The short answer
Open Photos › Media Types › Screenshots, tap Select, and slide a finger across the grid to select hundreds at once, then delete. Search Photos for words like 'boarding pass' or 'receipt' to find the ones worth keeping first. In future, delete a screenshot from its preview right after you've used it.
Most screenshots are useful for about a minute: a code to type in, a map, a ticket at the gate, a message to show someone. After that they stay in your camera roll for years, mixed in with your photos.
Each screenshot is small, but there are a lot of them, and they get in the way of the photos you actually want to scroll through.
Delete screenshots in bulk
- Open Photos, then Media Types › Screenshots. This album shows only screenshots, nothing else.
- Tap Select.
- Tap the first screenshot and, without lifting, slide your finger across and down. Photos selects everything you pass over, and the grid scrolls as you reach the edge of the screen.
- Tap the bin and confirm.
They go to Recently Deleted for 30 days. Empty that album if you need the space back right away. How Recently Deleted works.
Screen Recordings sits next to Screenshots in Media Types. It's usually a much shorter list, but each recording is far bigger.
Find the ones worth keeping first
Some screenshots really do matter: a receipt for a warranty, a recipe, an address. The Photos search reads the text in your images, so you can find them without scrolling:
- Search for receipt, order, address or password.
- Search for a shop, a person's name or an airline.
Move what you need somewhere better, such as Notes, Files or the app it came from, and then the screenshot can go.
Old tickets and codes
The screenshots you can delete without thinking are the ones that have expired: a boarding pass for a flight you've taken, a parking ticket, a QR code for last summer's concert, a verification code. Searching for boarding pass, ticket or gate finds many of them.
Stop them piling up
- Delete from the preview. After you take a screenshot, tap the preview before it disappears. When you're finished with it, you can delete it instead of saving it to Photos.
- Copy, don't save. If you only need to paste a screenshot into a message, choose Copy and Delete when you finish with the preview, where your version of iOS offers it.
- Use the right place. Boarding passes and tickets can usually go in Wallet, and receipts in Files or Notes.