What it costs you in storage
Nothing, and everything. A deleted photo keeps its full original size for the whole 30-day window, so a cleanup session that removes several gigabytes moves several gigabytes into Recently Deleted and frees none of it. This is the single most common reason people say their iPhone storage did not drop after deleting photos: the delete worked, the space just hasn’t been handed back yet.
With iCloud Photos switched on, the album syncs like any other, so the same 30-day copy sits on every device signed into your account.
What you can do about it in iOS
Open Photos › Albums › Recently Deleted. On iOS 16 and later it sits in the Utilities section and is locked behind Face ID or Touch ID.
- To get the space back now: tap Select, then Delete All — or pick individual photos and delete only those.
- To undo a mistake: tap Select, choose the photos, then Recover. They go back where they came from, with their original date.
- To do nothing: iOS empties each item on its own 30 days after you deleted it.
One thing worth knowing before you empty it: after that, the photos are gone. Recently Deleted is the last safety net iOS gives you, which is exactly why it is worth leaving alone for a few days after a big clearing session.
Why the 30 days are the point
A photo cleanup is only comfortable if being wrong is cheap. The 30-day window is what makes a fast decision safe: you can clear a thousand photos in an afternoon and still change your mind about any of them for a month. Every delete Kept makes goes to this same album, so it inherits the same 30-day reversal.