“How to Remove Screenshots from Your iPhone”

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How Do You Remove a Screenshot From Your iPhone?

By default, screenshots appear in the Photos app immediately after you take them. iOS even organizes them automatically in a Screenshots album under Media Types, so you can usually find them all in one place.

However, if you tapped the thumbnail right after taking the screenshot and saved it somewhere else — like Files or Notes — it won’t appear in your photo library, so you’ll need to delete it from that location instead.

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.

   

Unlike your main photo library, the Screenshots album lets you Select All — perfect if you want to delete every screenshot at once. Just tap Select in the top-right corner, then Select All in the top-left. Once everything is highlighted, tap the trash icon and confirm.

If you’re hunting for a single screenshot, it can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack among thousands of photos. Here’s a trick: use the search bar in the Photos app. It’s surprisingly effective. Type keywords like “Screenshot,” “Screenshot 2025,” or “Screenshot January” to narrow your results quickly. You can even get creative — if it was a shopping list, try searching for items like “eggs” or “milk” that appear in the screenshot. This simple step has saved us countless times.

Now, here’s the part some people miss: that screenshot isn’t completely gone yet. It quietly moves to the Recently Deleted album, where it stays for up to 30 days. To remove it permanently and free up space immediately, go into Recently Deleted, select the screenshot again, and tap Delete.

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How to Delete All Screenshots on iPhone

For most people, the steps above are enough. But if you want to take things further, there are a few additional methods worth knowing.

Some screenshots might bypass your main photo library entirely and end up in Files or even inside Notes. Plus, if you want to delete every screenshot at once, certain third-party apps can automate the process. Unlike the Photos app, these apps can also help tidy up your entire photo library, not just screenshots.

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Method 1: Delete All Screenshots Using a Third-Party App

The reason we mention third-party iPhone cleaner apps is simple: most people cleaning up screenshots are really trying to organize their entire photo library, not just a few stray images.

Many apps can delete screenshots in a single tap, essentially replicating the Photos app method. But they usually come with extra tools that automatically organize your library and clean up clutter.

If your screenshot mess is part of a bigger photo problem, this approach is often smarter. Among the iPhone cleaners we’ve tested — including Clever Cleaner: AI CleanUp App, Cleaner Kit, and Cleanup: Phone Storage — Clever Cleaner stands out. It’s fast, accurate, and completely free. Unlike most apps today, it has no in-app purchases or ads, which is rare.

You can read our full review of Clever Cleaner here.

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 example, we cleared around 500 screenshots and freed up 680 MB — and that’s after a recent cleanup. If you’ve got years’ worth of random screengrabs piling up, you could easily reclaim gigabytes of storage, not just a few hundred megabytes.

While you’re at it, if your goal is to tidy up your entire photo library, don’t overlook the other helpful features inside Clever Cleaner:

• First up, there’s the Similars tab. This one’s powered by AI, and it doesn’t stop at catching exact duplicates — it also finds similar-looking photos. Think of those five nearly identical shots you took trying to get the perfect angle. The Photos app only spots exact matches, but Clever Cleaner lets you review or automatically remove all the extras. Way more helpful than you’d expect.

• Then you’ve got the Heavies tab (we love the name). It sorts your photos and videos from largest to smallest, so you can quickly spot the space hogs. If you’ve ever tried doing this in the Photos app, you already know there’s no built-in way to sort by file size. This feature alone has saved us gigabytes.

• Lastly, there’s Lives. This tool helps you convert Live Photos into regular still shots by removing the short video portion. It’s a smart space-saving trick without sacrificing how the photo looks in your gallery.

Method 2: Clear Screenshots From the Files App on iPhone

This method often flies under the radar, but it’s worth covering. Not every screenshot lands in the Photos app — sometimes you might save one directly to the Files app without even realizing it. 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 often accidentally trigger screenshots with the classic Side Button + Volume Up combo — capturing your lock screen, random apps, or even your home screen at 2% battery — you might wonder: can I turn this off?

Unfortunately, no. As of now, Apple doesn’t provide an option to fully disable screenshots. We’ve checked, and it simply isn’t available.

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Final Words

That’s pretty much everything you need to know. Whether you’re deleting a single screenshot or wiping out thousands, these methods get the job done quickly and efficiently.

Some rare cases can be tricky. For example, users have reported situations like:

“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 notice screenshots hiding in Photos, Events, or Photo Stream with no obvious delete option. These cases usually stem from syncing issues. While it’s uncommon with screenshots, photos synced or imported via iTunes, Finder, or other devices can sometimes be “locked” in place.

Good news: we’ve already created a detailed guide for this situation. Check out How to Delete Synced Photos & Other Media From iPhone if you encounter “undeletable” files.

There are no unsolvable cases. If you still have questions, visit our FAQ, or contact us directly. We genuinely love feedback — hearing about real-world problems helps us make these guides even better.