7 Best Free Apps to Clean iPhone Storage (and iPad)

Utilities   •  May 8, 2024

As the number of iPhone users surpasses a billion globally, the issue of managing device storage becomes increasingly significant. Clutter can slow down your device, impacting its functionality. It’s not just about removing unused apps—often, the native Photos app itself becomes a maze of duplicate pictures needing cleanup.

This guide brings you the top free apps designed to tidy up your iPhone or iPad, ensuring your device operates at peak efficiency. Whether you’re battling photo overload or app clutter, discover how the right cleaning app can enhance your device’s performance and user experience.

Top 7 apps for cleaning iPhone/iPad storage

Ready to explore the best digital tools for maintaining your iPhone or iPad? Let’s start the journey to optimal device health.

• CleanMy®Phone – AI-powered, for iPhone/iPad
• Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner – For duplicates & screenshots cleaning
• Easy Cleaner – Designed for iPad, best for duplicate contacts clean
• Magic Cleaner & Smart Cleanup – Designed for iPhone with VPN
• Cleanfox – Mail & spam cleaner
• Boost Cleaner – Clean up smart
• iMobie PhoneClean –  A deep cleaning your iOS device

CleanMy®Phone – AI-powered, for iPhone/iPad

When we put CleanMy®Phone to the test on our devices, it was the AI-powered decluttering that really shone through. The app meticulously scans for redundant files like duplicates, similar images, old screenshots, and blurry photos. However, it doesn’t just sweep through deleting files; its AI carefully assesses each file’s relevance and quality before suggesting removal.

The organization feature was another highlight, intelligently categorizing files into neat albums based on content, date, or location. This made navigating through thousands of photos and documents surprisingly manageable. Moreover, the network speed test feature, an unexpected but welcome addition, allowed us to check our internet connectivity directly from the app—handy for ensuring efficient cloud backups and online syncing.

Pros:

• We noticed that CleanMy®Phone excels in identifying unnecessary files accurately, which can greatly enhance your device’s storage efficiency.
• The app boasts a user-friendly interface that simplifies the cleaning process. Navigation is straightforward, making it easy for anyone to manage their device’s storage.
• It provides a detailed preview of duplicates and similar files, allowing for informed decision-making on what to delete or keep.

Cons:

• While CleanMy®Phone offers a powerful toolset, many of its most effective features require a purchase, which might put off users looking for a fully free solution.
• Occasionally, the AI might suggest removing files that you might want to keep, necessitating a careful review before confirming deletions to avoid losing important data.

Our Take: CleanMy®Phone stands out for its intelligent and user-friendly approach to decluttering and organizing iPhone and iPad storage. In our testing, the app’s AI-driven cleanup not only identified redundant photos and files but also suggested smart organizational categories. The process felt secure and thorough, with the app running entirely offline, enhancing user privacy. While some of its most powerful features require a purchase, the app’s effectiveness in freeing up storage space and its seamless user experience make it a worthwhile consideration. Read our full CleanMyPhone review here.

Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner – For duplicates & screenshots cleaning

In the bustling world of iPhone storage apps, Cleanup stands out with its engaging, almost game-like approach to decluttering your photo library. Designed to make the mundane task of cleaning fun and productive, Cleanup encourages users to swipe left to discard unwanted photos and duplicates, or right to keep cherished memories. This intuitive interface simplifies the decision-making process, ensuring that only the best photos remain in your gallery.

Cleanup doesn’t just randomly select photos for deletion. It smartly suggests the best photo to keep from a group of similar ones based on several criteria: whether you’re looking directly at the camera, smiling, the photo’s focus, and whether you’ve edited or favorited the photo in the past. This AI-driven selection process puts the control back in your hands, with a final review stage that mimics the familiar Trash folder concept, allowing a last check to make sure no cherished memory is accidentally deleted.

Pros:

• Engaging interface makes cleaning both fun and effective with swipe actions.
• Smart Selection suggests the best photos to keep based on multiple criteria.
• Privacy and security features that makes it work offline, ensuring no data leaves your device.

