You’ve probably been there. You open your Photos app, glance at that number at the bottom—maybe it’s 14,000, maybe it’s 40,000—and you feel a physical weight in your chest. Digital hoarding is real. We take bursts of ten photos to get one good shot of a sunset, we screenshot memes we never look at again, and suddenly, your iCloud is screaming for more money every month.
Learning how to delete photos on iPhone all at once isn't just about saving five bucks a month on storage. Honestly, it’s about reclaiming your digital life.
But here is the thing: Apple doesn't make a giant "Delete Everything" button easy to find. Why would they? They want you to stay in the ecosystem. However, if you know where to tap, you can wipe thousands of images in roughly thirty seconds. It’s faster than you think.
The Select-and-Drag trick most people miss
Most users think they have to tap every single photo individually. If you have 5,000 photos, that’s a repetitive strain injury waiting to happen. You don't have to do that.
Open your Photos app and go to the All Photos tab. Tap "Select" in the top right corner. Now, here is the secret sauce: tap one photo, but don’t let go. Immediately slide your finger across to the next photo and then straight up toward the top of the screen. The app will start auto-scrolling, selecting every single row of photos as it flies past. Keep your finger held near the clock at the top of the screen to speed it up.
It feels a bit like winning at a slot machine. You’ll see the blue checkmarks rack up by the hundreds. Once you’ve reached the top, just hit that trash can icon. Done.
Why your iPhone might feel "laggy" during this
If you are nuking 10,000 photos at once, your phone might hang for a second. That's normal. The processor is busy updating the database and communicating with iCloud servers. Give it a minute. Don't force restart the phone or you might end up with a corrupted library where some thumbnails exist but the data is gone.
How to delete photos on iPhone all at once by clearing entire months
Sometimes you don't want to delete everything, but you know that 2022 was a year of bad decisions and blurry concert footage. You can delete by timeline.
Navigate to the Library tab and select "Days" or "Months." You’ll see your life categorized into neat little blocks. If you see a month that's just 400 photos of your ex or a vacation you’d rather forget, tap the three dots (...) in the corner of that collection. You can often select the entire range.
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Actually, a better way is using the Search function. Type in "Screenshots." Apple's AI is terrifyingly good at categorizing things. It will pull up every single screenshot you’ve ever taken. Tap "See All," then "Select," and use the drag-and-slide method mentioned above. You can do the same for "Receipts" or even "Whiteboards." Getting rid of the utility clutter usually clears about 30% of a library without even touching a single "real" memory.
Dealing with the iCloud "Ghost" storage
Here is a nuance that trips people up: deleting photos on your iPhone doesn't always immediately free up space.
When you delete a photo, it goes to the Recently Deleted album. It stays there for 30 days. It's a safety net. If you are trying to how to delete photos on iPhone all at once because your phone is literally out of storage and won't take a new picture, you have to go the extra step.
- Scroll down to "Utilities" in the Albums tab.
- Tap "Recently Deleted."
- Use FaceID to get in.
- Tap "Select" and then "Delete All" at the bottom.
Warning: This is the point of no return. Unless you have a secondary backup on a Mac or a PC, those files are vaporized.
The "Optimize Storage" Trap
Many people think deleting photos will fix their "Phone Storage Full" error, but if you have "Optimize iPhone Storage" turned on in Settings > Photos, your phone isn't actually holding the full-resolution files anyway. It's just holding tiny thumbnails. In this case, deleting 1,000 photos might only free up a few megabytes. To really see a difference, you'd have to manage the iCloud side of things, which is a different beast entirely.
Using a Mac to do the heavy lifting
If you have a MacBook or an iMac, please stop squinting at your phone. Use the Photos app on macOS.
Connect your iCloud account. Once everything syncs, click on one photo, hit Command + A (the universal shortcut for "Select All"), and hit Delete. It is infinitely more satisfying to watch 50GB of data vanish with one keystroke than it is to swipe your thumb until it gets warm.
Plus, the Mac version allows for better "Smart Albums." You can create a filter for "Photos taken with iPhone 6" or "Photos with a resolution lower than 1000px." This lets you target the low-quality junk from ten years ago while keeping the high-res memories of today.
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Third-party apps: Are they worth the risk?
You’ve seen the ads for apps like Gemini, CleanMyPhone, or Slidebox. They promise to find duplicates and help you sweep through your library.
Are they safe? Generally, yes, if they are well-reviewed. Slidebox is actually pretty fun—it turns your photo library into a Tinder-style interface where you swipe up to trash and side-to-side to keep. It makes the chore of how to delete photos on iPhone all at once feel more like a game.
However, be wary of any app that asks for a "Full Access" permission and then tries to charge a $10/week subscription. That’s predatory. Apple’s built-in "Duplicates" folder (found at the bottom of the Albums tab) now does what most of those paid apps used to do for free. Before you download anything, check that Duplicates folder. Apple will show you two identical shots, tell you the file size of both, and offer a "Merge" button that keeps the highest quality version and tosses the junk.
What happens to your shared albums?
If you are part of a Shared Album with family or friends, deleting the photos from your personal library usually doesn't remove them from the Shared Album—unless you were the one who uploaded them and you delete them from the Shared Album specifically.
It’s a common fear. "If I wipe my phone, will Grandma lose the pictures of the kids?" No. Shared Albums live in a separate "pot" of storage that doesn't actually count against your personal iCloud limit (mostly).
The "Nuclear Option" via Settings
If you truly want to start from zero—like, "I want this phone to behave as if a camera has never existed"—there is a way through Settings, but it's risky.
You can go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Manage Account Storage > Photos. There is an option there to "Disable and Delete."
Do not click this lightly. This tells Apple you want to stop using iCloud Photos entirely and delete everything stored in the cloud. They give you 30 days to download your library before they wipe the servers. This is the fastest way to clear your cloud storage, but it is the "nuclear option" for a reason. If you don't have a hard drive backup, you are losing everything.
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Actionable Next Steps for a Cleaner iPhone
If you’re ready to actually do this, don't just dive in blindly. Follow this sequence to ensure you don't regret it later:
- Run a Backup First: Plug your phone into a computer and do a manual backup through Finder or iTunes. Or, use a service like Google Photos as a secondary "fail-safe" before you start deleting from the primary Apple library.
- Target the "Big" Files First: Go to Photos > Search and type "Videos." Videos take up 10x more space than photos. Deleting ten bad videos is more effective than deleting 100 photos.
- Use the Duplicates Tool: Scroll to the bottom of your Albums page to "Utilities" and merge everything in the Duplicates folder. It’s the easiest win you’ll get.
- The "One-Year Rule": If you’re hesitant to delete, use the search bar to look at photos from 5+ years ago. If you haven't looked at that picture of a sandwich from 2018 in the last five years, you never will. Let it go.
- Empty the Trash: Remember that nothing is truly deleted until you go into the "Recently Deleted" folder and hit "Delete All." Until then, your storage remains full.
The goal isn't to have zero photos. The goal is to have a library where every photo actually means something. Start with the screenshots—they’re the easiest to kill. Once you see that storage bar turn from red to green, you’ll feel the relief.