DB Labs
How to Clear Recently Deleted Photos on iPhone
Open Photos → Albums → Recently Deleted (authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID). Tap Select → Select All → Delete and confirm. All photos in the album are permanently erased and storage is freed immediately. This is one of the fastest ways to recover gigabytes of space on a full iPhone, since deleted photos can accumulate for up to 30 days before iOS clears them automatically.
Step-by-Step: Delete All Recently Deleted Photos
Follow these steps to permanently clear every photo in the Recently Deleted album and free up storage immediately.
1 Open the Photos App
Open the Photos app and tap Albums at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down past all your albums to the Utilities section near the bottom.
2 Tap Recently Deleted
Tap Recently Deleted. iOS will prompt you to authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID before showing the contents. This privacy protection was added in iOS 16 and cannot be bypassed. If the album appears empty, there are no photos pending deletion and no space to reclaim here.
3 Tap Select
Tap Select in the top-right corner of the screen. A blue Select All button appears in the top-left corner alongside a count of photos in the album.
4 Tap Select All
Tap Select All in the top-left corner. Blue checkmarks appear on every photo and video in the album. The count in the toolbar at the bottom updates to show the total selected.
5 Tap Delete and Confirm
Tap Delete in the bottom-right corner (it turns red when items are selected). A confirmation dialog appears — tap Delete [X] Items to confirm. The photos are permanently erased and storage is freed within seconds.
Why Do Deleted Photos Stay for 30 Days?
Apple's 30-day retention period is a deliberate safety feature, not a bug. It mirrors the trash/recycle bin concept on Mac and PC computers. When you delete a photo, it is not immediately destroyed — it moves to a holding area where it is protected from accidental permanent loss for a month.
This matters because accidental deletion is extremely common. Swiping through a large batch of photos, selecting the wrong photo, or accidentally tapping Delete on an important memory — all of these mistakes are instantly recoverable within 30 days. Apple's research indicates that users frequently want to recover photos they deleted impulsively within days of deletion.
The trade-off is storage: deleted photos continue to consume storage space during the 30-day window. A single month of deleted photos — especially if you shoot a lot of video — can add up to several gigabytes of dead weight. Manually emptying Recently Deleted when you are sure you no longer need those photos eliminates this wasted space.
How Much Storage Does Recently Deleted Use?
The amount of storage consumed by Recently Deleted depends entirely on how many photos and videos you have deleted in the past 30 days and how large those files are. Here are representative examples:
| Deleted Content | Approximate Storage Saved by Clearing |
|---|---|
| 100 HEIC photos (iPhone 15/16/17) | ~700 MB – 1 GB |
| 500 HEIC photos | ~3.5 – 5 GB |
| 10 minutes of 4K 30fps video | ~1.7 GB |
| 10 minutes of 4K 60fps video | ~4 GB |
| Mixed photos and videos from a vacation | 2 – 15 GB (varies widely) |
To see exactly how much space is in your Recently Deleted album right now, go to Settings → General → iPhone Storage and look at the Photos row. Then open Recently Deleted and look at the count and file sizes. Unfortunately iOS does not show a single "Recently Deleted total" figure in Settings — you need to go into the album itself.
How to Delete Only Some Recently Deleted Photos
If you want to permanently delete some items but not others — for example, to free space from large videos while preserving some photos you might want to recover — you can delete selectively instead of using Select All.
- Open Photos → Albums → Recently Deleted and authenticate.
- Tap Select in the top right.
- Tap only the specific photos or videos you want to permanently delete. Large video files show a duration in the corner — these are the biggest space savers.
- Tap Delete in the bottom right and confirm.
You can also recover specific items while deleting others: select the photos you want to keep and tap Recover first, then go back and delete the rest.
Recently Deleted and iCloud
If you use iCloud Photos, the Recently Deleted experience extends to the cloud. Deleting a photo on your iPhone deletes it across all your iCloud-connected devices simultaneously. The 30-day holding period applies to both your device and iCloud — but they are semi-independent.
When you permanently delete photos from Recently Deleted on your iPhone, they are also deleted from iCloud. However, iCloud maintains its own cloud-side Recently Deleted section at iCloud.com/photos for 30 days. This means: even after you clear Recently Deleted on your iPhone, you can still recover photos from iCloud.com for up to 30 days from the original deletion date.
This cloud-side safety net is particularly useful if you clear your phone's Recently Deleted album to free space, then later regret it. See our full guide on recovering deleted photos on iPhone for all the recovery options.
Automating Monthly Photo Cleanup
The best strategy is to make photo cleanup a regular monthly habit so Recently Deleted never accumulates a massive backlog. Here is a simple routine:
- First Saturday of each month: open Swype Photo Cleaner and swipe through your recent photos — left to delete, right to keep. A 20-minute session handles most camera rolls.
- After cleanup: open Photos → Albums → Recently Deleted → Select All → Delete. This frees the space from everything you just deleted.
- Check storage: go to Settings → General → iPhone Storage to confirm the freed space is reflected in your available storage.
This two-step routine — curate then clear — keeps your camera roll lean and your storage full of things you actually want to keep. It also means you are never surprised by a "Storage Almost Full" warning when you are trying to take a photo at an important moment.
Make Cleanup Effortless with Swype
Swype Photo Cleaner makes it easy to review every photo before it goes to Recently Deleted. Swipe left to delete the shots you do not want, right to keep the ones you do. Review hundreds of photos in minutes — then empty Recently Deleted to free the space instantly.
Free · iPhone · iOS 16+ · 100% on-device, zero uploads
Free · iPhone · iOS 16+
For more storage management tips, see our guides on how to bulk delete photos on iPhone and how to permanently delete photos from iPhone. If you have accidentally deleted photos and need them back, see our photo recovery guide.