Inability to delete entire library at once? Can we fix that next?

[RegularJoe]

  Not sure if it's just a "Essential Wireless" camera issue (or if all Arlo cameras suffer from it), or a software/firmware/programming issue.

Either way, the inability to delete masses of videos at once is annoying, and a glaring defect that showed up at the next to the last update... when the solar panel charging issue reared it's ugly head.

  Can we get the "team" to fix this issue?

[RegularJoe]

  Thanks for getting the solar charging issue fixed. 

  Now, how about restoring the feature that let us delete the entire contents of the library/folder at once?

  Any progress on that front?

  

[RegularJoe]

  As of now, it's a "4 click" process:

    1). click on the picture in the library.
    2). Click on the "setting" icon.
    3). On the dropdown menu, click on delete.
     4). On the next screen, click on "delete" to tell it you're sure you want to delete it. 

   What a colossal waste of time, when it was so much easier just a month ago.

[Bob-A]

It is an all camera issue as it is the same for my essential and my pro 4 cameras.
It is also an issue in the iOS app, not just in the online app.
A waste of time to sit for a 1/2 hour deleting old videos.
I agree it is a colossal pita.

[U123]

Where did the multi select delete option go in the new app upgrade?? Did QA not think that this was a good feature? Now you can either spend a lot of time deleting individual videos or just delete everything. Not very user friendly.

[RegularJoe]

Hello everybody.. here is an update with some important information I just learned.

  I found the steps it takes to delete your entire library in one fell swoop. This is how I do it on my phone I haven't tried it on the desktop yet.

  I took screenshots as I was doing it on my phone... an android... I labeled them one through four and hopefully you get the idea. 

  Here is step 1...click that icon at top left...

 2nd step...

 

  3rd step....

 

4th step

 

[jguerdat]

That's certainly a brute force method. However, you neglected to mention that you need to download any videos that could be of interest before doing the above process. Otherwise, even thosee you want to keep will be erased forever.

[RegularJoe]

That's the whole idea, we want a brute force method to get rid of all the videos at one time..

  If a user is in here reading this discussion, it's because he wants to learn how to delete all videos at once.. and if he's got this far he probably already knows that if he deletes everything... he is deleting all videos.. and he probably also knows that if he wants to save a video,  he needs to click on the menu choice that says download.. and it will download it to his device..

  I feel it's disingenuous for you super users to suggest that it's a good thing users lost the ability to delete all videos at once because some person, at some time, deleted a video they wanted to keep and it was lost forever.

  Believe it or not, this is a good thing that I found this brute force method to delete all videos at one time.. it's a godsend.

[jguerdat]

Without you explicitly including that in your directions, you are potentially leading folks down a path that they will regret. Various folks over time, including just recently, have said they DON'T delete everything, regardless of whether it's all at once or one by one. A noobie reading this post would have thought all was good by deleting everything and may then find he wanted to keep something. You made the mistake of ass-u-me-ing everyone was on your page.

And, for the record, deleting all CAN be a good thing - until it's not.

[RegularJoe]

well, I guess I am assuming that most people capable of reading the English language would know that the words "entire contents of feed", "every video in library" "all" and  "masses" ...

as used in all my comments... mean that when they choose to do this they are intent on deleting every single video in their feed / library.. they're not on here looking to figure out how to delete one video in particular.. they're wanting to figure out why they can't delete every video in their entire library at once.

  I guess to be on the safe side you could create a discussion titled "how to save one particular video so it never gets deleted" ?

  If they've spent any time at all on the app, if they've gone so far as to try to delete a video they will have seen the menu that gives you the chance to download the video..

[StephenB]

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@RegularJoe wrote:

That's the whole idea, we want a brute force method to get rid of all the videos at one time..

---

I think most folks wanted to delete multiple videos at the same time - but not every single video in the cloud.  Which is what the "brute force method" does.

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@RegularJoe wrote:

  I feel it's disingenuous for you super users to suggest that it's a good thing users lost the ability to delete all videos at once because some person, at some time, deleted a video they wanted to keep and it was lost forever.

---

Only @jguerdat suggested that (and even he didn't go so far as to say it was a good thing).  Not "you super users".

To be fair to him - this isn't "some person at some time".  We see posts from people who want to retrieve deleted videos pretty frequently.  Often they are desperate to get back something they need to turn over to law enforcement.

Though as I said before, I think the best solution for that problem is to have a recycle/trash folder, so you can get accidentally deleted videos back.  And as I've also said before, I think they need to add back the multiple deletion feature.

[Bob-A]

I agree it would be best to be able to select videos with a checkmark and delete all selected ones at the same time.  Every photo and email app I know of has that ability and the ability to check a box that is 'select all'.  It is not that hard to program that.

[RegularJoe]

Bob-A, did you notice my comment up above in this thread where I showed you how to delete all photos at once? Just checking to be sure you saw it.

[Bob-A]

No, I missed that - thanks.

But, for when there are many but we would want to keep a few. - It would still be good to be able to select all or select a bunch of videos and delete all selected ones at once, as we can do with our email.

[RegularJoe · Accepted solution]

Saving the ones you need is the easy part.... just download it to your computer/phone, whatever... and it's saved... then delete all with the method I described.