I deleted all photos from my iPhone to free up storage, but the available space hasn’t changed. I also checked the Photos app and expected the storage to drop right away. Is there something else I need to clear, like Recently Deleted, iCloud Photos, or cached system data?
Yeah, this is maddening. I had almost the same thing happen on my 14 Pro. I deleted a huge chunk of stuff, something like 2,000 photos and a bunch of long videos, then checked storage and it looked like nothing changed. Felt like the phone was just ignoring everything I’d done.
The first place I’d check is Recently Deleted in the Photos app. Deleting photos and videos doesn’t actually free the space right away. iOS keeps them there for 30 days unless you manually clear that folder. Go to Photos, then Albums, scroll down to Recently Deleted, and hit Delete All. If those videos are still sitting there, they’re still taking up the same storage.
After that, restart the phone. Not just close apps, actually power it off, wait a bit, and turn it back on. The iPhone Storage screen in Settings can be slow and weird about updating. I’ve had it keep showing “full” until after a hard restart, sometimes even after doing it twice.
Also check whether you have “Optimize iPhone Storage” turned on for iCloud Photos. If that’s enabled, your phone may only be storing smaller local versions while the full-size photos are in iCloud. So deleting a bunch of photos may not free as much local space as you expect, especially if they were mostly thumbnails or low-res copies.
When my phone was stuck around 99% full, it started acting awful. Apps opened slowly, swipes lagged, and it even restarted on its own a couple times. iOS needs some free space for temporary files, so once the storage is basically maxed out, the whole phone can feel broken.
The built-in storage screen didn’t help me much because it mostly showed broad categories. What finally helped was finding the actual giant files. I used Clever Cleaner. I’m usually skeptical of cleaner apps because a lot of them are ad-heavy or push subscriptions, but this one was free, with no ads or paywall.
The useful part for me was the “Heavies” section. It sorts your photo library by file size, largest first. That’s how I found a few huge 4K screen recordings I’d completely forgotten about. There’s also a “Similars” section that groups near-duplicate photos and lets you keep the best one while deleting the extras.
I also liked that it processes the photos on the phone instead of uploading them somewhere. After clearing out the massive videos and a pile of duplicate screenshots, I got about 15GB back and the phone stopped feeling so sluggish.
If none of that fixes it, look at System Data. That used to be called Other, and it can get bloated from app caches, Safari data, TikTok, Instagram, and similar apps. Clearing Safari history/cache can help. For social apps, offloading or deleting and reinstalling them can sometimes free up a surprising amount of space.
And if the storage still refuses to drop, you might be dealing with ghost files. At that point, the annoying but effective fix is backing everything up, doing Erase All Content and Settings, then restoring from the backup. I’d save that for last, though.
Start with Recently Deleted, restart the phone, then look for huge files with the cleaner app. There’s a good chance one or two forgotten videos are eating way more space than you’d expect.
If iCloud Photos is turned on, deleting from the phone is not always the same as clearing local storage immediately. The phone may still be syncing the delete, keeping items in Recently Deleted, or holding cached photo data until iOS has had time and free space to clean it up. I agree with clearing Recently Deleted first, but I would leave the phone plugged in on Wi-Fi for a while after that before judging the Storage screen. It can be slow to recalculate, especially if the phone was nearly full. If storage still does not move after a restart, check Settings > General > iPhone Storage for Messages attachments and app caches, because those often get blamed on Photos when they are really the space hogs.
A phone where the photos were stored as full local files is a different case from a phone where iCloud Photos had already replaced most of them with optimized copies. In the second case, deleting “everything” can look like it did almost nothing because there wasn’t much full-size photo data on the device to begin with. That’s why the Photos number and the free-space number don’t always move together.
I agree with clearing Recently Deleted, but I’d be careful about assuming Photos is still the culprit after that. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage and tap Photos, not just the colored bar at the top. If Photos is small there, then the missing space is probably somewhere else: Messages, downloaded music/podcasts, offline maps, Safari data, or System Data. The top bar can lag, but the per-app list usually gives a better clue.
Clever Cleaner or any similar photo tool can help find giant videos and duplicates, but it won’t free space that iOS is holding as purgeable cache or System Data. After emptying Recently Deleted, leave the phone charging for a bit, restart it, then check the per-app storage list. If Photos is still huge after all that, then something is stuck. If Photos is not huge, chasing the photo library will just waste time.
Don’t start erasing random apps or turning iCloud Photos off yet, because if sync is enabled you can make the photo situation messier across all your devices. Check iCloud Photos status first, empty Recently Deleted, then give iPhone Storage time to recalculate before assuming the space is gone forever.