation)
2. transfer them through wifi to my phone
3. immich app synchronizes them to my server at home
4. when I come home, I want to revisit the pictures with the large screen and definitely delete bad ones on all devices (server + mobile phone)

It could also be generalized that pictures shouldn't be taken with a camera, but also with a mobile phone itself.

[dgsardina]

I do believe that this feature is one of the most important ones. If I decide to delete a picture from the server, is needs to be deleted in the phone. Specially now that there is no way to delete a photo from both server and mobile at the same time

[NicholasFlamy]

Specially now that there is no way to delete a photo from both server and mobile at the same time

As of a while ago this is possible on the mobile app. Obviously not on the web like this feature request asks for but just putting this here to let you know.

[YKhovanskikh]

Hello. Yeah, it's quite frustrating. After deleting files from the server, the phone begins transferring them back to the server. If this issue is a result of system limitations (iOS, Android), perhaps you could create a workaround?
For instance:

• After deleting an image, marking it as deleted in DB (similar to the current recycle bin, but without restrictions on storage time)
• During synchronization with clients who have these photos saved locally, categorize them in a separate folder (category)
• Users can enter this folder and manually clear it, with all necessary warnings from the system.

This is not fully user-friendly but more convenient than it is currently.

[theverex]

Would love this feature for all of the reasons listed above - I have tens of thousands of photos on my phone from over the years with no organisation. I would love to be able to organise & delete from Immich which then syncs back to my phone to delete them there as well & sync the albums. A much needed feature for me and I think it would be the last thing I need for Immich to be perfect!

[AZweimiller]

I am also looking for this feature. I am using Android and and I took a few test photos, waited for them to upload, and then deleted using the web. They disappeared from the mobile app timeline almost immediately. I checked my phone's DCIM folder using a file manager and the photos are still there. I expected them to be gone. They still show up in other gallery apps as well.

Consider this use case:

I will spam the shutter button on my camera to get a "keeper" (non-blurry) photo. This is especially important for kids who don't stop moving for photos. 😄 I will often sit down at the computer and prune the duplicates. I've enjoyed how Google Photos would remove the images from my mobile device. It helps reclaim a good bit of internal storage.

Thank you.

[markussiebert]

My use case is similar but different. As the sharing feature is crap at the moment, my wife and I use the same account. I would like to "remote delete" fotos on my wifes phone. They should not instantly get deleted - I think each client should as wether the files trashed should be deleted also on the client, or reuploaded (and if you confirm reupload, they should get restored from trash).

[benmccann]

The default gallery app gets permission to the file system whereas other apps can only access after a user interaction. That means Google Photos works differently for deletes on Pixels (where it's the default) and non-Pixels (where it normally isn't). You can't change the default gallery app without invoking ADB. This info is from https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/03/how-to-get-rid-of-google-photos-out-of-sync-changes-prompt-on-android-11/

That means that we have one of two choices on Android:

• request access to manage all files. This is discouraged, but allowed for things like backup and restore apps, which fits our usecase. It seems that we currently have these permissions via a legacy flag, so that's probably enough to allow this.
• emulate the workflow of Google Photos on non-Pixel phones, which looks something like this: https://github.com/Dilanwizzy/immich/blob/how-google-deletes-assets/HowGoogleDeletsImages.md. We can perhaps document how to connect ADB to remove that user interaction step for advanced users if we go this route

[benmccann]

I am not having the photo re-uploaded to web after deleting it as some have described here. However, I was able to reproduce it with the following steps:

• I selected an album with 3 photos for backup on the mobile app and backed it up
• I then deleted one of those three photos from the web instance
• The app still says "3 assets" under the backup section when I'd expect it to be 2 now and I can use Google Photos to find the deleted photo on my phone still when I would expect it to have been deleted

[mariusberlinghof]

did you delete the photos from another device than the one with the backub job running?

[benmccann]

Yes. The backup was on mobile and I did the delete via the web

[przemhb]

For me personally such a function is essential and a deal breaker at the same time. I'd like to know what's the status of the feature request - has it been accepted, added to roadmap or maybe it is already being implemented?

[kiwijunglist]

Thanks would be keen on this too.

I deleted a bunch of photos on the web and then my phone added them back again.

[kiwijunglist]

The work around is to archive photos you don't want any more in the web instance and favorite your best photos.

In the future when the feature is available you can delete all the archive photos.

[DanTulovsky]

In my case, I deleted photos on the webapp but I can still see them in ios app. The photos are not actually on my phone. And selecting one of the deleted ones shows me an empty gray screen. How do I update the ios thumbnail view?

[DanTulovsky]

fwiw, logging out of the app, and back in, refreshes the view and no longer shows the deleted photos. Is this working as intended?