IPhone 4 - deleted images, after got low memory error msg rcvd, but available memory has not increased!!

Question

I have an iPhone 4 16GB. Was recording a video the other day, and got this msg: "Warning: You are running out of disk space. Please delete some photos or videos". Ok, so I had like 5,000+ images in my "camera roll", don't have any other folders. ALOT were from the Internet, when I would hold down on an image, and pick "save image". So, using common sense, I went into camera, under camera roll, then hit arrow icon in bottom left corner, and proceeded to check mark images. Once I had a group, I'd hit delete. I did this several times, until I was left with only about 1/2 the amount of images, which was about 3,000. I rebooted my iphone. I then went into settings> general> about, and looked under available, which still showed only about 100MB available out of 14GB. How is this possible? Now, when I go into camera, the lense won't even open, and I keep getting the same error msg. Maybe 3,000 is still alot, but remember, I had almost 6,000 images before, with NO problems till just a few days ago. So, how do I get my iPhone available memory back, if already deleted images, as instructed???

Answer 1

You need to connect the iPhone to the computer and import those photos to the computer. Photos are not really supposed to be stored in the camera roll as it can cause problems, as you have already seen. Also, should the iPhone crash, you could lose all of the photos without having a backup of them. Once you have downloaded all the pictures, you should be able to go into Explorer and delete everything out of that folder. Then reset the iPhone and it should clear the memory. The iPhone is probably holding the memory because the Library hasn't updated. A sync would help as it tends to reset things. I've read of other issues with keeping too many photos in the camera roll and issues with saving from the Internet as well, however much of that was in earlier versions of iOS. I believe that has been corrected.
Once you have imported the photos and deleted them from the camera roll, you can sync them back through iTunes in the Photos tab if you want them on the phone.