Cons:

• Access to all features requires a subscription, which may not appeal to everyone.
• While there is a 7-day free trial, long-term use requires payment.

Our Take: Cleanup makes tidying up your photo library a surprisingly engaging activity. The app’s swipe interface for discarding or keeping photos makes the cleaning process interactive and efficient. Its AI-powered selection, which recommends the best photo to keep based on multiple criteria, proved particularly useful. While the app operates offline for user privacy, its subscription model might be a consideration for those seeking a free solution.

Easy Cleaner – Designed for iPad, best for duplicate contacts clean

Easy Cleaner emerges as a specialized tool for iPad users, particularly excelling in cleaning duplicate contacts—an often overlooked aspect of digital clutter. This app streamlines the process of identifying and merging or deleting duplicate entries in your contact list, ensuring your communications remain efficient and organized.

Beyond just contacts, Easy Cleaner provides a comprehensive cleaning solution, targeting redundant files, photos, and apps to free up valuable storage space on your device.

The app is engineered to enhance the iPad experience, making full use of the larger screen to display detailed information about what’s being cleaned and allowing users to make informed decisions about the data they wish to retain or discard. Its user-friendly interface simplifies navigation, making it accessible for users of all tech levels.

Pros:

• Specialized in contact management as it targets and resolves duplicates in contacts effectively.
• Clean various types of files comprehensively, optimizing iPad storage.
• Tailored for iPad as it utilizes the device’s larger display for enhanced user interaction.

Cons:

• Although available for iPhone users, it is iPad oriented in terms fo design and UI.
• While functional, the interface lacks advanced features found in some competitors.

Our Take: Designed specifically for iPads, Easy Cleaner excels in managing duplicate contacts, a commonly overlooked aspect of digital clutter. Its ability to identify and merge or delete duplicate entries effectively streamlines your contact list. While the interface prioritizes iPad use, it remains user-friendly for both iPhone and iPad users. While it lacks advanced features compared to some competitors, its specialization in contacts makes it a valuable tool for iPad users facing contact management issues.

Magic Cleaner & Smart Cleanup – Designed for iPhone with VPN

When I first downloaded Magic Cleaner & Smart Cleanup, I was intrigued by its dual promise of not being just an app cleaner but also a VPN service. Designed specifically for iPhone, this app offers a robust suite of tools aimed at streamlining and securing your mobile experience.

Upon opening the app, the interface was intuitive and user-friendly, guiding me through its various features. During my testing, the process was straightforward: the app scanned my device and presented a detailed breakdown of memory hogs and potential deletions.

What sets Magic Cleaner apart is its built-in VPN service, adding an extra layer of security. The VPN was easy to activate and did not slow down my browsing speed, a common issue with other VPN-enabled apps.

The app’s photo cleanup tool was impressively thorough. It didn’t just indiscriminately suggest deletions; it provided comparisons and reasons. This granular control meant I could make informed decisions without fearing accidental important deletions.

I particularly appreciated the feature that sorted videos by size, suggesting I start with the largest ones. This was incredibly useful for managing space, as videos tend to take up most of the room.

Pros:

• The app excels at finding and removing unnecessary files efficiently, offering significant storage recovery.
• Integrated VPN enhances online privacy without compromising internet speed.
• Intuitive UI makes it easy to navigate through its features and use the app to its full potential.

Cons:

• Complex features for beginners, so new users may find the range of options overwhelming.
• The most useful features are locked behind a paywall, which might be a turn-off for users looking for a free solution.

Our Take: Magic Cleaner & Smart Cleanup simplifies the digital decluttering process with its robust cleaning features and integrated VPN service. During testing, the VPN didn’t compromise browsing speed, a common issue with VPN-enabled apps. This app is ideal for iPhone users seeking a comprehensive cleaning solution with an added layer of security through its VPN feature. While the most valuable features require a paid subscription, the free version offers a good starting point for basic cleanup needs.

