How to clean up screenshots, screen recordings and memes from your camera roll
Summary. Your camera roll collects more than photos you took: screenshots, screen recordings and images saved from chats. They are easy to clear because most were useful for a day, but they hide in different places. Screenshots and screen recordings have their own albums. Memes do not, so they take a little more effort.
Key takeaways
- Photos has separate albums for Screenshots and Screen Recordings, under Media Types.
- Screen recordings are videos, so a few of them can outweigh thousands of screenshots.
- Saved memes mix into Recents with real photos. Check how apps save things, and the pile stops growing.
- Save anything you still need somewhere better before you delete.
Where each kind of clutter lives
Open Photos, tap Albums and scroll to Media Types. You will usually find these albums:
- Screenshots holds every screen you captured.
- Screen Recordings appears once you have made a recording, with Control Center or a shortcut.
- Videos holds all your videos, recordings included.
Memes and other images saved from apps have no album of their own. They land in Recents between your own photos, so finding them takes a different approach, covered below.
Step 1: Screen recordings, because they are the biggest
A screen recording is a video, and video is heavier than a still. A one-minute recording of a bug, a game or a tutorial can take more room than a lot of screenshots. They are also the easiest items to forget.
Open Albums, Media Types, Screen Recordings, and tap Select. Photos does not let you sort by size, so the thumbnails with long durations are a good guide to start with. Play the ones you are unsure about, and ask: did I send it already, and do I need to watch it again? If the answer is no and no, delete it.
Step 2: Screenshots
Open the Screenshots album, tap Select, and drag a finger across the thumbnails to select many at once. Before you tap the trash button, skim for the ones you still need: tickets, receipts with an order number, codes, addresses, a recipe. Move those to Wallet, Contacts or Notes, or mark them as favorites. The full routine is in how to delete screenshots on iPhone in bulk.
Step 3: Memes and saved images
This is the part Photos does not help with. A meme you saved from a chat looks like any other picture in Recents. A few ways to find them:
- Scroll Recents in the period when you were most active in a group chat, and look for runs of non-photos.
- Try Photos search. It can sometimes find pictures by words inside them, so a word that appears in a joke may bring up the image.
- Open the info panel (the “i” button, or swipe up). A photo you took usually lists camera details. A picture with none of them often came from somewhere else, though this is a hint, not a rule.
Delete in small batches and look at each batch first. A saved image can be the only copy of something.
Step 4: Stop the pile growing
Cleaning once is easy. Keeping it clean is better.
- Many messaging apps have a setting that saves received media to your photo library automatically. WhatsApp, for example, has one under Chats. Turning it off means images stay in the chat, not in Photos.
- After a screenshot, tap the thumbnail in the corner. The options include saving it to Files or deleting it, and a Copy and Delete choice that puts it on the clipboard without saving it.
- For recordings, delete or trim them once you have shared them.
What Poofora does here, and what it does not
Poofora is a photo cleaner for iPhone. It finds your screenshots and lists them in one place, and it shows your largest videos first, which is where a screen recording usually turns up. You mark what you want gone and nothing is deleted until you confirm.
Two optional tools make screenshots easier. If you tap “Read my screenshots,” Poofora reads their text on your iPhone and sorts them into groups such as receipts, tickets and recipes. Searching across all your screenshots is part of Poofora Premium. Poofora can also save a smaller copy of a screenshot and keep the original until you confirm deleting it.
It does not recognise memes. They are ordinary pictures to it, and we would rather say so plainly. If a meme is also a screenshot, it appears with the others.
If you use iCloud Photos
Deleting a screenshot or recording on your iPhone deletes it on your other devices and in iCloud, after the time in Recently Deleted. If the file is the only copy of something you need, save it elsewhere first. Here is what happens to deleted photos on iPhone and iCloud.
Check the result
Deleted items go to Recently Deleted, where iOS keeps them for a limited time, usually up to 30 days. The space comes back when they leave that album. Sizes in Poofora are estimates, and we do not promise any amount of freed space, since it depends on your library. Check Settings, General, iPhone Storage afterwards.
A short plan
- Open Screen Recordings and delete what you have shared or will not replay.
- Open Screenshots, save the keepers, and delete the rest.
- Scroll Recents for saved memes, in small batches.
- Turn off automatic saving in your chat apps.
- Empty Recently Deleted after a few days, if nothing is missing.
Poofora is coming soon to the App Store. Scanning and reviewing are free, and the home page shows what the app does.