How to delete all images on your Sony Cybershot
Once in a while I’ll post a simple how-to post. Not terribly entertaining, but seems to fill a void out there for anyone searching for days to do the same thing. Hopefully a few fellow frustrated Cybershot users will stumble upon this post some day…
So, 5 years ago I bought my first digital camera–a Canon Digital Elph. It was great and sturdy and still works amazingly well. Alas, it never took indoor low-light shots very well and so this xmas I decided to upgrade to a new camera.
I got suckered into buying a Sony Cybershot. The guy behind the counter really liked it and managed to show off enough doo-dads to convince me. It’s an OK camera. I guess. I thought the interface was decent, and the screen is definitely bigger, and, to be fair, it does take better low-light pictures. But, it’s plastic, and still not all that much better than the ol’ Canon. I’ve since seen the new Canons and I (and apparently a majority of Flickr users agree) now only suggest Canons to anyone that asks. Digital camera? Canon. Laptop? Apple. Fridge? Anything but a Frigidaire.
But now I’m rambling on. Back to the topic at hand: How in the *$&#(@ do you delete ALL the photos off the camera? Is it in the manual? Not that I can find. Intuitive? Not at all. Use iPhoto? Nope. Cybershots apparently don’t listen to iPhoto to well. So, after some googling and experimenting, I FINALLY figured it out:
- Turn on camera
- Press the PLAYBACK button (button with triangle above screen on back)
- Look at the top of the camera and slide the ZOOM control to ‘-’
- The playback screen now shows multiple slides per screen.
- Press delete button (the one on the bottom of the back of the camera)
- Press theUP button twice to select ‘delete all’
- Press the CENTER button in the middle of the arrow buttons to delete.
- All gone!
Easy! Well, easy once you figure out that you need to use a combination of 4 different buttons on 2 different parts of the camera.
I miss my Canon.
145 Comments
Thx of this article. You’re right, I needed to know how to do this today and there you were! Thank you.
Thanks a lot. I was loosing my head bcoz of this. And ofcourse the operations guide was not helpful at all…Like u said easy once you figured it out…..
hey, i have a sony cybershot but its a a year old and i dont know how to delete all on it either. but it doesnt have the features that yours does. is there anyway you can help me?
Thank you soooo much!! I’ve been going crazy and knew that it was impossible that there would not be a delete all! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Rats- I thought you might have the answer to the hard question. How the heck do you delete cybershot photos that have already been loaded into your computer?
The update ‘Ver. 1.0′ which another helpful web-place suggested would solve this problem, took 4 hours to download and screwed things up even worse and ate a bunch of unintended photos!
The camera has good features and bad, but with the software as weak as it is I would never buy this camera again. 3″ screen or not (DSC-H5).
Anyone know the answer to ‘how to delete from cybershot in the computer?’
You CAN delete from Sony DSC-5 as stated above. BUT, instead of the instructions above, do this:
1. Go to the display view (playback)
2. Click on the “W” (for wide view) and you will get thumbnails of all you photos.
3. Click on the button for Trash/Delete
4. Select All In This Folder by using your up/down arrows.
5. Click on the small center buttons.
6. Move to the arrow to OK. Center button again
7. Voila! All gone!
Thanks so much for this post. I have puzzled over this delete problem since getting the camera last Christmas. The manual is useless. Does anyone know if there’s another user manual available for purchase that actually tell you how to do things?
Thank you ~ thank you! I was going nuts trying to figure out how to delete them all. It was a pain in the butt having to delete 1 at a time. Again ~ Thank you!
You saved my day! Thank you! Thank you! I’m certain that I had found this information with the booklets that came with the camera and had used this technique many times but had forgotten it. I spent hours this morning tryng to find it again both in the books and on the Sony website.
Wow, and I thought it was just a horrible missing feature. After almost 2 years, I finally can delete all my photos. Thanks.
Thank you! I was getting really fustrated. Taking 300 photos & manually erasing each one individually.
Thank you!
Holy crap! I’ve had this camera for four years and didn’t know how to do that.
Thanks!
Thank you! I lost my manual before ever reading it, and I thought I must be missing some very easy way to delete all photos at once. So glad to see that I was not the only one unable to figure this out intuitively!!!
