I’m trying to free up storage on my iPhone, but the Photos app makes it hard to find my biggest video files. I took a lot of videos recently and now my storage is almost full. Is there a way to sort iPhone videos by file size in Photos, or do I need another method to find the largest videos quickly?
I ran into the same wall. iOS 26 still does not give you a real size sort inside Photos, which feels ridiculous after all these years.
If your goal is simple, find the biggest videos in the Photos app, there is no clean built-in button for it. I checked this again before cleaning my own library, and the answer is still no. The manual route still works, but only when your library is small. Open a clip, swipe up or tap the little “i” button, then you’ll see the file size. Do this for 12 videos, fine. Do it for 800, no thanks.
Duration helps a little, but I would not trust it much. I had a short 4K 60fps clip eat more space than a much longer 1080p recording. So if you sort by length, you’re guessing, not sorting by file size.
What I ended up trying, from least painful to most painful:
1. Use an iPhone cleaner app
This was the only route I found where the job felt quick instead of dumb. I used Clever Cleaner, mostly because I was tired of poking through videos one at a time. After you give it access to your library, there’s a section called Heavies. It scans the library and shows your videos ordered from biggest to smallest, with the size shown in MB or GB next to each file.
I liked this part because it removed the guesswork. You scroll, pick the large stuff, delete in batches, done. There’s also a Compress option if you don’t want to erase a video outright. I tested this on a few clips I wanted to keep, and on a phone screen the result still looked fine to me.
2. Look in iPhone Storage
If you don’t want another app on your phone, check Settings, General, iPhone Storage. iOS sometimes shows a “Review Large Videos” suggestion. When it appears, it’s useful. When it does not, you’re out of luck. It also does not give you the same clean full-library size ranking, so I’d call it a partial fix at best.
3. Build a shortcut
I tried this once. It works, sort of. In Shortcuts, use “Find Photos,” set Media Type to Video, then add a duration filter like greater than 5 minutes. After that, sort by Duration and pick Longest First. This helps surface some large files, but it still is not true size sorting. Good enough if you like tinkering. Not great if you want fast results.
4. Check the Files app
This one only helps with videos stored outside your main Photos library. If you saved clips in “On My iPhone” or iCloud Drive, open the folder, tap the three dots, and sort by Size. Nice and easy. The catch is obvious, it won’t show your camera roll videos unless you move them there first. I did think about exporting everything over, sorting, cleaning up, then importing back. Then I stopped because tht sounded miserable.
5. Do it by hand in Photos
If you have a tiny library, sure. Open each video, swipe up, check the file size, repeat. Technically valid. Mentally draining after a while.
So yeah, if you want the fastest path, I’d go with Clever Cleaner and use the Heavies section. It was the only option I found where I could see the biggest space hogs right away instead of approximating with duration or digging through menus.
One last thing people forget. When you delete videos from Photos, they stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days. Space does not fully come back until you empty that folder manually. I missed this the first time and thought my phone was bugging out.
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No, Photos still does not let you sort videos by file size inside the app. You get date, not size. Apple keeps this weirdly limited.
I’d skip the manual tap-each-video routine @mikeappsreviewer mentioned unless your library is tiny. It works, but it’s a slog.
A better route is using search and albums to narrow the pile first:
- Open Photos, tap Search.
- Search for “videos”.
- Add filters like a month, location, or device.
- Open the likely batches, then check info on the biggest suspects.
It’s not true size sorting, but it cuts the list down fast.
If you want a cleaner way to find space hogs, Clever Cleaner is one of the few options built for this. It’s more useful if your goal is delete or compress large clips without exporting stuff all over the place. This page is a solid overview of Clever Cleaner’s video compression and swipe cleanup tools:
see how Clever Cleaner helps sort, compress, and clean up large iPhone videos
One more option people miss, import your library to a Mac. In Photos on macOS, you still don’t get a perfect “sort by size” button either, which is annoyng, but apps like Image Capture or Finder workflows make triage easier once files are off the phone.
Fastest path on iPhone, use Clever Cleaner.
Best no-extra-app path, use Photos search to narrow batches, then delete from there.
Then empty Recently Deleted, or your storage wont move much.
Nope. In Photos on iPhone, you still can’t truly sort videos by file size. That part is annoyngly limited.
I mostly agree with @mikeappsreviewer and @boswandelaar, but I’d push back a little on using duration as a stand-in. It’s just too unreliable once you mix 4K, slo-mo, cinematic, HDR, etc. A 20-second clip can be weirdly huge.
One thing I’d do that they didn’t really get into: change your recording settings before cleaning up so the problem stops getting worse. Go to Settings > Camera > Record Video and see if you’re shooting 4K/60 by default. That setting chews through storage fast. Switching future clips to 1080p can save a ton.
Also check Settings > Camera > Formats. If “Most Compatible” is on, your files can be larger than if you use High Efficiency. Not always the magic fix, but it helps.
If you want the fastest practical method, yeah, Clever Cleaner is probly the most direct way to spot giant videos without manually inspecting everything. It’s basically an easy-to-use iPhone storage cleanup app for large videos, duplicates, and photo clutter. If you want a visual walkthrough, this video on cleaning up large iPhone videos with Clever Cleaner is worth a look.
Another underrated trick: send the biggest keepers to cloud or external storage first, then delete local copies. If you’re trying to free space fast, compressing is nice, but offloading works faster in real life.
So short answer: no native size sort in Photos. Realistic answer: use Clever Cleaner, or change camera settings and offload the keepers.
