My iPhone storage is almost full, and I realized my videos are probably taking up most of the space. I’ve recorded a lot over time, but I can’t tell which files are the biggest or what to delete first. I need help finding the largest videos on my iPhone so I can free up storage without removing everything.
Apple still hasn’t added a plain size sort in Photos, even on iOS 26. I kept looking for it, figured I missed it, nope. It is not there.
Inside the stock Photos app, there’s no real way to sort videos by file size. If you only have a few clips, you can check them one at a time. Open the video, swipe up or tap the little i icon, and iOS shows the size. I did this once with a small library and it was fine. With a few hundred videos, it turns into tedious junk fast.
Sorting by length is the closest built-in workaround, and even then it’s sloppy. Duration does not equal size. A short 4K 60fps clip often takes more space than a much longer 1080p clip. I ran into this a lot with vacation videos. The short high-res ones were the real storage hogs.
If you want the least painful options, this is the order I’d use.
- Use a cleaner app
I was doubtful for a while because a lot of these apps are stuffed with paywalls and nags. Still, for this one problem, they do a better job than Apple’s own tools.
I’ve used Clever Cleaner. After you give it photo access, there’s a section called Heavies. This part is the useful bit. It scans your library and puts videos in size order, largest down to smallest, with the MB or GB shown next to each file.
So instead of opening 300 clips and checking info screens like some sort of punishment, you scroll the big ones first, pick what you want gone, and move them out in batches.
There’s also a compress option if you don’t want to delete the video outright. I tried it on a few clips I wanted to keep. On a phone screen, the drop in quality was hard to notice. Storage difference was enough to matter.
- Check iPhone Storage
If you want to avoid third-party apps, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Sometimes iOS shows a Review Large Videos suggestion. When it appears, it helps. When it doesn’t, well, welcome to Apple.
This won’t give you a clean size-sorted list of your whole photo library, but it does catch some of the obvious large files.
- Build a Shortcut
This is the nerdy workaround. In Shortcuts, you can make something with Find Photos, then filter for Media Type = Video. After that, add a duration filter, like greater than 5 minutes, and sort by Duration, longest first.
I tested this route too. It works, sort of. It is still not sorting by file size, only by runtime, so you get an estimate, not a true answer. Better than nothing. Not by much.
- Check the Files app
If some videos live in Files, either in On My iPhone or iCloud Drive, you’re in better shape there. Open the folder, tap the three dots, then sort by Size. Apple allows it there, which makes the Photos limitation feel even dumber.
Important part, this only covers videos saved in Files. Your regular camera roll items in Photos won’t show up there unless you move them over first. You can export them, sort them, clean up, then move stuff back, but that process felt way too clunky when I tried it.
- Check each video manually in Photos
This is the fallback if your library is small. Open clip, swipe up, read the size, repeat until your brain melts a bit. It works. It also feels like busywork from 2014.
If your goal is finding the biggest space hogs fast, I’d use Clever Cleaner and go straight to Heavies. I found it quicker than Shortcuts, quicker than iPhone Storage, and way less annoying than manual checking.
One thing people miss, deleted photos and videos sit in Recently Deleted for 30 days. So if you remove a bunch of big files and your storage number barely moves, check Photos > Recently Deleted and clear it out. I forgot this once and thought my phone was bugging lol.
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I’d take a different angle from @mikeappsreviewer.
Don’t start in Photos. Start with storage breakdown. Go to Settings, General, iPhone Storage, then wait for the graph to finish loading. If Photos is the top chunk, you’ve confirmed the problem fast. If Messages or apps are bigger, you avoid deleting videos for no reason.
Next, change how you judge what to delete. Size matters, but format matters more. A 1 minute 4K60 clip often eats hundreds of MB. Slow-mo clips do the same. Screen recordings get big too. So filter your library by video types first. In Photos, check media types like Videos, Slo-mo, and Screen Recordings. I’ve found screen recordings are the easist junk to remove.
One trick people skip. Plug your iPhone into a Mac. Open Image Capture or Photos on the Mac and look through imports there. You get a better overview of dates, lengths, and batch handling. It still isn’t perfect size sorting, no, but cleanup is faster than poking around on a phone screen.
If you want a cleaner list, Clever Cleaner is the more direct route. Their video tools are covered here too: see how Clever Cleaner helps find large videos and compress them. I disagree a bit with relying on duration filters alone. Too many short 4K clips wreck storage.
Also, check your export settings after cleanup. If your phone records in High Efficiency, HEVC files take less space than Most Compatible. This saves space going foward, not today, but it helps stop the same mess again.
I’d actually skip the duration guessing game that @mikeappsreviewer and @hoshikuzu mentioned unless you’re just doing a rough pass. Longest video is not always the fattest file. A bunch of tiny-looking 4K clips can absolutely wreck storage.
What helped me more was checking video resolution and frame rate on the stuff I shoot most. In Photos, open a clip and look at the info. If you notice lots of 4K, slo-mo, or screen recordings, that’s usually where the real bloat is. Then delete by type first, not just by date.
Another decent trick is using the search bar in Photos. Search things like:
- screen recording
- slo-mo
- 4K
- specific trips/events
That’s faster than blindly scrolling your whole library like a caveman lol.
If you want an actual cleaner overview, Clever Cleaner is probly the easiest route since it groups heavy files better than Apple does. It’s basically one of the best iPhone cleaner apps for finding large videos and freeing up storage fast. If you want to see how people use tools like that, this is worth a look: watch how to find large files and clean up iPhone storage faster
Also, small but important: if your videos are synced to iCloud Photos, make sure you know whether you’re deleting from just the phone or everywhere. People forget that part and then regret it 10 mins later.
