Screenshots are usually the largest count in a photo library and the lowest long-term value. A receipt you needed for an hour, a map you already walked, a conversation you screenshotted to send to someone in 2023. They also sit at full screen resolution, so a few thousand of them is real space.
Find them all in one place
iOS keeps a media-type album for them, which most people never open:
- Open Photos → Albums.
- Scroll to Media Types.
- Tap Screenshots.
Everything in there is a screenshot, in chronological order. That ordering matters: the oldest ones are almost always the most disposable, so start at the top.
Select hundreds without tapping hundreds of times
This is the part worth knowing. In any album, tap Select, then touch one thumbnail and drag — across and down. Everything your finger passes over is selected. Keep dragging to the bottom edge and the grid scrolls while you hold, so you can sweep through hundreds in one gesture. Then tap the trash icon once.
If you overshoot, drag back over the same thumbnails to deselect them. There is no undo after the delete confirmation, but the photos land in Recently Deleted, so a mistake is recoverable for 30 days.
Check for these before you sweep
A few kinds of screenshot are worth keeping, and they are easy to lose in a bulk delete:
- Two-factor recovery codes and account backup keys.
- Tickets and boarding passes for trips that have not happened yet.
- Receipts and order confirmations you may need for a return or expenses.
- Anything with a serial number — warranty screenshots, licence keys.
A quick scroll before you start is enough to spot them; most of these are recent, so they cluster at the bottom of the album.
Then empty Recently Deleted
Deleting does not free the space by itself. Photos stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, still counted against your storage. Go to Albums → Recently Deleted under Utilities, unlock, then Select → Delete All. There is more on this in our guide to what actually takes up your storage.
Where Flick fits
The drag gesture is fine when you are confident every screenshot in a stretch is junk. It gets slow when you have to look at each one, because the grid shows them too small to read. Flick puts screenshots in their own group and shows them one at a time at full size, so deciding is a glance rather than a squint — swipe right to keep, left to stage. Nothing is deleted until you confirm a batch.
Flick is free to try on the App Store — one-time purchase, no subscription.