Can not free up storage space after deleting all photo

I did follow all the steps, even tried it more than once, but in the end needed to do a factory reset. Kind of scary as I am not that knowledgeable about computers but after doing this, restoring saved info from iTunes and then doing a restart it all finally worked!! Thank you for your help, it is much appreciated, and also for the quick reply to my query.

The one and ONLY way to recover storage on an iphone is to reset to factory defaults. Back up your

photos and contacts etc. and reset the sucker. None of the other options offered on this forum work.

Save yourself the aggravation and reset!

Back up and reset to factory defaults is fine if you don't mind losing all data on your phone. But most of us would prefer to keep our data on the phone, and not have to manually re-enter it, and re-earn the top scores in our games. If you read this and other threads on the subject, the process I posted works and has been endorsed by dozens of users.

But by all means, if the content of your phone means nothing to you, then restore your phone to factory defaults. BTW, you cannot restore to factory defaults and then restore your backup, because the hidden image files will still be in the backup, and will be restored to the phone, so you have lost an hour or more and gained nothing.

Go to Settings>iCloud>Storage>Manage Storage, then click the first button on top that displays the name of your iPhone, and press delete backup. I had the same problem and iCloud was storing my deleted photos. You can create another backup of your iPhone you just have to delete your old backup.

Lawrence Finch... I have the same question, but it's not photos.. it's a video.. I have deleted all movies & TV shows, but it is showing that I have 1 video and it's taking up allot of space... Do you have any idea's on how to get rid of a video that you can't find anywhere in itune?

Thanks for any help

If it's a video that you took with the iPhone it should be possible to clear it the same way. But if it is one you downloaded that's a different problem. Frequently the only way to clear it is to restore iOS using iTunes.

Thank you Lawrence. I have been struggling with this issue since I purchased my phone and had numerous conversations with Apple support. They all had the standard "backup and restore" recommendation. Your suggestion fixed it and freed up my space. You da man!

Mr. Lawrence - your solution worked for me to free the memory occupied by non existent pictures - Thanks. However i have the exact same problem with the Email files- i have no Emails in the Inbox nor in the Trash or Outbox files, yet the Mail file takes up 1.3 Gb of space. The same method that worked to free the photo memory did not work for the Email memory. Do you know of any solution to this problem ? The "Apple Geniuses" say i need to wipe out everything, reload the operating system and start everything all over- which is not really a good solution, it just means they have no idea what the problem is. Thanks

For email, assuming you have either an IMAP, iCloud or MS Exchange email account, delete the account from the phone. Reboot the phone by holding the HOME and SLEEP buttons at the same time until an Apple logo appears. Before adding the account back check to see if you have recovered the missing space. If you have not you will have to restore the phone and set it up as new. If you have try adding the account back and wait for it to finish syncing. If you lose space again then the messages were not deleted from the server. You will have to delete them from there using the web mail client for the account (if it has one) or a computer email app.

If you have a POP email account and you don't need to keep any of the messages on the phone just delete the account, reboot, check again, and add it back.

In either case if the the space is not recovered before adding the account back you have other memory corruption on the phone.

Thank you very much for this!! It definitely worked.
I still think I should have more space though. If I go back further than 2 years will there be more that needs to be deleted? Or does it not work like that?
Thanks for the help!!

gillian_grayce wrote:

Thank you very much for this!! It definitely worked.
I still think I should have more space though. If I go back further than 2 years will there be more that needs to be deleted? Or does it not work like that?
Thanks for the help

Go to Settings/General/About. That will tell you if you still have photos on your phone. I don't think going back more than 2 years will help unless you have photos taken more than 2 years ago.

I have the same problem with my iPad, i did everything say about change time and delete pictures nothing work, , reset setting all settings, reset internet settings, my iPad still not space, the last thing call apple support iPad , the person told me to do the next thing: i connected iPad to iTunes , back my iPad in the computer . in iTunes in the option in the top restore iPad and update , this process took like 10 minutes after just restore the problem was solved. i hope help others, 🙂🙂

Hi!

Way of Mr Finch has finally worked for me BUT i had to restart my phone while the date was set back, and only then i could see all the photos that i haven't seen before. yuppie i have gigabytes again 😀

It is two step process deleting photos and recovering storage space. Once you select and delete the photos in Photos you have to go back and look for deleted items folder in Photos and select the photos and delete them again. When finished go to Settings/General/Storage and iCloud Usage and select Manage Storage and let the management app do its work. After completion you should see more storage in Available.

Having spent many hours over many weeks (I think, indeed, the last few months) trying to do an act that seems as though it should be stunningly achievable and straightforward - and finding ample evidence that it is not - I'm driven by my appreciation of your comments in this thread, Lawrence Finch, to 1) Officially Sign Up to be a member of this community - though I've little to offer, I'm afraid - so I can 2) pose my question to you. While it's related to this thread (and many, many others), I've not found it put quite this way: If I store all the photos from my iPhone 5 (version 8.3) on iPhoto on my iMac Mini (&/or my MacBook Pro), can I then erase them from my iPhone, confident that they will be retrievable from, at the least, the iPhoto repository? I have iCloud, and am paying some amount monthly (I'm not being coy; I don;'t remember) to be sure that I have more than enough (200 GB) to cover any possibility that I might lose things through inadequate storage. The Preferences box tells me I have 183.88 GB available, so I'm evidently uber-safe in that regard. As well, I have Time Machine cooking away in the background, for what that's worth. But so far, in all my perusal of these community pages, I keep reading tales from many folks - some of them clearly, as e.e. cummings put it, 'braver than me, and blonder than you" - i.e., not lacking it intelligence and technical savvy - who are variously stymied and steamed. I'm happy to eschew indignation -- I just want to tuck my photos away in a manner that is assuredly safe, and not ponderously difficult to update as I take more photos. If I'm out of line posting this question here, I'll submit to whatever scolding is in order -- but dearly hope that I'll be pointed in the right direction, before the door slams behind me. Heartfelt thanks for whatever useful pointers you may have for this 73-yr-old beginner (who has been with Apple since the IIe I bought in, I think, 1983, which is still up in my attic).