Finally deleted 14,000 screenshots after losing my whole Downloads folder

Last month I was trying to find a receipt for a refund at Best Buy in Austin and realized I had like 14,000 screenshots clogging up my phone. Took a whole Saturday to sort through them, deleted most of it, and now my phone actually backs up overnight instead of failing at 3%. Has anyone else hit that point where one dumb task forces the big purge? How do you keep from re-hoarding all over again?

2 comments

2 Comments

simonk9820d agoOG Member

Man, that hits home. I read somewhere that the average person takes like 3,000 photos a month now and barely looks at 5% of them, which honestly made me feel less crazy about my own mess. I had a similar moment when my phone storage got so full that my camera app just straight up wouldn't open during a road trip, and I had to sit there deleting blurry food pics in a parking lot. What helped me keep it from piling back up is setting a monthly calendar reminder on the first Sunday to just scroll through my camera roll and nuke anything dumb, takes like 15 minutes once you get in the habit. Also, turning off that automatic screenshot thing for weird app glitches helped a ton, cause half my library was just accidental screen grabs of my lock screen.

wood.uma20d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that monthly purge thing is smart... but I gotta gently point out one thing. That whole "3,000 photos a month" stat gets thrown around a lot, but it's mostly skewed by people who shoot video or live on their phones for work. Like, my mom takes maybe 200 pics a month and that's a busy month for her. Still, your point stands, we all hoard way more than we actually need. And yeah, the accidental screenshot thing is the real killer, I swear half my camera roll is just black screens from pocket butt dials. The calendar reminder idea is solid though, I might steal that one. Just don't beat yourself up if your number isn't anywhere near 3,000, the point is clearing the junk, not hitting some made up average.