Cleanfox – Mail & spam cleaner

Cleanfox presents itself as a robust tool designed specifically for decluttering and managing your email inbox, focusing on the often-overlooked aspect of digital cleanliness: emails and spam. As I tried to tame my unruly inbox with Cleanfox, the app’s promise to make email management not just feasible but straightforward and secure seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Upon launching Cleanfox on my iPhone, I was greeted with a sleek, user-friendly interface that made navigation a breeze. The app’s core functionality is to sift through your emails and identify spam, as well as old and redundant messages that clutter your inbox. During my test, within minutes, it had analyzed my inbox and presented a detailed report of potential spam and unnecessary emails.

What sets Cleanfox apart is its commitment to user privacy and security. It operates entirely offline, ensuring that all cleaning processes are executed directly on the device without requiring an internet connection. This feature guarantees that your sensitive email data doesn’t leave your phone, addressing privacy concerns.

The app not only identifies unwanted emails but also offers an intuitive swipe feature to manage them: swipe left to unsubscribe and delete and swipe right to keep. This functionality was particularly appealing as it allowed me to make quick decisions on each email, drastically reducing my inbox size and improving my overall email management efficiency.

Pros:

• Cleanfox proficiently identifies and helps manage spam and unnecessary emails, significantly decluttering your inbox.
• Functions offline to ensure your data remains secure and private, a notable advantage for privacy-conscious users.
• The swipe mechanism simplifies the decision-making process, making it quick and enjoyable to clean your inbox.

Cons:

• While extremely efficient at what it does, Cleanfox is specialized and does not offer broader device cleaning or organization features.
• Its functionality might vary depending on the email services used, which could limit its effectiveness for some users.

Our Take: Cleanfox provides an exceptionally focused service that tackles email clutter head-on. It efficiently sorts through inboxes to identify and manage subscriptions and junk mail, significantly reducing storage usage. Its offline functionality ensures user privacy by keeping all cleaning processes on the device. Cleanfox is a good choice for users seeking a dedicated tool to declutter and streamline their email inboxes. However, those looking for a broader device cleaning solution might need to consider additional apps.

Boost Cleaner – Clean up smart

Boost Cleaner is designed as a comprehensive tool to enhance the performance of your iPhone with a focus on smart cleaning and optimization. When I downloaded and started using Boost Cleaner, its promise of a streamlined smartphone experience was quite appealing, especially given the clutter that tends to accumulate on my devices over time.

The app boasts a multi-functional approach to cleaning, which I found to be highly efficient. It targets junk files, memory space, and unnecessary apps that can slow down your device. During my trial, Boost Cleaner quickly scanned my iPhone, providing a detailed breakdown of areas where space could be freed up, which was both informative and visually satisfying.

One of the standout features of Boost Cleaner is its ability to manage memory usage intelligently. It automatically detects background apps that are consuming too much memory and allows you to shut them down with just a tap, thereby boosting the phone’s performance almost instantly. This feature was particularly useful as it helped maintain my device’s speed without constant manual oversight.

Pros:

• Effectively targets various types of clutter, including junk files and background apps, which can help free up significant storage and improve device performance.
• Automatic Memory Management simplifies the process of controlling which apps run in the background, enhancing the overall responsiveness of your device.
• Clean, intuitive layout makes it easy to navigate and utilize all the app’s features effectively.

Cons:

• While helpful, the app’s alerts about cleaning and optimization can become frequent, which might be intrusive for some users.
• There’s always a risk of deleting necessary files if not reviewed carefully, due to the app’s aggressive cleaning capabilities.

Our Take:  Boost Cleaner is an agile and efficient tool for optimizing iPhone performance through smart cleaning. It excels in removing junk files, optimizing memory usage, and even offers features to manage CPU temperature. Our experience showed a noticeable improvement in device responsiveness after using Boost Cleaner. While some users might find the cleaning alerts frequent, the app’s user-friendly interface and clear visuals make it a strong contender for those seeking to maintain optimal device performance.

iMobie PhoneClean –  A deep cleaning your iOS device

iMobie PhoneClean stands out in the realm of iOS optimization tools due to its comprehensive approach to cleaning and maintaining iPhone and iPad devices. My experience with PhoneClean began with an intuitive installation process, followed by a detailed tour of its capabilities, which promise to deliver a cleaner, faster, and more protected iOS experience.

