Photo Cleaner

How to delete all screenshots on iPhone

Updated · By Mohamed Elatabany

Screenshots are the easiest clutter to clear: most were useful for a few minutes, and iOS already keeps them in their own album. Here is how to bulk-delete them in Photos, and how to do it faster when there are thousands.

Method 1: the built-in Screenshots album

iOS automatically files every screenshot in a Screenshots album under Media Types.

Where Photos keeps its albums: on iOS 17, tap the Albums tab and scroll down. On iOS 18, scroll down below the photo grid to the collections. On iOS 26, tap Collections. Media Types (Videos, Live Photos, Screenshots, Bursts) and Utilities (Duplicates, Recently Deleted) are listed there.

  1. Open Photos and go to Media Types → Screenshots.
  2. Tap Select in the top-right corner.
  3. Tap the first screenshot, then keep your finger down and drag across and down. Photos selects every screenshot your finger passes over, and scrolls as you reach the edge of the screen.
  4. Tap any screenshot you want to keep to deselect it.
  5. Tap the trash icon and confirm Delete Screenshots.

The deleted screenshots move to Utilities → Recently Deleted, where they stay for 30 days.

Screen recordings

Screen recordings are videos, so they can be much bigger than screenshots. They have their own album: Media Types → Screen Recordings. Delete them the same way.

Before you bulk-delete: what's worth keeping

A quick scan before deleting everything saves regret. Screenshots people commonly want back:

  • Boarding passes, tickets, booking confirmations for upcoming trips
  • Receipts and order numbers for returns or warranties
  • Recovery codes, Wi-Fi details and settings you configured once
  • Conversations you may need as a record

Anything important for the long term is better saved as a note or a document than left in your camera roll.

Method 2: swipe through screenshots with Photo Cleaner

Selecting by dragging is quick when you want to delete almost everything. When you want to look at each one, swiping is faster:

  1. Install Photo Cleaner and allow Full Access to your photos.
  2. Open the Screenshots category.
  3. Each screenshot appears full size. Swipe left to delete, right to keep; one decision per screenshot.
  4. Open the Trash Bin to check your choices, recover any mistakes, then empty it and confirm in the iOS dialog.

Photo Cleaner also has a WhatsApp/Messenger category, which is where forwarded memes and screenshots from chats tend to collect.

Free the space right away

Deleted screenshots still use storage while they are in Recently Deleted. To clear them now:

  1. Open Utilities → Recently Deleted and unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.
  2. Tap Select, then Delete All (or select only the screenshots) and confirm.

With iCloud Photos on, deleting a screenshot on your iPhone also deletes it from iCloud and your other devices.

Keep screenshots from piling up

  • Use the screenshot preview. After taking a screenshot, tap the thumbnail in the corner. You can mark it up, share it, and then tap Done → Delete Screenshot so it never lands in your library. You can also choose Copy and Delete to paste it somewhere without keeping it.
  • Full-page screenshots of web pages in Safari can be saved as a PDF to Files instead of an image in Photos: choose Full Page in the screenshot editor, then save to Files.
  • Make it a weekly habit. A two-minute pass through the Screenshots album each week stops the backlog from coming back.

Screenshots from your other devices

With iCloud Photos turned on, screenshots taken on your iPad also appear in the same Screenshots album, and deleting them on your iPhone removes them from the iPad and iCloud too. Mac screenshots are different: by default macOS saves them to the Desktop as files, not to the Photos library, so they won't show up here. Screenshots that arrive through chat apps are saved as regular images rather than screenshots, so they may not appear in the Screenshots album at all. Look for those in the WhatsApp/Messenger category in Photo Cleaner, or in the album your chat app creates.

Why bother, if screenshots are small?

Individually they are small, but they add up, and they make it harder to find the photos you care about. Clearing them is also the fastest win for a daily cleanup habit. For actual gigabytes, look at large videos next.

Try the faster way

Photo Cleaner is free to download, with 100 deletions free, one time.

Photo Cleaner app iconDownload on the App Store