How to Permanently Delete Photos on iPhone

To permanently delete photos on iPhone, delete them in Photos, then open the Recently Deleted album and delete them there too. Until you do, deleted photos wait in Recently Deleted for 30 days, where anyone who can unlock it can bring them back. After that second delete, the photo is gone from your iPhone, and from iCloud if you use iCloud Photos. Copies elsewhere, like shared albums, chats and older backups, need their own cleanup. Here’s each step.

Step 1: Delete the photo

1. Open Photos and open the photo or video.
2. Tap the Trash button, then Delete Photo.

To delete several at once: in your library, tap Select, tap the photos (or slide your finger across a row to pick many), then tap the Trash button and confirm.

The photos now move to Recently Deleted. They’re out of your library, albums and Memories, but they’re not gone yet.

Step 2: Empty Recently Deleted

1. In Photos, scroll down to Utilities and tap Recently Deleted. On iOS 26, tap Collections at the bottom first, then find Utilities.
2. Tap View Album and unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.
3. Tap Select, then tap the photos you want gone.
4. Tap the More button (three dots), then Delete.
5. Confirm. If you use iCloud Photos, the button says Delete from All Devices.

To clear the whole album: tap Select, then the More button, then Delete All, and confirm.

Once a photo is deleted from Recently Deleted, you can’t get it back from your iPhone or iCloud Photos. If you skip this step, iOS removes it on its own after 30 days.

What iCloud Photos changes

If iCloud Photos is on, your iPhone, iPad, Mac and iCloud share one library. That means:

• Deleting syncs. Delete a photo on your iPhone and it moves to Recently Deleted on all your devices. Empty Recently Deleted on one device and it’s gone everywhere, including iCloud.
• You can’t delete from just one device. To keep a photo in iCloud but remove it from your iPhone, you’d need to turn off iCloud Photos on the iPhone first. Our guide on how to turn off iCloud Photos explains what happens to your library when you do.
• Hidden photos are no exception. Hiding a photo doesn’t keep it out of iCloud. See are hidden photos saved to iCloud.

Copies that live somewhere else

Deleting from your library only removes that one copy. Check these too.

Shared albums

A shared album keeps its own copy of each photo, so deleting the original from your library leaves it in the album. Open the shared album, tap Select, choose the photo and delete it. You can delete photos you added; the album’s owner can delete any photo. If someone already saved the photo to their own library, their copy stays.

iCloud Shared Photo Library

If you use a Shared Library with family, anyone in it can delete a photo, and it goes to Recently Deleted for 30 days. Only the person who added the photo can permanently delete it or recover it from there.

Messages and other chat apps

A photo you sent or received in Messages, WhatsApp or another chat app is a separate copy inside that conversation. Deleting it from Photos doesn’t remove it there. Delete the message or attachment in the app itself. The person you sent it to keeps their copy.

If photos from chats keep turning up in your library, our guide on how to turn off Shared with You photos shows how to stop it.

Backups

If iCloud Photos is off, your photos are included in your iCloud backup instead. A backup made before you deleted a photo still holds it until a newer backup replaces it. Backups you made to a computer keep their copy until you delete or replace that backup.

Moving a photo to a vault? Finish the cleanup

When you move private photos into a vault app, the app imports a copy and the original stays in Photos. A good vault offers to delete the originals for you. But no app can empty Recently Deleted. Only you can, so do Step 2 afterwards, or the photos sit there for another 30 days.

Easy Vault encrypts the photos on your iPhone or iPad behind its own pattern or password, offers to delete the originals once they’re in, and reminds you to empty Recently Deleted. To keep new private photos out of your library from the start, take them with its private camera, which never saves to your camera roll. See how Easy Vault keeps photos private.

Quick checklist

1. Delete the photo in Photos.
2. Delete it again in Utilities → Recently Deleted.
3. Remove it from any shared album you posted it to.
4. Delete it from chats where you sent or received it.
5. Remember that older backups may still hold it.