I’m glad you figured it out, the information is not in the manual and Sony’s website doesn’t give a “search” option. I cannot understand how they left out something so basic and necessary. The prints I’m getting are a good quality, but overall, I am not impressed with this camera. The big screen is nice, but vulnerable to breakage, mine cracked shortly after I got it and I’m not sure how it happened. Luckily, I bought the extended warranty that included accidental coverage. Whew!
Thanks alot! I never knew how to do that and ive had my camera for a very long time.
Thank you so much, I just spent about an hour downloading the manual, and “how to delete” folders was not even on there…..Seriously, thank you so much!
FINALLY! I knew there had to be a way to delete all photos, but Sony wasn’t sharing the secret.
Thanks!
thanx…i just bought a cybershot and thought my old camera had a “delete all” why doesn’t this Sony camera? the manual said nothing of this…good thing google picked you up and I got all the info I needed…thanks to you! tremendous help…did it step by step and it works!!!THANKS so much.
I’ve got 3 friends and myself with a cybershot and couldn’t figure this out……Thanks for posting I’ll pass it on!
Thanks Before I found this article I deleted 123 pictures off of the camera. Thanks again and keep up the good work.
Thanks..that was very helpful…knew there must be some way to do it.
Freaking A man – I LOVE my credit card sized Cybershot, and after a year of new baby pictures resulting in millions of one by one deletions, I finally found the time to google the question & your answer was the first to appear. Thank you Mr. Genius Picture Deleter Man! You’ve just made my life a little easier
Thanks so much for this info! I have struggled with this problem since receiving the camera a year ago!
Thanks soooooooo much! I just new that there had to be a way to do it instead of the one by one time consuming way. The manual is useless, but I do like the camera. It is my first digital and I am still learning.
I just wanted to thank you for figuring out what I absolutely could not!
Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU!
I’m so happy to have found your site. It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who could not figure out how to delete all pictures at once. I’ve had my camera over a year.
I’m another cybershot owner who has been going bonkers trying to find out how to delete all pictures.
MANY THANKS
Thank you so much!!! I would never have figured that out — what a timesaver.
I also couldn’t figure out how to delete all pictures and they were accumulating! Thanks for the info!
Thanks! I love my Cybershot, but deleting all the pictures in the folder was completely counter-intuitive. Thank you so much!!
Thanks. The camera’s great (much faster and smaller than our canon) but I guess they thought by making it hard to delete all they’d sell more of their special memory cards.
Thank you for posting this, I used to spend 15 minutes deleting them individually…
THANK YOU!
I, too, really like my cy berShot camera … except for this problem.
Thanks for solving it!
Has anyone suggested to SONY that they amend their in struction manuals?
To delete a Sony generated folder on your computer of the pictures, “Cut” the folder and then “Paste” it in the Recycle Bin, then “Empty” the Recycle bin. Thanks for the Delete all on the camera info!
thanks.. you tell me in 30 secs what i have been trying to figure out for a eeek. the book is useless. dont think much of the picture quality either. my kodak 5mp is far better
Brilliant..I’ve been carrying around over 500 old pics and now theyre gone at last..!!
PHEW! A million thanks! Been trying to work this out for a year now, I couldn’t even find an answer on the internet until your page appeared.
Thanks so much.
thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thank you. I’ve been trying to figure this out for months!
OMG!!!!! Thank you soooooooo much!!!! I’d never had figured that out myself!!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank Thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
A very BIG thank-you. I still had almost all of my pictures since I bought the camera except those that I deleted one by one and that takes way too long. Sony should have been smarter than leave that detail out of the “usless” handbook.
Brilliant post – thank goodness for useful blogs!!
Finally!! Thanks for this. I’ve been trying to figure out for ages how to delete all pic’s on this camera. It’s so wonderful to read the 0/0 on the screen.
Hi – can you help me – my screen is dead, so I have to “guess” where my selections are.
I want to delete pictures, but I can’t see what I am selecting! If anyone can help me by telling me which buttons to press to delete (even one at a time!), I would be so grateful!
Helen:
Is your screen ‘dead’ or just turned off? If it’s truly dead, I’d have to say it’s probably time to get another camera (and not a cybershot this time!)
