How To Locate And Delete Your Trash Files On iPhone

With camera quality improving exponentially and the number of apps we use in our day-to-day lives increasing, it can be challenging to keep storage space available on our mobile phones. While there are definitely many ways to get more storage on your iPhone, like paying for external hard drives or iCloud+, your first line of defense should always be to delete the unnecessary apps and media files on your device.

Unfortunately, clearing out the trash files from your iPhone isn't as straightforward as on macOS, Android, or Windows. In addition, when deleting files on your iPhone, they sometimes appear in the "Recently Deleted" or similar folder, where they will typically stay for a certain number of days before the system deletes them permanently. For the most part, the "Recently Deleted" feature can be useful because many people delete things accidentally (or in a rush of emotions) and can sometimes want the option to retrieve them. 

However, this also means that the supposed "deleted" files are still lingering on your iPhone, taking up valuable space that could be used for something else. To reclaim your lost storage space right away, you'll need to permanently delete files manually. However, since there's no single folder where tentatively "deleted" documents, images, and files live, you'll need to permanently delete files through apps directly. While each person will have dozens of different apps on their iPhone, here are a few key ones that you should probably check for hidden deleted files today.

In your Photos app's Recently Deleted folder, previously deleted photos and videos will appear in reverse chronological order. Depending on your preference, you'll have two options to permanently delete media files in this way: individual/group selection or delete all. Here's how to do both.

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1. On your iPhone, launch the Photos app.

2. In the lower portion of the screen, tap Albums.

3. Under Utilities, tap Recently Deleted.

4. In the upper-right corner of the screen, tap Select.

   

5. Select the specific photo or photos you want to permanently delete.

6. In the lower-right corner of the screen, tap the more or three dots icon > Delete.

7. In the pop-up, tap Delete From This iPhone to confirm your decision

Alternatively, there is also a quick and easy way to delete everything in your Recently Deleted folder.

1. On your iPhone, launch the Photos app.

2. In the lower portion of the screen, tap Albums.

3. Under Utilities, tap Recently Deleted.

4. In the upper-right corner of the screen, tap Select.

   

5. In the lower-right corner of the screen, tap the more or three dots icon. 

6. Tap Delete All.

7. In the pop-up, tap Delete From This iPhone to confirm your decision.

Aside from permanently deleting images on your Photos app, you can reduce photo file sizes in other ways as well, such as changing image quality, compressing images, turning Live photos into still ones, and more.

While many iPhone users prefer the use of their email provider-specific apps, the iPhone's Mail app still has a few tricks up its sleeve, such as being an easy way to sign a document via iPhone while you're on the road or letting you send up to 5 GB of attachments through Mail Drop (even without an iCloud+ subscription). However, anyone can tell you that mailing apps, including the native Mail app, can get full quickly. Aside from attachments taking up a lot of space, it's also possible that you don't delete emails properly, leading to a full Trash folder. Here's how to empty it.

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1. On your iPhone, launch the Mail app.

2. Under iCloud, tap Trash.

3. In the Trash section, swipe the email name to the left.

4. Tap the Trash icon.

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1. Navigate to the Trash section of the Mail app.

2. In the upper-right corner of the screen, tap Edit.

3. Select the emails you wish to get rid of permanently.

4. In the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap Delete.

5. In the pop-up, tap Trash Selected Messages to confirm your decision.

Aside from managing your deleted emails via the Mail app, you might also want to do a general sweep for your other email-related applications as well. For example, you can clean up your Gmail account or even re-organize your Google Drive as well.