I have deleted photos from iphone 6 but the photo library still takes up a lot of space in internal storage. How can I delete photo library from storage on the iphone?

I have the same issue lukefromankeny. I spent 30 minutes with Apple chat today. This is the gist of 'solution' which I haven't done because I can't seem to figure out how to sync to the folder I created. I do however, have my photos all backed up to iPhoto. And because I don't have enough cloud storage space available I always back my phone up to my iMac. Bottom line, even though I have deleted thousands of photos from the camera roll (I have 256 remaining) and recently deleted only has 24 photos, all those images are under "Photos" where you see collections/moments/years. Any suggestions welcome!

I see photos in Collections from years ago. Is the phone counting those in the 3,047? yes, anything that is not in the photos stream folder would be counted for the storage on the phone. So is that my problem? And how do I clear those out? Make sure that you have them all backed up to the computer, then set up iTunes on the computer to sync to an empty folder for photos and that will remove all the photos from the device, and then you can chance the folder to sync with iPhoto or a certain folder of your choice and sync the photos back that you want on the device so basically create a new folder on the computer and set iTunes to sync with that folder for photos and that should remove all the photos from the device, then you can go back and select a folder to sync with if you would like to place the photos back on the device

I can confirm that wbannatyne was right. However, if your "fake photo storage" is greater than 5 GB you will have to pay $.99 to upgrade your storage limit. After you fix the problem you can then call Apple to get a refund on your plan within 15 days. 🙂

Thanks lukefromankeny. My photo storage alone is 6.2GB.I don't mind the $.99 charge to "fix" this, but I'd really like to know if the images under the Photo tab (not Albums) would be considered "fake photo storage" and if there is any way to clear that out. From the Apple note I pasted above it seems they are not fake.

Me & my friend are also experiencing this exact problem. I have deleted all my photos and videos, podcasts, & music from my phone and it is still telling me that I have no space and I am not able to record or take a photo.

What on earth is happening.

This is SO frustrating and the icing on the cake. Thinking of switching phones.

How can I use my phone to record / take images.

Very frustrated right now!

I was having the same issue. Under the "Usage" section in options it was showing that I had over 5gb of information in Photos & Camera. The "About" section showed over 770 photos and 99 videos. I had deleted every photo and video from my camera app, including the recently deleted photos, and all photos under other albums like snapseed etc. I also deleted all of my text messages just to be sure it wasn't seeing the photos there. The problem persisted.

I tried various methods of syncing through iTunes, including syncing my photos to an empty folder. Still, no solution!

What eventually worked is I opened he photos app on my iPhone and deleted every folder, instagram, snapseed, go pro, etc. even though they all showed "0" photos I found that my disk space freed up. I still have 26 unaccounted for photos, but I freed up the vast majority of wasted space.

I hope this works for some of you others having the same issue.

go to your photos, click "all photos", bottom right of screen click "albums", touch "recently deleted", upper right click "select", bottom left click "delete all"

It seems the iPhone stores all of the photos you delete for 30 days in this "recently deleted" album....until you permanently delete them (or 30 days) you don't gain access to the storage you freed up by deleting them

With all respect, the "recently deleted" aspect is just the simple case. I think most readers of this thread have come here out of desperation and have already followed all the web advice on deleting photo's. My iPhone 5 settings / Usage / Storage / Photos & Camera shows Photo Library 3.6 GB and Shared Photo Stream, 4.3 KB. In Settings / About there are 77 Videos and 199 Photos.

There are actually 3 (three) photos in the Library and 0 (zero) videos and Recently Deleted is clean. Photo stream is nearly empty (deleted everything last night) and there are no Shared items. As I have 3 GB of free space in iCloud then the handy trick suggested by wbannatyne doesn't work out. I'll sleep on it and extend my storage plan temporarily tomorrow - thanks a million for the tips.

A good nights sleep will prepare me - unless the current Yosemite performance nightmares wake me up again.

As an Apple user for 25 years, active developer and enthusiastic coach (I've just returned from giving iPhone / iPad training to new Apple customers) I am now seriously worried by the recent Apple system quality aspects that are now impacting my productivity and wasting hours of my time.

Thank you! This helped. I deleted my Instagram & Nike+ folders and it finally reflected a whopping 900MB free (I had only 4 photos in my Camera Roll).

You saved my life. I deleted the empty Instagram folder and suddenly I recovered 6GB to my storage

Originally, I had no photos in my Camera Roll, but the usage stats insisted I had 7.5GB of photos. I mean, I still have 1.5GB of phantom photos somewhere on my iPhone... but getting rid of 6GB made my day.

Update 28feb2015

22 hours later: Yes!! This worked - many, many thanks.

I turned all the iCloud Photo options OFF (stream, sharing). upgraded my iCloud quota and then turned Settings / iCloud / Photos / iCloud Photo Library ON and waited about three hours. Very slowly the number of items uploading decreased from 281 to 3 - there were only 3 actual photos in the Library. On my MacBook I saw 2 photos appear in iCloud.

Available Storage on my iPhone 5 went from 518 MB to 3.7 GB; it can breathe at last: updated about 30 Apps and started taking pictures again. Then adjusted iCloud Storage back down and will claim refund next week (only 99 cents but then it's principle).

So I recently get free 100GB for one drive and uploaded all my phoots and video onto it. Realizing by photos+videos uploaded are only 10GB but in the apple storage it says 34GB......

I have done all the method mentioned except icould....is my issues same as everyone's?

I'm using iPhone6 with latest iOS.

I managed to get rid of the phantom usage. Restoring iPhone and resetting the phone settings/data do not work for me.

I had to move the Date on my phone earlier by 1,2,3 months and found the phantom photos in the Recently Deleted Folder. Next, I deleted the photos manually from the Recently Deleted Folder and the usage got freed up from my iPhone.

Hope this works for you

I tried a bunch of solutions listed in this thread, but to no avail. Then I tried the date change suggestion by txforever, and that did it! I got my space back. What an odd, brilliant solution. Thanks so much for sharing that.

But clearly something is very wrong with the programming in the phone if this is happening to so many people. I've been a Mac user since 1984, and this is definitely not typical of my experience with Apple.

Don't know what made you think of this, but it worked like a charm -- I put my phone into airplane mode first, just to be sure nothing got screwy w/iCloud or other internet service that rely on the date -- then changed the date manually, going backward month by month and deleted about 375 photos and 7 videos from the Recently Deleted album. Usage now properly reflects storage used! Thank you!

i am going to try this, i have been going bananas trying to clear my storage. will write a complaint letter to apple, this is ridiculous.