How to Delete Multiple Photos on iPhone

Deleting photos from your iPhone is a great way to free up storage, and we'll show you how easy the Photos app makes it to delete multiple pictures at once. We'll also go over how to find and retrieve deleted photos on an iPhone, or permanently delete photos. 

Related: How to Save Images from Text Messages on iPhone

How to Delete Multiple Photos, Recover Deleted Photos & Permanently Delete Photos from iPhone

Here's how to delete photos from an iPhone in the Photos app. This will delete photos from local storage and iCloud if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled. Having iCloud Photo Library enabled means that all of your devices (and iCloud) will have synced photos. So, if you delete a photo from your iPhone, it will be deleted from iCloud and vice versa. Before you delete photos or videos, back up anything you'd like to keep, because this process will delete your content from all devices where you're signed in with the same Apple ID. 

iPhone Life
Discover your iPhone's hidden features
Get a daily tip (with screenshots and clear instructions) so you can master your iPhone in just one minute a day.

We'll also go over how to recover deleted photos on your iPhone. You'll find these pictures in the Recently Deleted section of the Photos app. You can also use nearly the same steps to permanently delete photos from the Recently Deleted section. We've also written about how to delete photo albums on iPhone. For more great Photos app tutorials, check out our free Tip of the Day. Now, here's how to mass delete photos, recover deleted pictures and videos, and permanently delete photos from an iPhone.

Jump To:

How to Mass Delete Photos from iPhone

Here's how to bulk delete multiple photos from iPhone. The Photos app on the iPhone makes it easy to mass delete pictures from iCloud and local storage. Here's how to delete photos in bulk from the All Photos album inside the Photos app.

  1. Open the Photos app.


     
  2. Go to the Albums tab.


     
  3. Select Recents to view your entire camera roll.


     
  4. Tap Select in the upper right corner.


     
  5. Tap individual photos to select photos one at a time.


     
  6. To select several photos at once, swipe your finger across rows of photos you want to delete. Make sure you swipe horizontally first as swiping vertically will cause the album to scroll up or down. Once you have swiped horizontally you will be able to swipe vertically without scrolling. Selected photos will display a blue checkmark.


     
  7. To deselect photos, simply tap those individual photos or swipe across an entire row to remove the blue checkmarks.


     
  8. Tap the trash icon in the bottom right corner.


     
  9. A pop-up will ask you to confirm that you want to delete the selected photos from iCloud, Photo Stream, and any other albums containing the photos you are deleting; tap Delete [#] Photos to confirm. 

If you have an even larger number of bulk photos to delete, check out how to delete a photo album on iPhone or how to delete duplicate photos automatically.

How to Recover Deleted Videos & Pictures from iPhone

If you accidentally deleted a photo you meant to keep, fear not! iCloud saves any images you deleted over the last 30 days in the Recently Deleted album of your Photos app. You can use Recently Deleted to restore deleted photos or empty Recently Deleted to permanently delete photos. Here's how to find deleted photos on an iPhone in the Recently Deleted album so you can restore them.

  1. Navigate to the Albums tab inside the Photos app.


     
  2. Scroll down to Utilities and select Recently Deleted.


     
  3. Tap Select on the top right.


     
  4. You can select individual photos to restore by tapping photos one at a time. Once you are finished selecting, tap Recover on the bottom right.

    how to delete all photos from iphone
     
  5. Instead of selecting individual photos, you can restore all the photos at once by tapping Recover All on the bottom right.

    tap recover all to confirm photo recovery
     
  6. When prompted, confirm the restoration by tapping Recover [#] Photos.

    confirm how many photos you want to recover

How to Permanently Delete Photos from iPhone

If you deleted pictures and video that you don't want sitting in the Recently Deleted album for thirty days, you can permanently delete one, a few, or all these pictures permanently; here's how. 

  1. Navigate to the Albums tab inside the Photos app.


     
  2. Scroll down to Utilities and select Recently Deleted.


     
  3. Tap Select on the top right.


     
  4. You can select individual photos to delete by tapping photos one at a time. Once you are finished selecting, tap Delete on the bottom left.

    Tap delete
     
  5. If you're wondering how to delete all photos from your iPhone's Recently Deleted album instead, just tap Delete All.

    Delete all photos iPhone
     
  6. When prompted, confirm the deletion by tapping Delete [#] Photos.

    Tap delete number of photos

Now, you know the best ways to delete photos on your iPhone. Next, find out how to add photos to the People album.

Master your iPhone in one minute a day: Sign up here to get our FREE Tip of the Day delivered right to your inbox.

Topics

Author Details

Conner Carey's picture

Author Details

Conner Carey

Conner Carey's writing can be found at conpoet.com. She is currently writing a book, creating lots of content, and writing poetry via @conpoet on Instagram. She lives in an RV full-time with her mom, Jan and dog, Jodi as they slow-travel around the country.