Using iCloud for Your Photos: How to Delete All Photos from an iPhone

Reading Time: 8 minutes read

Holiday snaps, selfies and videos of your cat can quickly fill up your iPhone’s Camera Roll. So if you’re looking to free up storage space for some more artsy photos of your lunch, or simply want a fresh start following a recent backup, here’s how to delete photos from an iPhone. If you’re wondering how to delete all photos from an iPad instead, you can follow the same steps as below.

How to delete individual photos from an iPhone

Need to delete one photo? Here’s how.

1. In the Photos app, open your Camera Roll and select the photo you want to delete.

2. Tap the bin icon.

3. Select Delete Photo. This photo will now be deleted from your Camera Roll. However, it will still be in your Recently Deleted album.

4. To delete the image permanently, navigate to your Recently Deleted album.

5. Tap Select and choose the image you want to delete. The selected photo will be overlayed with a blue check.

6. Tap Delete to remove the image permanently.

How to delete multiple photos from an iPhone

If you’ve whittled one hundred selfies down to just two or three, don’t leave the rejected photos wasting space in your Camera Roll. Deleting images in bulk is simple on the iPhone, here’s how.

1. In the Photos app, open your Camera Roll and tap Select.

2. Tap the photos you want to delete. Selected photos will be overlayed with a blue check.

3. Tap the bin icon.

4. Select Delete Photos. These photos will now be deleted from your Camera Roll. However, they will still be in your Recently Deleted album.

5. To delete the images permanently, navigate to your Recently Deleted album.

6. Tap Select and choose the images you want to delete. Selected photos will be overlayed with a blue check.

7. Tap Delete to remove the images permanently.

How to delete all photos from an iPhone

If you’re ready for a fresh start and want to delete all the photos from your iPhone, that’s simple too. Here’s how.

1. In the Photos app, open your Camera Roll.

2. Tap Select.

3. Tap and drag your finger from the most recent photo to the top of the screen and hold.

4. Blue checks will appear over your images as you scroll to the top.

5. Hold your finger in the top corner until all photos and videos are selected.

6. Tap the bin icon.

7. Select Delete Items. These photos will now be deleted from your Camera Roll. However, they will still be in your Recently Deleted album.

8. To delete the images permanently, navigate to your Recently Deleted album.

9. Tap Select and choose the images you want to delete. Selected photos will be overlayed with a blue check.

10. Tap Delete to remove the images permanently.

Delete all photos from your iPhone using a Mac

If you have a Mac, you may wish to delete items on your iPhone from your desktop instead. All changes made on your Mac will be mirrored across devices as long as you’re signed in to iCloud. Here’s how.

1. Open the Photos app on your Mac.

2. Click on any photo, then press cmd/⌘ + A together to select all photos.

3. Hit backspace to remove these images from your Camera Roll. However, they will still be in your Recently Deleted album.

4. To permanently delete them, navigate to your Recently Deleted album.

5. Click on any photo, then press cmd/⌘ + A together to select all photos.

6. Hit backspace to permanently delete your images.

How to get photos back from Recently Deleted

If you want to restore your deleted images and it’s been less than 30 days since you removed them, you can easily restore them from your Recently Deleted folder. Here’s how.

1. Open the Photos app and navigate to your Recently Deleted album.

2. Tap Select.

3. Tap the images you’d like to restore.

4. Tap Restore. These images will now be restored to your Camera Roll.

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