How to Delete All Screenshots on Android at Once (2026)
Why Your Gallery Is Full of Screenshots
Let's be honest: you screenshotted a recipe you forgot about, a funny conversation you sent a friend six months ago, and a booking confirmation from 2024. You're not alone. The average user racks up 1,000 to 2,500 screenshots a year, taking up 1-3 GB. And unlike your vacation photos, nobody actually wants to keep them.
The good news: Android gives you several ways to delete them all in one go. Here they are, from fully manual to fully automatic. (iPhone user? We have a separate guide just for you.)
Method 1: Delete Manually in Samsung Gallery
- Open the Gallery app → Albums tab
- Open the Screenshots album
- Long-press one photo → All to select everything
- Tap Delete 🗑️
⚠️ Heads up: deleted photos move to the Recycle bin and sit there for 30 days before they're gone for good, so your storage doesn't free up right away. To reclaim the space now: Gallery → ⋮ menu → Recycle bin → Empty. (We have a full guide to deleting photos in Samsung Gallery if you want to go deeper.)
Method 2: Google Photos, Including Auto-Archive
Google Photos has a trick few people know about:
- Open Google Photos → Library → Screenshots
- Select all and delete
And as a bonus, automatic cleanup from now on: Settings → Preferences → turn on Move screenshots to Archive after 30 days. That way they at least stop flooding your feed.
Method 3: Files by Google
Google's free app offers an "Old screenshots" card under Clean. It automatically spots screenshots you haven't opened in a long time and offers to delete them in one tap.
What About Xiaomi, Pixel, and OnePlus?
The principle is the same on every Android device; only the names and menus change:
Google Pixel: there's no separate gallery app, everything lives in Google Photos. Use Method 2 above, or open Files by Google → Clean → "Old screenshots".
Xiaomi / Redmi / POCO: Xiaomi's Gallery has a dedicated "Screenshots" album, and select-all-and-delete works just like on Samsung. On top of that, the built-in Cleaner (Settings → Storage) has a category that offers to delete old screenshots automatically.
OnePlus / OPPO / realme: a Screenshots album in the gallery, plus a storage cleanup tool in Settings that flags old screenshots as junk files.
And on every device without exception, the same rule applies: deletion goes through a 30-day recycle bin. If you didn't empty it, you didn't free up any space.
Where Screenshots Actually Live (and Why Some "Escape")
A useful bit of trivia: Android saves screenshots in the `DCIM/Screenshots` or `Pictures/Screenshots` folder, depending on the manufacturer and version. Why does that matter? Because not everything that looks like a screenshot actually lives there:
- Screenshots that arrived via WhatsApp are saved in WhatsApp's media folder, not the Screenshots album. Deleting the album doesn't touch them
- Screenshots you edited (cropped, marked up) are sometimes saved as a new image in a different folder, and the original stays put
- Screenshots from certain apps (games, banking apps) create folders of their own
That's why cleaning by album alone always leaves stragglers behind. A tool that recognizes a screenshot by what's in the image, like Tidy's AI, truly cleans them all, no matter which folder they ended up in.
How Much Space Do Screenshots Really Take Up?
Let's do some quick math. A screenshot on a modern phone weighs 0.5 to 2MB, depending on resolution and content. Take five a day (a conservative average for anyone who works on their phone) and you get:
- A month: about 150 screenshots, up to 300MB
- A year: about 1,800 screenshots, 1 to 3.5 GB
- Three years without cleaning: easily over 5 GB
And that's before the collateral damage: screenshots get pushed into your cloud backup and eat up your free Google Photos quota, and above all they clutter your feed exactly when you're hunting for a real vacation photo. And if duplicate photos are hiding in your gallery too, our guide to AI duplicate detection finishes the job.
The Easy Way: Let AI Do It
All the methods above delete everything, but what about the screenshot of that receipt you actually need? That's where Tidy comes in:
- Tidy's AI automatically detects every screenshot in your gallery, even ones scattered outside the album
- You swipe through them: left to delete, right to keep, 200 screenshots in five minutes
- Everything happens on your device only: no photo is uploaded to the cloud, no account, no sign-up
- And now, Tidy is also available on Android on Google Play 🎉
Ready to clean your gallery?
Download Tidy and start swiping. AI-powered duplicate detection, smart filters, and a built-in photo editor.
How to Stop the Pile-Up Before It Starts
Cleaned everything out? Great. Here's how to keep it that way:
- Turn on auto-archive in Google Photos (Method 2 above), and old screenshots will disappear from your feed on their own
- Share and delete in the same moment: took a screenshot to send to someone? Send it, then delete it right away. That one tiny habit alone prevents hundreds of screenshots a year
- Schedule a 10-minute monthly cleanup. And if reminders never work on you, Tidy's cleaning challenges turn it into a game with daily streaks and levels
- Free up space before a big event. A wedding, a vacation, or a concert is not the moment to discover you're out of storage. Our guide to cleaning your gallery fast helps you get it done in fifteen minutes
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I delete all screenshots on a Samsung at once?
Gallery → Albums → Screenshots → long-press → All → Delete. Remember to empty the Recycle bin to free up the space immediately.
Does deleting screenshots free up space immediately?
No. On Samsung and in Google Photos alike, they move to the trash for 30 days. To free up space right away, you have to empty it manually.
Can I set Android to delete screenshots automatically?
Partially: Google Photos can move them to the Archive after 30 days, and Files by Google offers periodic cleanup suggestions. Fully automatic deletion doesn't exist, which is why a short monthly cleanup with Tidy is the practical solution.
How much space do screenshots take up?
An average screenshot weighs 0.5-2MB. A thousand screenshots = up to 2 GB, roughly the same as 400 camera photos.
Does deleting screenshots remove them from my cloud backup too?
Depends where you deleted them. Deleting inside Google Photos with backup on also deletes them from the cloud. Deleting from the local gallery with backup off leaves the cloud copy untouched.
How do I find screenshots that aren't in the Screenshots album?
It happens a lot: images shared on WhatsApp or re-downloaded lose their classification. Tidy's AI identifies a screenshot by the content itself rather than the folder, so it catches those too.
Does Tidy delete photos without asking?
Never. You approve every deletion, and everything you delete goes to the system's recycle bin first, so you can always change your mind.
