How to Find and Delete Large Videos on iPhone

iPhones take impressive videos thanks to their advanced camera system combined with powerful software enhancements.

However, as the quality increases, so does the video size. And for people who take a lot of photos and videos, locating which ones are occupying the most space is challenging.

So, if your iPhone is constantly running low on storage due to high-definition videos, but you can’t locate where they are, then this guide is for you.

How to Find Large Videos on iPhone

Unfortunately, iPhones do not have a built-in function for sorting videos by size, making it harder to find your largest video files.

However, as a workaround, you can check out the iOS “Review Downloaded Files” or “Review Large Attachments” features in the Recommendations section.

Simply head over to your iPhone’s Storage settings and locate these built-in tools to review downloaded files or large attachments.

Another strategy you can explore is checking out your apps for large videos you can delete. Keep an eye on video streaming apps like Netflix or Amazon Video, which often store downloaded videos in their cache. You can also browse through the Downloads folder to find and delete large videos.

How to Delete Large Videos on iPhone

Maintaining your iPhone’s storage is vital to ensure it runs smoothly. When your device’s storage fills up, apps can fail to run or become sluggish. An effective way to solve this is to delete large videos on iPhone.

In the following sections, we’ll explore three methods to help you achieve this on any version of your phone, including the iPhone 11, 12, 13, 14 or 15.

Method 1: Remove Large Videos Manually in Photos App

If you don’t want to download additional apps to remove large video files from an iPhone, you can use the built-in Photos app to select and delete them manually. However, the app currently does not have a feature that allows you to sort your videos by size, making the process take longer.

Here’s an easy guide on how you can remove large videos manually in the Photos app:

1. To get started, open the Photos app on your iPhone.
2. Next, tap on the Albums tab at the bottom of the screen.
3. Next, scroll down to the Videos album under Media Types. Then, scroll through your videos to find the large videos you want to delete.
4. If you’re deleting multiple videos, tap the Select button on the top-right corner of your screen and choose all the videos you want to delete. If you’re deleting one video, tap the video thumbnail to view the video.
5. After selecting your video, tap the Trash icon on the lower-right part of your screen.
6. Finally, confirm the deletion by selecting “Delete n Videos” in the pop-up window that appears (n is the number of items you’re trying to delete).

1. First, tap the Select button on the top right part of your screen.
2. If you wish to delete all the contents of the Recently Deleted album, tap the Delete All option on the bottom left part of your screen. If not, skip to the next step.
3. Select your videos and tap the Delete option on the bottom-left corner of your screen.
4. To confirm deletion, select Delete From All Devices when prompted.

Note that Apple has not rolled out major changes to the Photos interface for years now, so the steps below would be similar even for releases including iOS 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

Method 2: Delete Large Videos from Downloads

The second method to remove large video files from an iPhone works if you have saved large videos from folders other than the Camera Roll. This includes large videos you saved from the gallery to the Files app. However, this only includes videos in your local storage, not external or cloud-based storage.

Follow these steps to delete large videos from the Downloads folder:

1. To get started, open the Files app.
2. Tap the Browse tab on the bottom part of your screen to access the different locations where your files are stored.
3. After that, tap On My iPhone.
4. Go to the Downloads folder.
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   Note that you can sort your videos from the largest to the smallest size by tapping the More Options icon (the three horizontal dots/ellipsis) on the top-right corner > Size. Once sorted, you can easily find the large videos you want to delete.

5. If you’re deleting one large video, tap and hold on that video and select Delete on the menu that appears.
6. If you’re deleting multiple videos, tap the three horizontal dots on the upper right corner of the screen to open the options. Next, tap Select.
7. Next, tap on the videos you want to delete and tap on the Trash icon on the bottom menu. There is no confirmation menu here, so make sure you’re deleting the correct files.

Method 3: Erase Large Videos Using a Third-party Tool

While using iPhone’s native apps like Photos or Files offers simplicity and less risk, they lack the features to efficiently erase large videos from your gallery. If you want to avoid the hassle of manually scrolling to find large videos on your phone, third-party video manager apps can come to your rescue.

In this example, we will be using the third-party app Phone Cleaner to quickly sort videos from the largest to the smallest one, and delete them:

1. First, install Phone Cleaner from the App Store.
2. Open the app and follow any setup to continue. Allow permission to access all your photos.
3. On the main screen of the app, tap Select Cleaning Modes.
4. You can sort your gallery by file size or format. For easier viewing, we selected the Deep Cleaning option that filters your media.
5. Under the filter options, select Media Type. Then, choose Only Videos.
6. Now, tap Search Media to allow Phone Cleaner to scan your whole gallery for videos.
7. By default, the results will be sorted from the largest to the smallest. Tap the Select button on the top-right corner or tap and hold on the large video you want to delete. Then, select all the videos you want to delete.
8. Once the large photos are selected, tap the Trash icon on the bottom right corner of the screen. Confirm deletion when prompted.

It’s important to keep in mind that to effectively manage your huge media files using Phone Cleaner, you’ll need to purchase the full version of the app.

FAQ

Conclusion

iPhones take amazing photos, but each photo and video can take substantial storage space. Managing iPhone storage can be difficult due to the lack of a built-in feature that can sort your files by size.

The simplest way to remove large video files from an iPhone is to manually look for them in the Videos album in the Photos app. Similarly, if photos are saved on your local storage, you can go to the Files app and navigate to the Downloads folder to search for your videos.

For a more convenient solution, you can download third-party tools with comprehensive features to manage your videos. Photo manager apps can not only help you sort videos by file size but also offer other cleanup tools for your iPhone storage. Just be careful when downloading third-party apps, as they require access to your entire media gallery.