I can’t believe how popular this post has been. I think I’m glad I no longer own that Cybershot. ;o)
at last!
Thanks pal.
Thank you so much for telling me how to delete all on Sony Cybershot. I lost instructions and for past year have been doing it 1 by 1 for what seems to take hours – and many batteries.
Thank you so much, and thank you for doing your homework……it helped me tremendously….otherwise I would have probably been up all night trying to delete all my pictures one by one. You really were a lifesaver!!!!! Thank you!!!!
Thanks for providing this information. I have been trying to delete all my pictures for months and could not figure out how. Your post is a life saver.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!finally
I hope you’re not tired of hearing this but “Thank you!”. Keep up the good work!
Thanks – I never would have figured that out – don’t really know how you did, but what a pain in the &$%. I can’t believe it is not in the manual how to delete the pictures all at once. THanks for saving me a few hours of my time…
Thanks from here too!!
Man, I tell you. That was incredibly frustrating. Thank you for taking the time to post that, I was stumped…and I’m the IT guy for our fire department! Thanks, man.
Thank God you posted the answer, the Sony manual is crap.I have been formating the memory stick all this time.
THANK YOU! I had a full 2GB card and was not looking forward to deleting one picture at a time! Much appreciated!
No, it’s not in the owner’s manual. Thanks a load, it worked great!
Thank you Thank you for the info. Took a chance when I googled–delete all sony camera
and there you were. Excellent. And now I have my memory stick back!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was getting extremely aggravated with this little camera! Now I can use less batteries and less time deleting all instead of one by one.
Please tell me how to delete one picture on
a Sony Cyber-shotDSC-W70 Digital Still Camera
Thank you!! For pity’s sake it shouldn’t be this hard to delete all of the pictures. Glad to finally know how!
Thank you so much for sharing this – i have had my camera several years and was deleting one by one which was sooooo frustrating. I too had read the maunal several times and searched the sony web site to no avail – thank goodness for google!!
O-M-G THANK YOU! YOU’RE THE BEESTT!
Thanks a million. I was getting really uptight tonight trying to figure out how deleted all the ***images! I stumbled on how to do it once before and then forgot how i did it!
Sony’s cryptic instructions are very poor in my opinion. Camera is possibly okay for the money (my first digital camera to augment my Canon SLR) but the instructions on the Sony leave a lot to be desired!!!!!!!!
Thank You but I have another question: The camera says I have over 2,000 pictures on the memory card. When I used the delete it only brought up the most recently used folder for deletion. How do I get to the other folders?
Thanks! After trying for two years found this post. I get to use the saved 10 min on something else. Probably saved the poor button too.
thank you! thank you! thank you! i would have never figured it out!
oh…my….god…. THANK YOU
Thank you so much for this info Daryll!!
I couldn’t find how to ‘delete all’ either. There doesn’t even seem to be a way via the software either, unless downloading all the pics first and I’d already done that, didn’t want to have to go through it all again when there should be an easier way.
And you’re right – the manual doesn’t say how to do it either. I sure didn’t want to sit there for ages, deleting 400 pics one by one!!
Thanks a million!!
AWESOME. I have felt like an idiot for years deleting individual pictures as I ran out of room. Who knows how many thousands of tuime I have hit the trash can button. I wish I had looked for the answer 4 years ago.
Thanks so much for the info.
Thanks for the pointer. I read the manual about 4 times and was starting to get REAL frustrated when I opted to query the web, and BAM, there you were. I’d like to kick somebodys butt at Sony for missing such an obvious aspect of a digital camera. Tells ya a little bit about the company and designers when they miss something obvious in the instructions like this. Why not hide the power button inside the little door where the batteries and memory card goes, and then neglect to tell anyone about it ?!?!
Thanks I deleted by hand before
WOW! I was getting ready to go to Mexico and didn’t want to take every picture with me! Deleting 270 pictures one at a time sure takes more time than I have! YOU just can’t believe what a help this was. THANKS SO MUCH!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I knew there was an easier way!!!
thankyou so so so so much u are a star thank you!! x x x
I cannot tell you how happy finding this post has made me. I also cannot believe that for the last three years, I’ve spent so much of my time listening to the annoying little BEEP as I manually delete dozens of pictures, one by one.
