Which photos should I delete?

June 2025— How to mentally get over deleting old photos that take up your phone space. Make space for new beauty to be captured. :)


(This article isn't written that seriously, by the way.)



“You do not have enough storage to take more photos. Free up space by deleting…” That little popup haunted me. I only had around 2,900 photos on my iPhone camera roll, but apparently, that was enough to clog up everything. When I finally opened my gallery to delete things, I realized it wasn’t just a storage problem, but an emotional one. Which photos do I delete? Which pieces of my past am I really ready to let go of? :(

🌀 Failed Photography Attempts

The first category I tackled were failed photography attempts... you know, when you try so hard to get a photo of a leaf, a sunset, a perfect cup of noodles... and you take like 15 shots trying to frame it just right, only for it to never really become anything “photography-worthy.” I realized I didn’t need to keep all those efforts. I can let them go, knowing I tried. Not every photo has to become art. Some were just part of the learning curve.

I tried my best editing these below but they just looked off. It's been 8 months... So I decided to just delete them now 😀

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These roses look great, but I don't really like the petal distribution on either. I like saying "try to make everything art", but these just don't sit right. 😀

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These too... the reflection (left) looks off, and the soup (right) looks too dark. On the left image, I was trying to add a "retro" effect; it has potential to become "photography worthy", but I just can't seem to position it right. On the right image, the soup one, I kind of lacked a main subject to focus on. Is it the soy bottle (slightly blurred) or the noodle bowl, which isn't even really positioned straight? A potential fix is to zoom the photo, so that the soy bottle is at the 1/3rd division line to the right. But still ...

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🛍️ Your "Slice of Life" Photos Can Go, Too

Don't attack me on this: I'm sure you can relate. So then, we have our "slice of life" photos. These were trickier, because they once felt meaningful: for example, a photo of a beef Cup-o-Noodle flavor in Flushing, a cute Hello Kitty Milkis flavor (I never seen in real life before), or a cool display of instant rice noodles. I remember taking those pictures because I was genuinely amazed. But now, almost a year later, I look at them and just feel… "eh." They aren’t super unique anymore, and I could technically see or eat them again next time I go. So I let those go too.

The only reason I took the beef ramen photo (left) is because I never seen a Cup-O-Noodle Beef flavor in real life before. And I thought the food (right) was really good, like the baozi looked very juicy. But I feel like I didn't really need to keep these photos, since when I think back, I think "oh yea they had baozi, and it was good", not "ahh, so nostalgic~ brings me back to childhood 🥺 ". So these ... can go to the trash.

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The milkis photo— I took it because I never saw the Hello Kitty collab flavor before. The instant noodles photo— I took it because I thought the colors and variety was cool. I deleted these though, because ... I just don't really need these in my storage. It's not like I don't know these amazing food flavors exist. I can always search it up online...

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Same with these. I thought the shark plush (left) was cute and the many traintracks (right) was interesting.

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Basically, for your "food slice of life" photos, if it wasn’t the best thing you ever ate or doesn’t tell a story— just let it go.

For some of your "slice of life" selfies, you can let that go too. I think you don't need to keep the ones that don't spark confidence or happiness. For example, I always take selfies randomly, sometimes just staring blankly at the camera with no purpose, pointing it at my face with a food, random building, or just at a random moment. When I look back, I wonder why I even take these... is it to say "ah, I was at this place before"? But yeah, you don't need to keep these out of guilt.



You ALSO don't need to keep "slice of life" photos that try to prove something: I mean those photos where you take just to say "Look, I went outside today" or "I ate healthy". Again, if they don't make you feel something real now, you can let those photos go.

You ALSO can delete those "zoomed-in pictures" that was only meaningful then. What I mean is, for example, those photos of a cloud that looked like a heart, a blurry zoomed photo of something cool, etc. Don't force yourself to keep those pictures if they don't mean anything anymore.

Photos You Can Delete (It’s ok, trust me lol)



So? Think about it this way. Every photo you delete makes room for a new one. A new memory. A new little slice of your life you haven't even lived yet. And aint that kinda magical!