On your iPhone, there are several ways to free up storage space, including uninstalling unneeded applications, optimizing images, clearing the cache, and more.
Emptying the trash on the phone may also save a lot of space, but unlike a PC, an iPhone lacks an inbuilt recycling or trash can. Instead, iOS features several distinct trash cans that must each be emptied separately.
The iPhone’s Mail, Pictures, Notes, and Files applications house the four most frequently used trash bins. However, if you want to know how to empty trash on your iPhone, then keep reading this article.
Where Can I Find the Trash on iPhone?
An iPhone lacks a central Trash folder where all of your deleted items are stored, unlike Mac or Windows computers. Certain iPhone native applications do, however, have their directories where deleted files are temporarily saved before being removed.
Mail, Pictures, Notes, and Files are the four apps that retain deleted files until they are destroyed. There’s no way to remove all of these files at once, so you’ll need to clear this trash in each program.
How to Empty Trash in Photo
With the Photos app, deleting a photo doesn’t immediately remove it. Instead, it gets transferred to the Recently Deleted album. They might spend up to 40 days there. They will then be completely erased after this.
You can manually remove these pictures from the Recently Deleted folder if you want to get rid of them faster.
- On your phone, open the Photo app.
- Tap Albums at the bottom of your screen.
- Then move to the last bottom and tap Recently Deleted. You have to unlock this folder with Touch ID, Passcode, or Face ID.
- Tap select in the top right-hand corner if you want to remove all the photos.
- Then tap Delete All at the bottom left corner.
- Lastly, confirm that you want to delete the photos.
How to Empty Trash in Mail
With Mail, messages that you delete are placed in a trash folder. The kind of mail account you’re using and its particular settings will determine how long such messages remain in the trash bin.
Via your iPhone’s settings, you may manually erase these texts if you like.
- Open the Mail app on your phone.
- Then move down and tap Trash for the account containing the messages you want to delete.
- Tap Edit in the top right-hand corner,
- In case there are multiple items to delete, tap Select All.
- Then tap Delete at the bottom of the screen.
How to Empty Trash in Notes
Both iCloud and email accounts may be used to exchange notes using the Notes app. You may, however, choose to store notes on your iPhone. On My iPhone, notes that are deleted are stored in a Recently Deleted section so you may retrieve them later if you change your mind.
To free up space right away, you can manually remove the notes in the Recently Deleted folder before they are permanently erased.
- Open the Notes app on your phone.
- Tap Recently Deleted under the On My iPhone section.
- Tap Edit in the top right-hand corner.
- Tap Delete All at the bottom of the screen.
- Confirm that you want to delete these notes. You can’t undo it after deleting it.
How to Empty Trash in Files
When you remove files from the Files app on your iPhone, they will transfer to a Recently Deleted folder, just as when you delete images from the Photos app. If you wish to immediately remove these files, you can do so manually. Items sent from your iCloud Drive are exempt from this rule.
- On your phone, open the Files app.
- Then tap Browse at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap Recently Deleted.
- Tap the Three Dots icon in the top right-hand corner.
- Then tap Select.
- Select Delete All at the bottom of the screen.
- Then confirm that you want to delete the files. You can’t undo it after deleting it.
How Can I Offload Apps on iPhone?
One way to free up capacity on iPhones is to empty the garbage. Since not all applications have a trash can, it doesn’t help. An additional option is to unload applications from your iPhone.
Similar to removing an app from your phone, offloading an app works in a slightly different way. While keeping the app’s crucial information, it removes the temporary files and storage that it had taken up. Your data is automatically recovered if you reinstall the application. As seen below, you may dump each app individually from your iPhone:
- On your iPhone, open the Settings app.
- Then go to General > iPhone Storage.
- Scroll down and find the app you want to offload.
- Tap on it and tap the Offload App button.
- In the confirmation prompt, tap on Offload App.
- Then restart your phone to free up the storage left after offloading the app.
Conclusion
Many iPhone Users find it difficult to empty their phone’s trash. However, we have gone through all the necessary steps on how to empty trash on iPhone in this article.