You’d think this option would be made much more obvious by Sony, huh?
You’re a lifesaver.
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow! Thanks for the time saver. I love the camera but deleting 100 pics manually is like getting up to change the chanel–it just doesn’t have to be that way.
wow. the thanks cannot be justified. i want the past 20 min of my life back. i miss my canon too.
Holy Crap…THANK YOU! I have been pushing every combination on this camera and finally googled you!
OMG!!! thank you so much!! this was driving me crazy, i spent an hour trying to figure this out. Thank goodness for google and YOU!!
Thank you for this random but very helpful post. It just goes to show that there is always someone that cares about what you have say.
You saved me many hours of pain.
wow what a time saver thxxxx!!!!
glad I’m not alone on this. Thanks dude. This was driving me crazy!!
Thank you so much! That really help me out. I was going to be pissed if I had to delete 200 pictures one at a time.
thanks, i dont mind saying I’ve wanted to punch Sony’s camera makers in the face for years now for making this so impossible to find. They should send you a medal and a reward check.
Thank you! What an absurd way to have to do this – I could not find the answer anywhere else. Thank you!
Thank – you!!! I was going crazy deleting each photo one by one! This article saved me at least 1 hour, you r awesome!
Wow! Worked like magic… thank you.
The last time I downloaded pictures, there was a button on the camera wizard that said ‘delete from camera after downloading’, which it did, but couldn’t find it this time. Was gonna go crazy deleting 365 pictures….!!!
Thank you, been searching for this answer!!!
Does anyone know how to retrieve photos from a Cybershot that you accidentally just hit “delete all?”
Thanks a mil buddy!!..u saved me about an hour hav agud 1!
Like everyone else here thank you for this article! I knew there was an easier way…I almost resorted to deleting each pic individually.
OMG THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! I have had my camera for sooo long and never knew how to massively delete and this time I started to delete on eby one and just happen to google and found your instructions! You are a genious! THANK YOU AGAIN!
Thank You so much for taking the time to share the secret, you have me saved so much time. Thank you again!
I also have the Sony cybershot that we use in a high school photography class. I had also searched around on the camera to find the delete all or format the memory card but to no avail. I had just done it on a much less expensive camera (a $100 coolpix) with the delete all function, so when I picked up this camera to delete all the pics we had taken last year in class I was disappointed to see that I could not do it….until I googled and found you at the top of the list. Thanks!!!
OMG! I had over 1,000 pics on my camera and had to delete almost all by hand. When i got down to 18 pics left i googled this so that i knew for next time, because i disnt think that they wouldnt have that option. But me and my soar thumb owe you!! haha
I have trying to figure this out forever!!! thanks!!
Thank you soooo much for your super easy to follow directions on how to delete all my pics from my sony cybershot. There is a lot less foul language around our household during “picture downloading time.”
THANK YOU SO MUCH! This was the ever-lurking question in our household! Why the heck do they make that so difficult!?!?!? This was extremely helpful! Thank you!
Actually, these instructions were printed in my “read this first” quick start packet that came with the camera.
i hate this crappy camera but i like it more now that i have finally been able to delete all the images !!! thank you so much for your directions
)
Thank you so much for posting this! I went through my manual and found nothing. I usually “delete all” when importing into iPhoto but decided not to this time because I wanted to make sure all my vacation shots were saved on the camera “just in case.” After importing and backing up I needed to delete over 600 images. That’s just a few too many to delete each image one by one, so thanks!
my brain was just about to explode. thank you for saving my brain.
thank you for finally allowing me to delete all the photos !!!
THANK YOU! I never would have figured this out!
THANK YOU SO MUCH! Ive had this camera since Christmas and have been trying since then to delete all the pictures!
I was deleting pictures one at a time, and going crazy. Great information.
Thank you so much!
Thanks!! This used to drive me crazy. Glad you solved it for me!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I finally was able to delete these photos. And don’t be fooled. Watching me trying to figure out how to delete them was entertaining…
TO Sony: Who writes all your crap? How can you forget to put such a simple instruction? why ?
