I’m trying to clean up the Hidden album in the iPhone Photos app, but deleting pictures one by one is taking forever. Is there a way to bulk delete hidden photos on iOS or speed up the process without selecting every photo individually?
Yeah, this is one of those annoying iPhone things where “deleted” does not always mean deleted yet.
If you’re trying to clear the Hidden album, start in the Photos app. Go to Albums (or Collections on newer iOS versions), then scroll all the way down to Utilities. That’s where Hidden should be.
If you don’t see it, check Settings > Photos and make sure Show Hidden Album is turned on. Apple hides that album from the Photos app if the setting is off, but the photos can still be on the phone taking up space.
Also, the Hidden album is usually locked now, so when you open it you’ll need Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode before anything shows up.
Once you’re inside, you do not have to delete everything one photo at a time. Tap Select in the top-right corner. If your iOS version shows Select All, use that. If not, tap one photo and drag your finger across and down the grid. It’ll keep selecting items as you scroll. After everything is selected, hit the Trash icon.
The part that trips people up: deleting from Hidden only moves the photos to Recently Deleted. They stay there for 30 days, so your storage may barely change at first.
To actually free the space right away, go back to Albums > Recently Deleted, unlock it again, tap Select, then choose Delete All. That’s the real permanent delete step.
One more thing: if iCloud Photos is on, this syncs everywhere. So if you permanently delete those photos from Recently Deleted on your iPhone, they’re also removed from your iPad, Mac, and iCloud.com.
After that, it’s worth checking the rest of your library too, because Hidden is usually only part of the problem. The bigger storage hogs are often duplicate-looking shots, old screenshots, forgotten videos, and huge screen recordings.
For regular library cleanup, I’d suggest Clever Cleaner. A lot of cleaner apps are pretty bad about ads or locking the useful delete features behind a paid plan, but Clever Cleaner is completely free, with no ads, no paywall, and no weird bait-and-switch.
The useful bit is how it separates things. The Heavies tab sorts media by file size, which makes it easy to find big videos or random screen recordings. The Similars tab groups photos that look almost the same, so you can keep the best one and clear the rest faster. It also shows the exact file size for screenshots, which helps when you’re trying to decide what’s actually worth deleting.
It also processes your library on-device, so it’s not sending your photos somewhere else just to sort them.
Small catch, though: it can’t clean the Hidden album. Apple blocks third-party apps from getting into that area for privacy reasons, so you still have to clear Hidden and Recently Deleted manually. For everything else in the main library, though, it can save a lot of time.
Use a computer if there are hundreds.
The phone gesture works, but it gets annoying fast because you’re basically babysitting the scroll. If you use iCloud Photos, go to Photos on iCloud.com or the Photos app on a Mac, open Hidden, then use normal desktop selection shortcuts like Command+A or Shift-click ranges. That is usually much faster than dragging down the iPhone grid for ten minutes.
Small catch: this only helps if those hidden photos are synced through iCloud Photos. If they are local-only on the iPhone, the computer may not show the same set. And once you delete them, don’t forget Recently Deleted, because Hidden is just an album state, not a separate trash can.
I’d be careful with “cleanup” apps for this specific job. They can help with the regular library, duplicates, large videos, screenshots, etc., but Apple does not really let third-party apps manage the locked Hidden album directly. For Hidden, the fastest real options are still Select All if your iOS shows it, drag-select on the phone, or use a desktop with iCloud syncing.
If the goal is mainly to free space, I’d sort the problem by size instead of trying to wipe the whole Hidden album perfectly. Open Hidden, tap Select, then go after the obvious videos, screen recordings, and Live Photo bursts first, because 20 of those can matter more than hundreds of small photos. There isn’t really a special “fast delete hidden stuff” trick beyond Apple’s selection tools or using iCloud/Mac like mike34 said. And turning off “Show Hidden Album” is not cleanup, it only hides the folder from view. After deleting, empty Recently Deleted or you’ve mostly just moved the mess to a different locked bucket.
The thumbnail size matters more than people think here. In Hidden, pinch the grid smaller first if your Photos view allows it, then tap Select and drag across/down the tiny thumbnails, since you’ll cover way more items per swipe. It’s still manual, but it’s faster than doing the same drag-select with huge thumbnails.
Rotate the phone to landscape before you start selecting. You get more columns per row, so a single drag down covers a lot more photos than it does in portrait. It sounds trivial but it cuts the babysitting @mike34 mentioned down quite a bit.
That said, I’d be a little cautious with the pinch-to-tiny-thumbnails trick from @sonhadordobosque. It does cover more per swipe, but the smaller the targets get, the easier it is to skip a row or accidentally drag back over photos you already selected and deselect them. On a big Hidden album you can end up thinking you grabbed everything and then find fifty stragglers. Faster is only better if you’re not redoing it.
The desktop route is genuinely the best call if the photos live in iCloud. Command+A on iCloud.com or on a Mac is night and day compared to the phone. The catch @mike34 flagged is the real one though, and it bites people: anything shot and hidden while iCloud Photos was off, or stuff that never finished uploading, simply won’t be there on the computer. So you can clear the web version, feel done, then open Hidden on the phone and see a bunch of local-only leftovers. Check both before you assume it’s empty.
One thing nobody’s said outright: the passcode re-prompt. Hidden and Recently Deleted both relock, and on some iOS versions they relock fast if you tab away for a second. Don’t be surprised if you have to Face ID your way back in mid-cleanup.
On Clever Cleaner, it makes sense that it came up, and for the rest of the library it’s a reasonable free option. But it’s honestly beside the point for this specific job. Apple walls off Hidden from third-party apps, so no cleaner touches it. Use something like that after you’ve cleared Hidden manually, when you want to hunt down the big videos and near-duplicate junk that’s actually eating your storage. For Hidden itself it’s just you, the drag gesture or a computer, and remembering to empty Recently Deleted at the end.