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iPhone: How to delete all photos

Photos and videos can add up really quickly on iPhone, filling up what may have seemed like a high storage capacity just weeks or months earlier. Follow along for how to delete all photos on iPhone.

Whether you’re wanting a fresh start all together, or maybe transferring your photos to your Mac or other computer first, it can be helpful to know how to delete all photos from your iPhone.

If you want to keep any of your photos, make sure to back them up with a third-party service like Dropbox or Google Photos or your Mac or PC. If you use iCloud to back up your photos, you only have the option to restore all of them.

If you’d like to wipe your entire iPhone, follow along here.

How to delete all photos on iPhone

  1. Launch Photos and tap on Albums in the bottom right corner
  2. Now tap All Photos and make sure you’re at the bottom (seeing the most recent photos/videos)
  3. Tap Select in the top right hand corner
  4. Tap and drag from the bottom right corner photo/video and slide your finger to the top left hand corner and hold
  5. You’ll see the blue check marks showing up as you scroll through all your photos
  6. Hold your finger in the top corner until all photos/videos are selected
  7. Tap the trash can icon in the bottom right hand corner, delete the photos by tapping Delete _____ Items

To completely delete everything there’s a few more steps:

  1. Navigate back to Albumsswipe down and tap on Recently Deleted
  2. Now, choose Select in the top right hand corner
  3. Next tap Delete All in the bottom left hand corner
  4. Confirm by tapping one more time, Delete _____ Items

Alternative shortcut

If you are using iCloud Photo Library on a Mac as well as your iPhone, you can delete all your photos (from all iCloud connected devices) a bit more quickly. Just open up Photos on your Mac, navigate to Photos found in the top left of the side bar, hit command + A (or click Edit → Select All) and then hit command + delete on your keyboard.

Like on iPhone, you’ll need to go to Recently Deleted on the left side bar and delete from there as well.

For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our how to guide as well as the following articles:


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Avatar for Michael Potuck Michael Potuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.


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