Thank you Darrell; small answers begetting greater thanks
Thank You! I searched the Sony site of this and could not find it. It is amazing that it should be this difficult. thanks for the great tip.
Thanks sooooooooo much for sharing this info!!! I have over 600 pics on the camera and started deleting them manually bc I couldnt figure it out. Your a life save
omg, THANK YOU, YOUR THE BEST !!
I really appreciate you posting this
oh my god… thank you!!!
Finally!!!
Finally……..I put sony camera delete picture in search……your site was the one I choose to open and to my amazement you had the directions! How very simple! Think I’ll let my husband taking MY camera fishing and he can dip it in the water, he has done so twice with two different cameras…..maybe I could get the new camera!!!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!
I bought another memory stick because I couldn’t figure it out!!!!!!
(;
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you soo much!!!!!!!!
Wow! Couldn’t believe it was that easy! I had misplaced my “Read this first” booklet, but the one time I tried it before, their directions were so complicated that I ended up taking it to a sony store to have them help me. Thanks so much! I’m printing this for future reference!
hmmm…..good instructions…but mine still doesnt have delete all… only “delete all in date range” still saved a lot of time, but i had to do it 5 separate times to get them all.
When I got my sony cybershot DSC-W100 it didn’t come with a “read this first” booklet. I know I didn’t misplace it because I store all my techie devices’ original documents & inserts in their boxes.
I kept wondering what the manual meant when it said “separate volume.”
Thanks sooooo very much I have tried for 2years to find out how to delete and now you have helped thanks a billion xxx
Thank you! You’ll save me mucho batteries now that I know this procedure… You know, you think it’s only ‘you’ who can’t figure these things out. I appreciate your sharing.
This must be the best info I have found that actualy works!! Thanks so much, saved my battery life and saved me going mad I have spent 3 searching the manual.
More than 3 years since you wrote this blog it has once again helped a Cybershot owner .. like all the others have said .. thank you.
Haha! Who knew your “not so interesting” post would be getting comments three years later! Thanks, I used to know how to delete all photos, but now that the Cybershot belongs to the kid, it hasn’t gotten much use–but that was VERY helpful info.
Thanks so much! You just saved me a bunch of aggravation. Next time I’ll buy a Canon.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you!!! I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to “delete all” and you saved the day!!! Why couldn’t it be in the manual???
Thank you so much for this!! I was going crazy trying to figure this stupid thing out! Appreciate your forthought!
Thank you thank you thank you lol!!!!!!
YOU ARE WONDERFUL! Thank you so much! I had over 400 pictures on my Sony Cybershot and could not stand to delete them one-by-one. The camera did not seem to have a function for ‘delete all.’
Now, how can I delete all 400 twice from my computer? I uploaded them twice, looking for the check mark for ‘delete from camera after uploading’ and it didn’t. I tried highlighting the whole 800 bunch of them, but it didn’t work. I have to delete each..and..every..one..of..them. :-/
Thank you so much….I tried and tried…this worked! Thanks
Sadly, this doesn’t work on my Sony Cybershot.
Step 6 was:
“Press theUP button twice to select ‘delete all’”
The option there is ‘All Images on This Date’ and there’s no ‘Delete All’ to be seen there.
Simple when you know how! Thank you.
Thanks so much. I had a Nikon Coolpix before this camera – loved it but accidently dropped it in the lake (oops). Was talked into buying the Sony Cybershot – hate it. The quality of the photos stink compared to my other camera and then not having the ability to delete selected photos via Windows Explorer really stinks.
Thank you. This has bugged me for years. I really appreciate you posting this random piece of very useful information.
Thank you thank you thank you. I owe you a drink, or dinner, or something.
I use this for a classroom camera and for two years I’ve deleted over 900 photos per year, one by one.
Finally, I know.
THANK YOU SOOOOOO0 MUCH. Very weird that the delete all options is so stupid, I am giving this camera away and I too, Still love my Canon better, What was I thinking. Again, thanks for posting. j
I have a Sony DSC tx1, your solutions do not work on my camera! Maybe I’m missing something here.
I was getting tired of deleting them one at a time , so thank you , works on my cybershot , be better if it deleted then as you download them from the camera which the windows program asks , but this was helpful