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Comment by TheCoreh | Hacker News Reader

The Files app allows storing files locally, and mounting network shares. You can also seamlessly copy and paste files (via handoff) between macOS and iOS.

I typically just hit Cmd+C on the Mac and long press+Paste on Files on the iPhone. If you are using the iPad with an external mouse or trackpad you can also drag and drop it directly to the Mac.

As for the distinction between random JPEG files and the Photos app, I think that's actually quite good. I don't get my gallery littered with random images, and it also supports non destructive editing, among other features. Moving between the two is also fairly easy, you can use the Share sheet or just drag and drop.

The one thing I would change is that screenshots end up in Photos.app by default, I'd rather have them go to Files.

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Thx for your reply!

>> As for the distinction between random JPEG files and the Photos app, I think that's actually quite good.

Please don't take this personally, but that always terrifies me. It's like modern apple owner "sour grapes" fable - "I actually love this random limits tion, it makes my life much easier " and I hear it a lot! If I right click and save photo in some apps or websites it is in photos app, but in random other apps that same file is no longer a photo. How's that good? There are a million ways to "not clutter" that are better. Folder might be one but if that's anathema, then albums or tags. It's a completely random subset of things that end up being photos vs not, seemingly based on location or tags that arr neither visible or accessible to me as a user. I get that this is "good" for some people, I am clearly not in that group though.

Re ease of copying files, does any of that work if you don't have a Mac? Context of conversation here is iPhone / iPad as independent working devices and ability to transfer files without a Mac OS device. I am readily convinced that if I bought whole heartedly into apple ecosystem and only apple,my life would be easier along some axis, but that's not a life I lead - I have the black box of iphone and I cannot for example delete all photos on it in any way that I could find including in the app, in the settings, via apple support or apple store creepily smiling people :-/.

It seems like you want to delete all of the photos on your iPhone.

I have not tested this because I don't want to delete all my photos and I don't have a 2nd set of systems to try this out with, but I think this can be done by creating a "shortcut" to do it. (Shortcuts are like AppleScript for the iOS ecosystem).

To do this, search for the "Shortcuts" app and run it (it usually isn't visible).

- Create a new shortcut - Add the "Find Photos" action - Add the "Delete Photos" action

This should connect the two actions together. You can then run it using the play button.

This will take a very long time to run if you've got a lot of photos and it will ask to confirm using a popup. It might be worth trying to remove items in smaller chunks by using a filter (perhaps based on date or some other criteria).

I hope this helps.

Not taking it personally, :-) I 100% understand why you might also prefer it the other way.

The weird "some apps save it to Photos while others save it to Files" situation is a consequence of Files being a relatively late addition to the iOS ecosystem. A lot of apps are poorly maintained, use some cross platform framework that doesn't support the Files feature well, or the developers are simply unaware of the distinction. It will probably get better over time.

One thing Apple could do in the mean time is to also expose Photos as a folder view inside of Files (they do this on macOS, to some extent, on the file pickers. I've never actually used it)

Re: Transferring it to a PC, the one thing that won't work is the seamless copy and paste via handoff. You can plug in a USB stick into an iPad or iPhone (using an adapter for pre-15 models, or if the USB stick is USB-A) formatted as exFAT and it should just work.

AFAIK, there isn't a single button to delete all photos, probably to avoid people doing it accidentally. You'll need to manually select all photos and hit delete. Or you can also write a small script via the Shortcuts app to delete them for you.

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