The application prides itself on its ability to free up space effectively and safely. One of the core features I explored was the “Silent Clean,” which operates in the background without the need to initiate it manually. It automatically cleans up junk files, temporary files, and photo caches, which, over time, can take up considerable space.

Another significant aspect of PhoneClean is its focus on privacy. The “Privacy Clean” feature aims to ensure that your sensitive information, such as message attachments, internet history, and email caches, is securely erased. This was particularly reassuring, as the safeguarding of personal data is a priority for many users, myself included.

Pros:

• PhoneClean excels in removing hidden junk files and temporary data, offering a noticeable boost in storage space.
• It provides detailed options to clean sensitive data, ensuring that privacy concerns are addressed.
• The ability to clean without manual intervention is a significant plus, making regular maintenance effortless.

Cons:

• Some users might find the interface and the plethora of options overwhelming at first.
• Essential features like advanced privacy cleaning require a purchase, which might deter some users from fully utilizing the app.

Our Take: iMobie PhoneClean offers a deep cleaning solution that goes beyond simple file deletion to improve overall system performance on iOS devices. It effectively removes hidden junk files and temporary data, freeing up significant storage space. PhoneClean also prioritizes user privacy with features like “Privacy Clean” to securely erase sensitive data. While the interface might seem complex at first glance, and some advanced features require purchase, PhoneClean is a reliable choice for users who value a thorough and secure cleaning process with detailed logs for peace of mind.

Choosing the right app for you

When selecting the best iPhone cleaning app, consider several key factors to ensure it meets your needs effectively:

1. Features: What specific functionalities does the app offer? Does it cover basic cleaning, or does it also provide privacy protection, duplicate file removal, or advanced sorting capabilities?
2. Ease of Use: How user-friendly is the app? Some may have a steep learning curve due to complex interfaces, while others are straightforward and easy to navigate.
3. Price: Is the app free, or does it require a subscription or one-time purchase? Consider whether the features provided justify the cost.
4. Security: Does the app operate locally on your device, or does it require data to be uploaded to the cloud? Local operations generally offer better privacy and security.

Here’s a comparative overview of the apps discussed:

Tips for safe usage to avoid data loss

Ensuring that you do not lose data while using cleaning apps on your iPhone or iPad involves more than just hitting the ‘clean’ button. Here are some detailed guidelines to keep your data safe:

1. Backup Regularly: Before using any cleaning tool, make sure to backup your device. Use iCloud or iTunes to create full backups so that you can restore your device if something goes wrong.
2. Understand What You’re Deleting: Before you confirm any deletion, review the files or data the app suggests removing. Make sure you understand what each file is and whether it may be needed later.
3. Use Trusted Apps: Only download and use cleaning apps that have good reviews and are recommended by reputable sources. Apps from unknown developers or with poor reviews may pose a risk to both your device’s functionality and your data.
4. Monitor the App’s Behavior: Pay attention to what the app does in the background. Some apps might delete files automatically; setting permissions and preferences correctly can prevent unwanted deletions.
5. Avoid Automatic Clean-ups: If possible, choose manual cleaning over automatic to maintain control over what gets deleted. Automatic processes can sometimes remove files indiscriminately.
6. Check for Updates: Regularly update the cleaning app to ensure you have the latest features and security enhancements. Developers often release updates to patch vulnerabilities or improve functionality.
7. Consider the Impact of Cleaning Apps: Be aware that some apps might affect your device’s performance by running continuously in the background. Evaluate the benefits versus the potential slowdowns.

Wrapping up

Selecting and using an iPhone cleaning app requires careful consideration of its features and potential impacts on your device. By following the above tips, you can maximize the benefits of using a cleaning app while minimizing risks.

Effective management of your device not only improves its performance but also extends its usable life, making the effort well worth it. These strategies ensure you remain in control of your data and device health, making the digital cleaning process both safe and beneficial.

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