Guides / Delete old screenshots

How to delete old screenshots on iPhone

Updated 3 November 2026 · By the FirstHour team

Short answerOpen Photos, tap Collections, scroll down to Media Types, then tap Screenshots. Tap Select, tap the ones you don't need, then tap the trash button. They go to Recently Deleted for 30 days. If you use iCloud Photos, they're deleted from your other devices too. Look through them first, because some may hold codes or account details.

Step by step

  1. Open Photos and tap Collections.
  2. Scroll down to Media Types, then tap Screenshots.
  3. Tap Select, then tap each screenshot you want to delete.
  4. Tap the trash button to delete them.

On some iOS versions the names or places may differ a little.

Apple says photos you delete this way are kept in the Recently Deleted collection for 30 days, then removed from your iPhone, iCloud and other devices. If you use iCloud Photos, a deletion on your iPhone applies to all your devices.

Look before you delete

Most screenshots were useful for a minute: a map, a price, a funny message. A few are worth a second look.

If you find a private one you still need, move the information somewhere with its own lock instead of leaving it in your camera roll. Here's how to look for them.

Free the space now

Deleted screenshots still sit in Recently Deleted for up to 30 days. That's a useful safety net, and it also means your storage may not change right away. To clear them sooner:

  1. In Photos, tap Collections and tap Recently Deleted (it's below Utilities).
  2. Unlock it when your iPhone asks.
  3. Tap Select, choose the items, then tap Delete and confirm. If iCloud Photos is on, iPhone may ask whether to delete from all devices.

Apple says you can't get them back after that, so be sure. Here's how Recently Deleted works.

Stop new ones piling up

Apple's screenshot guide explains what happens to a new screenshot and how to delete one right after taking it. We couldn't read the details of that page today, so check it there.

How FirstHour helps

In Tidy up, a suggestion called Old screenshots lists screenshots more than a year old. You can tap Review one by one, Keep all or Delete all, and iPhone asks once before anything is deleted. Deleted pictures wait in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and if iCloud Photos is on they're gone from your other devices too. Pictures FirstHour thinks may show a card, an ID or a code are left out of that list and shown in Protect instead.

It can miss things, so a screenshot with a private detail might still be in the list. It doesn't check videos or screen recordings, and it can't judge whether a screenshot still matters to you. Only you can tell that.

Questions

Can I select all screenshots at once?

Apple's guide describes tapping Select and then tapping the items you want. We couldn't confirm a quicker way from Apple's pages, so we don't describe one here.

Will deleting screenshots delete the original picture?

No. A screenshot is its own picture. Deleting it doesn't change the photo or page it was a picture of.

I deleted one by mistake.

Open Recently Deleted within 30 days, tap Select, choose it and tap Recover. After you empty it, or after 30 days, Apple says it can't be recovered.

Sources

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