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I’ve deleted photos from my phone but storage remains unchanged

I’ve deleted photos from iPhone but storage volume remains unchanged. Do I need a cleaning app?

Posted on May 24, 2023 5:03 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 24, 2023 5:41 AM

Is the space still taken up by pictures? You can check this under settings → general → storage.

It‘s important to remember that deleted photos are only removed permanently from the device after 30 days. Until then they are only moved to the „Deleted“ Album which you will find at the very bottom of your albums. You will need to delete them again in there for your storage to be freed up before the 30 days have passed. It is a mechanism that is supposed to prevent the average user from deleting and losing pictures accidentally.

You can also try restarting your device after having deleted the pictures and then checking the storage again.


If this doesn‘t help, please post back with more details (iOS Version, do you have iCloud Photos set up, what does the storage breakdown say, …)



In my experience, cleaning apps don‘t do anything useful on iOS, as the system manages itself better without interference from these sorts of apps. Also, they are severely limited in their capabilites due to the secure system design. For regaining storage, try the above steps.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 24, 2023 5:41 AM in response to iLizzieD

Is the space still taken up by pictures? You can check this under settings → general → storage.

It‘s important to remember that deleted photos are only removed permanently from the device after 30 days. Until then they are only moved to the „Deleted“ Album which you will find at the very bottom of your albums. You will need to delete them again in there for your storage to be freed up before the 30 days have passed. It is a mechanism that is supposed to prevent the average user from deleting and losing pictures accidentally.

You can also try restarting your device after having deleted the pictures and then checking the storage again.


If this doesn‘t help, please post back with more details (iOS Version, do you have iCloud Photos set up, what does the storage breakdown say, …)



In my experience, cleaning apps don‘t do anything useful on iOS, as the system manages itself better without interference from these sorts of apps. Also, they are severely limited in their capabilites due to the secure system design. For regaining storage, try the above steps.

I’ve deleted photos from my phone but storage remains unchanged

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