How to Delete Screenshots on iPhone

Need to delete a couple of screenshots from your library? Or maybe wipe out the whole album because, let’s be honest, screenshots have the shortest shelf life of anything on your iPhone. They’re not like vacation clips or your dog’s best selfie.

If you’re ready to clean house—or at least make some room—we’ve pulled together everything you might want (or need) to know. These are the exact steps, tricks, and apps we use ourselves. Let’s not waste time — let’s jump in.

How Do You Remove a Screenshot From Your iPhone?

Screenshots usually land in the Photos app right after you take them. iOS even does the organizing for you — it has a dedicated Screenshots album under Media Types. So, most of the time, you’ll find them grouped and waiting in there. But keep in mind: if you tapped that little thumbnail after taking the shot and chose to save it elsewhere (like Files or Notes), it might not show up in your photo library.

Let’s start simple. For 99% of people, screenshots go straight into the Photos app — so that’s where we’ll start.

Say you only want to get rid of some random screenshot — maybe an old Wi-Fi password, a shopping list, or a meme that wasn’t as funny as you thought.

Here’s how:

1. Open the Photos app.
2. Scroll down to Media Types, and tap Screenshots.
3. Find the one you want to delete.
4. Tap it, and hit Delete. Done.

If you’re struggling to locate that one screenshot — it’s no surprise. Digging through thousands of photos feels like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Here’s a trick we use all the time: use Apple’s search bar inside the Photos app. It’s surprisingly good. Type in keywords like “Screenshot”, “Screenshot 2025”, or “Screenshot January” and you’ll instantly narrow it down. You can even get clever with it — if it was a shopping list, try searching for words like “eggs”, “milk”, or anything that might have appeared in the screenshot itself. This little move has saved us more times than we can count.

Now, here’s the part some people miss. That screenshot isn’t fully gone yet. It quietly moves to the Recently Deleted album and hangs out there for up to 30 days. If you want it gone for good (and free up space right away), go into Recently Deleted, select it again, and hit Delete.

How to Delete All Screenshots on iPhone

While that’s enough for most people, we’ve got a couple more methods worth showing.

We already mentioned that some screenshots might skip your main photo gallery and end up in the Files app or even inside a Note. We’ll cover that. And if you want to delete every screenshot in one shot, there are third-party apps that can do it automatically. So, what’s the advantage over the Photos app? Simply put, iOS cleaners can do more than just that—they can also tidy up the rest of your photo clutter.

Let’s start with those.

Method 1: Get Rid of All Screenshots on iPhone Using Third-Party App

The reason we’re bringing up third-party iPhone cleaner apps is simple: in our experience, most people who start looking into screenshot cleanup are really trying to clean up their entire photo library — not just a few stray images.

And while many apps can wipe screenshots with a single tap (basically replicating what we just showed using the Photos app), they usually come with extra tools that help organize libraries automatically.

So if your screenshot clutter is just part of a bigger photo mess, this might be the smarter route. Out of the iPhone cleaners that can delete screenshots from your library, tools like Clever Cleaner: AI CleanUp App, Cleaner Kit, or Cleanup: Phone Storage all get the job done. We’ve tested them all — and if we had to pick the best, both for screenshot cleanup and just general cleaning, Clever Cleaner takes the top spot. It’s super fast, accurate, and — get this — 100% free. Unlike other apps we tried, this one doesn’t even have in-app purchases or ads (sadly, that’s become a rarity these days.)

How to use Clever Cleaner to delete screenshots on an iPhone:

1. Download Clever Cleaner from the App Store.
2. Once it’s installed, open it up and give it the necessary permissions to scan your photo library. The app is completely safe to use. The developer, CleverFiles, is a trustworthy U.S. company that’s been around for over a decade. And as the official Clever Cleaner cleaning app site clearly states, it “does all the processing locally on your device… no photos or personal data get uploaded to the cloud.” We like that — everything stays on your iPhone.
3. Tap on Screenshots at the bottom, and you’ll see a full list of all your screenshots — each one with its file size shown right on the thumbnail.
4. You’ll see a button that says Move All to Trash. Tap it. Give it a couple of seconds, and the app will show you a full list of screenshots ready for deletion.
5. If you spot something you want to keep, no worries — you can tap Restore on any of them.
6. Once you’re sure, use Slide to Delete and confirm the deletion one more time. The app will remind you about the Recently Deleted folder, and that’s it.

As you can see in our screenshot, we cleared out around 500 images and freed up 680 MB — and keep in mind, we had already done a cleanup not that long ago. So, if you’ve got years’ worth of random screengrabs piling up, you could easily free up gigabytes, not just a few hundred megabytes.

Method 2: Clear Screenshots From the Files App on the iPhone

This one flies under the radar for most people, but we want to cover these to be thorough. Like we already mentioned, not every screenshot ends up in the Photos app. Sometimes, without even realizing it, you save one directly into the Files app. We’ve done it ourselves — usually while multitasking.

To delete screenshots from the Files app: 

1. Open Files, head to the folder where you usually save things (like Downloads in On My iPhone), and scroll through.
2. If you don’t remember where it went, use the search bar at the top and type “screenshot”, or keywords related to the date or even the time when the screenshot was taken.
3. Once you spot them, tap the three-dot menu, then hit Select.
4. Choose the screenshots you want to get rid of, and delete them like you would any regular file. Simple as that.

And just so you know, the Files app, just like Photos, has its own Recently Deleted section. It works the same way — anything you delete stays there for a while. We won’t repeat ourselves, but make sure to clear it out if you want that space back right away.

Method 3: Don’t Forget About Screenshots Saved to Notes

And last, the most obscure one — Notes. This slips past a lot of people.

Just like with the Files app, iOS gives you the option to save a screenshot directly into a Note. Here’s how to find and delete those screenshots:

1. Open the Notes app.
2. Look through your recent notes or folders where you usually save things.
3. Not sure where to look? Use the search bar at the top — type screenshot, image, or even something that might’ve been in the shot.
4. Once you find it, tap and hold on the image.
   Select Delete, and you’re good.

Can I Turn Off Screenshots on My iPhone?

If you’re like us and often mash buttons (classic Side Button + Volume Up combo) on your phone and end up with accidental screenshots of your lock screen, random apps, or your home screen at 2% battery, you’ve probably wondered — can I turn this off? Sadly, no.

As of now, Apple doesn’t give you an option to fully disable screenshots. We’ve checked, we’ve hoped, but the option isn’t there.

Final Words

That should pretty much cover it. Whether you’re clearing a single screenshot from iPhone or wiping out thousands, these methods will get the job done — fast and without unnecessary headaches.

That said, if you’ve run into stubborn cases like this person:

“I have some pictures that cannot be deleted from the Screenshots album. The specific photos I want to delete are quite old and were taken on my previous device (iPhone 4s). When I tap on the photo, the delete button is not available.”

Or others who’ve noticed their screenshots hiding in Photos and Events or Photo Stream without an obvious delete option. We’ve seen similar cases pop up on Apple’s forums over the years.

It’s often syncing troubles. While it’s rare with screenshots, it can happen — especially if you often sync or import photos between your iPhone, Mac, Windows PC, or other devices. Old iTunes syncs or even Finder transfers on macOS can lock those images in place.

Good news though — we already have a separate, step-by-step guide for this exact situation. Check out our full tutorial on How to Delete Synced Photos & Other Media From iPhone if you’re stuck with those “undeletable” files.

There are no unsolvable cases. If you still have questions or if something’s still giving you trouble, check out our FAQ section right after this. Or better yet, contact us directly. We actually love feedback. Seriously, hearing about real problems from readers helps us make these guides even better.