IOS – How to delete burst photos stuck in Recently Deleted folder

iosiphonephotos

I have a known bug (outlined here, here, here, here, and here) where burst photos won't delete.

I suspect instructions here would help, except my problem is more complicated since the bursts are not in Photos, but in 'Recently Deleted'.

Also, I have Emptied 'Recently Deleted' many times, so the files are still there, but they appear blank, so I cannot tell which of the 25000 files are bursts (there are 17 sets of bursts among the 25000 files).

Attempts to 'Delete' the files from 'Recently Deleted' results in them simply reappearing after exiting and reentering 'Recently Deleted'. Attempts to restore them results in blank files going back into Photos, with no way of distinguishing the bursts from the regular photos.

Best Answer

How to solve:

  1. Recover everything from 'Recently Deleted'
  2. Go into your Photos, and scroll down to 'Bursts'
  3. Follow these instructions, noting it will be a little more difficult for you since you may be looking at completely blank images rather than actual images (but it will work even for completely blank images, I can confirm this).

The steps to delete an individual burst from Photos are

  1. Go into Photos
  2. Scroll down to 'Bursts'
  3. Select a burst, and press 'Select...'
  4. Click in the center of the screen to pick any photo as the 'Favorite' (it doesn't matter which one since they'll all be deleted in a moment)
  5. Tap 'Done'
  6. Tap 'Keep Only 1 Favorite'
  7. Tap 'Select'
  8. Tap the 1 Favorate photo you chose in Step 6
  9. Tap the trash can to delete it - it's gone!

Repeat the above steps once for every burst you want to delete.

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