iTunes continues to display 5+GB of photo data usage after all photos have been deleted

You might also check Messages app, where photo attachments can be hiding. For each thread, tap Details, scroll down to the attachments, long tap (tap-and-hold) one of them, tap More… in the edit menu, then you can choose photos and delete them.

I had the same problem, but my cause was a little different. Sometimes 3rd party apps store photos on the phone without your knowledge. My culprit was the flickr app. Check the photo settings on your apps. For example, for Flickr:

Settings / Privacy / Photos / Flickr

So, I turned it off and back on and the problem was instantly fixed. Yeah!

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Apple, a little more detail on what is taking up space would help a lot!

Exactly what I needed. I had 105 pictures that showed up no where, not in messages, photos, not in iTunes, nowhere. Set the date back and BOOM, 105 photos showed up in my recently deleted folder. Select all, delete, and sync. All better now.

Don't forget to set your date back 🙂

iPhone 6 Plus, having this issue as well. I show about 55,000 photos in general / about, but the albums that I deleted / Unsynced do not show in the Photos app. to Unsync them I had to create a blank directory and sync that through iTunes. But while I can no longer see the photos they are still taking up space. I tried setting the date back to the day that I purchased it, yet nothing shows up in deleted photos. Help, is driving me crazy.

Thank you for comment.

I tried this method several times and it did not work. Do you know by chance if there are other solutions?

Do you if the icloud should on or off for this trick?

My iphone showes 450MG left but I dont have any photos.

THank you, thank you! This was driving me crazy!! I couldnt figure outt why my phone was showing all my data used up when I had deleted all photos and videos. my Iphone 6s is still showing 1.45 GB of photos when I have none in these but ill tale it. Its way better than 7+GB. This worked well.

What I used was:

1.Go to settings

2.Scroll down to iCloud

3.Click on photos

4.Turn off (iCloud Photo Library)

5.Then turn off (iCloud Photo Sharing)

6.Then get out, go to usage/storage in general and be happy.

I have same issue with my iPhone6 and I have tried this solution. After untoggling the date, I still couldn't find anything in deleted items folder to delete . And my space is still being taken up. Any answers pls.

I have an old iphone 4 that was practically bricked by one of Apple's system updates, namely it made it run so hot that the chip for bluetooth and wifi was destroyed, so now I just use it as a dashcam. I can still connect to my PC via USB but one video that was visible on the iphone could not be seen by iTunes (or any of several other programs that are supposed to find hidden files). Your solution enabled me to find the video file and restore it and to delete several other files to free-up storage on the phone, i.e. it helps with restoration as well as deleting "phantom" files. Thanks!

OH just noticed the mystery 2.6GB is ether again...

useless

Happy to help.

This work for me too, thanks

I had to do the same thing to fix my phone -- set the date back by 6 months and deleted photos in the "recently deleted" folder. Worked instantly. Thanks!

I've also tried a complete reboot from backup, and that hasn't worked either. Whatever the problem is must have been saved in the backup itself and just reloaded back on to the iPad.

Thanks! So simple. And it actually worked.