How to delete screenshots on Android

Screenshots are the fastest-growing part of most people's photo library, and also the easiest to clear, because almost none of them carry the weight an actual photo does.

Where screenshots live

On the device, screenshots save to a Pictures/Screenshots folder, visible in Files by Google or any file manager. In Google Photos, they show up in the main library mixed in with everything else, and separately under Collections, where an On this device section gathers them by folder — the exact naming depends on your phone and Google Photos version. On Samsung phones running One UI, the folder name and exact location under My Files can differ slightly from stock Android.

Why they pile up

Taking a screenshot takes one gesture and produces no prompt to do anything with it afterward. A photo, by contrast, at least represents a moment you chose to capture. A screenshot is usually a means to an end — a receipt you needed for five minutes, a product page you meant to reference once, a joke someone sent that you screenshotted instead of just remembering. The friction to create one is zero and the friction to review one later is high, so they accumulate at a rate nothing else in your library matches.

Why they are safer to bulk-delete than photos

With an actual photo, there is always a chance you are looking at the only copy of a moment that mattered. With a screenshot, that is rarely true — the underlying thing (the web page, the conversation, the app screen) usually still exists somewhere else, and the screenshot itself was never the memory. That is the practical reason a big screenshot cull is lower-risk than a big photo cull, even though both are irreversible after the trash period ends.

Keeping the handful worth keeping

Before clearing everything, it is worth one quick scroll for the exceptions: a boarding pass or ticket you still need, a screenshot of a conversation you actually want on record, a saved recipe or address. These are usually a small fraction of the total. Star or move them somewhere separate first, then treat the rest as disposable.

Bulk deleting without scrolling through everything

Google Photos lets you filter by type — search "screenshots" and it will surface a filtered view you can select from in bulk, though selecting hundreds one at a time is still slow on longer libraries. Files by Google's storage breakdown can also show the Screenshots folder as one item, letting you clear the whole folder in one action if you have already pulled out what you want to keep.

Slean's screenshot filter does the same job with full-screen review before deletion — every screenshot shown one at a time or selected in bulk, with the date and file size visible, so a keep-vs-delete pass over a year of screenshots takes minutes instead of an afternoon of scrolling.

After screenshots

Screenshots are usually a quick, satisfying win but rarely the biggest number on the list. For the fuller picture of what to clear and in what order, see freeing up storage on Android — video and messaging-app media tend to matter more.

On iPhone screenshots live in a Media Types album instead of a folder, which makes the bulk select slightly different. Here is the iPhone version.