How to delete burst photos on iPhone

Open the burst in Photos, tap Burst to see every frame, tap the circle on each shot you want to keep, then tap Done and choose Keep Only Favorites. The frames you picked become regular photos and the rest of the burst goes to Recently Deleted. To delete a whole burst, open it and tap the trash button.

By Edouard Barbier · Updated October 20, 2026

Keep the best shots from a burst and delete the rest5 minutes

Find your burstsOpen Photos, tap Collections, scroll to Media Types and tap Bursts.
Open the framesTap a burst, then tap Burst at the top to see every frame. Gray dots under the thumbnails mark the shots Photos suggests keeping.
Pick the shots to keepSwipe through the frames and tap the circle in the lower-right corner of each photo you want to keep, then tap Done.
Keep only your picksChoose Keep Only Favorites. Your picks are saved as individual photos and the rest of the burst moves to Recently Deleted.
Free the spaceOpen Recently Deleted below Utilities, unlock it, and delete the old burst to get the space back now.

Burst mode takes a rapid series of photos so you can catch the one moment that matters. The other twenty or thirty frames stay in your library, hidden behind a single thumbnail, quietly taking space. Here is how to find them and keep only what you want, with the Photos app in iOS 26.

Find every burst in your library

Your library shows each burst as one photo. To see them all:

Open Photos and tap Collections.
Scroll down to Media Types and tap Bursts.

If you do not see Bursts under Media Types, you have none in your library.

Keep the best frames and delete the rest

Tap a burst to open it, then tap Burst at the top of the screen. It shows how many photos the burst contains.
Swipe through the frames. Gray dots below the thumbnails mark the shots Photos suggests keeping.
Tap the circle in the lower-right corner of each photo you want to keep. A checkmark appears.
Tap Done.
Choose Keep Only Favorites. (The other choice, Keep Everything, saves your picks as separate photos and keeps the whole burst too, which frees nothing.)

Your picks become individual photos in your library. The burst itself, with every frame you did not pick, moves to Recently Deleted. To get the space back now, tap Collections, open Recently Deleted below Utilities, unlock it, tap Select, choose the burst and delete it.

To delete a whole burst, open it and tap the trash button. Every frame goes to Recently Deleted.

A burst that will not delete. If a burst seems stuck, open it, select just one frame, tap Done and choose Keep Only Favorites. Then delete that one photo normally.

What the Photos app makes slow

One burst at a time. There is no way to say “keep the suggested frame of every burst” across your library. Fifty bursts means fifty rounds of the steps above.
The suggestions are suggestions. The gray dots are often right, but not always. Checking eyes and focus means zooming into frames one by one.
Similar shots are not bursts. Tapping the shutter quickly takes separate photos, not a burst, so they never appear in the Bursts collection. Neither does a series of near-identical shots, and the Duplicates collection skips those too. Our guide to deleting duplicate photos covers what Photos does and does not catch.

How PrunePic helps around bursts

PrunePic does not open bursts frame by frame. Use the Photos steps above for that. It helps in two other ways.

Know how many bursts you have. Cleanup insights include a snapshot of your library by media type, with a count of your bursts next to your videos, screenshots, Live Photos and more. It is a quick way to see whether bursts are worth an evening, and the snapshot is free.

Clear the similar shots that are not bursts. Runs of near-identical photos, the ones Photos files as separate pictures, are where PrunePic’s one-at-a-time view earns its place. In the Everything mode, your library comes up in date order, so a run of similar shots arrives one after another, each full screen. Swipe right on the best one to add it to Favorites, left on the rest, and up on any you also want to keep. Pinch to zoom when focus matters.

Nothing is deleted on a swipe. Everything waits in the PrunePic Trash until you empty it, and then goes to Recently Deleted for 30 days. Your photos never leave your device.

Common mistakes

Choosing Keep Everything. It extracts your picks and keeps the full burst. Your library gets bigger, not smaller.
Forgetting Recently Deleted. The burst you just cleared is still using space there for 30 days.
Selecting nothing and tapping Done. Nothing changes. Pick at least one frame before you choose Keep Only Favorites.
Leaving Use Volume Up for Burst on by mistake. If you find bursts you never meant to take, check Settings > Camera.

The bottom line

Open Collections > Media Types > Bursts, keep one or two frames from each burst with Keep Only Favorites, and empty Recently Deleted. Bursts are a small slice of most libraries; videos are usually a bigger one, so read how to free up storage on iPhone next. If you want to know what all those frames add up to, see how many photos a 128GB iPhone can hold.

Frequently asked questions

Where are burst photos on iPhone?

Your library shows each burst as a single photo with a stack of frames behind it. To see all of them in one place, open Photos, tap Collections, scroll to Media Types and tap Bursts.

Do burst photos take up a lot of space?

Yes. Every frame is a full photo, so a burst of 30 frames uses about as much storage as 30 separate photos, even though your library shows it as one.

What happens to the frames I do not select?

When you choose Keep Only Favorites, the frames you did not pick move to Recently Deleted with the original burst. They stay there for 30 days unless you delete them sooner.

How do I stop taking bursts by accident?

On current iPhones, a burst starts when you swipe the shutter button to the left. Holding the shutter records a video instead. If you turned on Use Volume Up for Burst in Settings > Camera, holding the volume up button also takes a burst, so turn it off if that happens by mistake.