The short answer
Start with the photos that are easy to judge, like exact duplicates, screenshots, bursts and long videos, before you scroll through everything else. Go a month at a time, keep one good shot of each moment, and then spend a few minutes a week on new photos so the backlog never comes back.
Most people who try to clean their camera roll start at the oldest photo and scroll forward. A few hundred photos in, they give up, because every photo is a small decision and there are twenty thousand of them.
What works better is to change the order, and set a few rules so you don't have to think about each photo.
Do the easy ones first
Some photos take no thought at all. Clear those first, and the rest of the library is smaller before you've made a single hard call.
- Exact duplicates. Photos finds them for you: Utilities › Duplicates, then Merge. How it works.
- Screenshots. Media Types › Screenshots. Codes, maps, tickets and receipts you've already used. More on screenshots.
- Bursts. Media Types › Bursts. Pick the frame you like, keep only that one.
- Screen recordings and long videos. These are few, but big. Making videos smaller.
- Blurry and accidental shots. Pocket photos, the floor, a thumb over the lens. Finding blurry photos.
Then go a month at a time
For everything else, pick one month and finish it. "Clean up 2023" never ends. "Clean up March 2023" takes a few minutes, and then it's done. Start with the most recent months: you still remember which photos mattered, and they're the ones your phone keeps closest at hand.
Rules that make decisions quick
- One good shot per moment. If you took six photos of the same plate of food, keep the best one.
- If you have to think about it, keep it. You're after the obvious deletes. A photo you hesitate over is worth keeping, and it isn't where your gigabytes went anyway.
- Screenshots are temporary. If one held something you still need, like an address or a receipt, save that somewhere better and delete the image.
- Favourite as you go. Tap the heart on the ones you love. Later, the Favourites album is the camera roll you'll actually look at.
Swipe instead of tap
The Photos app makes you select photos and then delete them, which is slow for one-at-a-time decisions. Swipe apps show one photo at a time: left to delete, right to keep. It sounds like a small change, but most people get through photos far faster that way, because each decision is one movement.
Whatever you use, deleted photos go to Recently Deleted for 30 days first, so a wrong swipe isn't a disaster. How to get a photo back.
Keep it clean
A camera roll is never finished, because you'll take more photos next week. The way to keep it under control is a small habit, not another big cleanup:
- A few minutes, a few times a week, on the newest photos only.
- A weekly goal rather than a daily streak. Missing a day shouldn't feel like failing.
- Delete at the moment you take the photo. After a burst or a group shot, delete the bad ones on the spot.
Once the backlog is gone, two minutes a day is plenty to keep up with a busy camera, and your phone never sees "Storage Almost Full" again.