To delete an old wallpaper, wake your iPhone, touch and hold the Lock Screen, and unlock with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. In the wallpaper gallery that opens, swipe up on the wallpaper you want to remove, tap the trash icon, and tap Delete This Wallpaper.
This works on iOS 16 and later, including iOS 26. Deleting removes the whole Lock Screen and its matching Home Screen from the gallery, but it doesn’t delete the original picture from the Photos app.
How to remove a wallpaper from the Lock Screen gallery
- Press the side button (or the Home button) so the Lock Screen shows.
- Touch and hold an empty part of the Lock Screen, away from the clock and notifications.
- Unlock with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode if asked. The screen zooms out to show your saved wallpapers side by side.
- Swipe left or right to find the wallpaper you want to get rid of.
- Swipe up on that wallpaper. A red trash icon appears beneath it.
- Tap the trash icon.
- Tap Delete This Wallpaper to confirm.
The wallpaper disappears from the gallery right away. Repeat steps 4 to 7 for each old wallpaper you want to clear out. When you’re finished, tap the wallpaper you want to keep using to go back to the Lock Screen.
Note: There’s no undo. If you delete a Lock Screen you spent time customizing, with widgets, a font or a depth effect, you’ll need to build it again from the + button in the gallery.
What gets deleted and what stays
| Item | After you delete the wallpaper |
|---|---|
| The Lock Screen design (clock style, widgets, filters) | Deleted |
| The Home Screen wallpaper paired with it | Deleted along with it |
| The original photo in the Photos app | Kept |
| Apple’s built-in wallpapers (Astronomy, Weather, Emoji and so on) | Still available to add again from the + button |
| Other saved wallpapers | Not affected |
If your real goal is to get rid of the photo too, delete it separately in the Photos app. It moves to Recently Deleted for about 30 days first, so our guide to recovering deleted photos can help if you change your mind.
Why can’t I delete wallpapers from Settings?
Since iOS 16, Settings > Wallpaper shows your current Lock Screen and Home Screen pair and lets you add a new one or customize it, but it has no delete option. Removing a wallpaper only happens in the Lock Screen gallery described above.
Delete or just change it?
Deleting isn’t the only way to tidy up. In the same gallery you can:
- Switch wallpapers by swiping to another one and tapping it.
- Edit an existing wallpaper by tapping Customize under it, which keeps its setup but lets you change the photo, clock or widgets.
- Link a wallpaper to a Focus with the Focus button, so a work wallpaper appears only during your Work Focus.
For a full walkthrough of these options, see how to customize your iPhone Lock Screen. If you’d rather keep one Lock Screen but use a different picture behind your apps, here’s how to set different Lock and Home Screen wallpapers.
If the wallpaper gallery won’t open or the trash icon is missing
- Make sure you’re on the Lock Screen, not the Home Screen. Touching and holding the Home Screen starts app editing instead.
- Press on an empty area. Holding a notification or a widget opens that item instead of the gallery.
- Unlock the phone. The gallery only opens after Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode confirms it’s you. If Face ID doesn’t recognize you, swipe up and enter the passcode.
- Swipe up on the wallpaper itself. The trash icon only shows after you push the preview upward. Swiping from the very bottom edge of the screen can close the gallery instead.
- Check your iOS version. On iOS 15 and earlier there’s no wallpaper gallery. You just set a new wallpaper in Settings > Wallpaper, and to remove an image you delete it from Photos. Apple explains both cases in its delete a wallpaper support article.
Common questions
Is there a limit on how many wallpapers I can save?
Apple doesn’t publish a limit, and you can keep many at once. Clearing out ones you never use simply makes the gallery quicker to swipe through.
Can I delete several wallpapers at once?
No. The gallery removes one wallpaper at a time, so repeat the swipe-up and trash steps for each one.
Matthew Roberts is the founder and editor of ARS Digitech. He started the site to answer the iPhone questions his friends and family kept asking him, and it has grown into a library of iPhone and iOS how-to guides. Matthew writes and maintains every tutorial on the site, checking steps and menu names against Apple’s official support documentation and updating guides when an iOS release moves a setting.