Sort: undo on the spot, but only for the current batch
While you're swiping through cards on the Sort tab — left to clear, right to keep, down to park — every action can be undone right after you make it. But this undo is session-level: it only works while you're still in the current sorting batch. Once you've left the Sort tab and come back to start a new batch, whatever you did in the previous batch can no longer be undone through this entry point. So if you notice you cleared the wrong shot, the best move is to undo it immediately — not tell yourself you'll deal with it later.
Moving to trash: the system Photos app original stays untouched
Whether you swipe left to clear on Sort or work through the suggestions on Cleanup, "clearing" a screenshot actually just moves it into the app's own internal trash — this step never touches your system photo library at all. The original screenshot stays exactly where it was in the iOS Photos app; it doesn't disappear just because you cleared it once inside ScreenStack. This is a second safety net, independent of session-level undo: even after you've left a sorting session and can no longer use undo, as long as you haven't permanently deleted it from trash, it's still recoverable.
Trash never empties on its own
One thing worth spelling out clearly: there's no timer that empties trash automatically after some period of time. Whatever's in there stays put until you go in and handle it yourself. That's a deliberate design choice — nothing should quietly disappear without you noticing, and the tradeoff is that you need to check in on trash and clear it out yourself every so often.
Delete permanently: the last gate before anything's final
Go into the Trash sub-tab, find a screenshot you actually want gone, and tapping "Delete permanently" brings up iOS's own system-level second confirmation dialog — this isn't a prompt ScreenStack drew itself, it's a system-level delete confirmation. Only after you agree does it actually remove the original from the Photos app, and that step can't be undone. In other words, a screenshot's path from "cleared on Sort" to "actually gone from your phone" passes through both a move to trash and a system confirmation — one accidental tap can't make anything disappear for good.
Quick reference: the three layers
- Sort undo: session-level, only reverses the last step of the current batch, and stops working once you leave and start a new one;
- Move to trash: doesn't touch the original in your system Photos app, recoverable from trash anytime, with no automatic expiry;
- Delete permanently: goes through iOS's own second confirmation, irreversible once confirmed, and actually frees up storage.
If you realize you've deleted the wrong thing, your first move should be to check whether it's still sitting in trash, not scramble for some other fix — as long as you haven't tapped "Delete permanently," the original is still there.
