CleanMyPhone: The Essential iOS Device Cleaner

Keeping your iPhone or iPad running smoothly is crucial for a seamless user experience. With apps accumulating data over time, storage can quickly become cluttered. Here CleanMy®Phone where is the solution for optimizing and cleaning up your iOS devices.

TheSweetBits highlight

• This app optimizes iPhone/iPad performance by intelligently cleaning unnecessary files (photos, duplicates, downloads). However, some advanced features require a paid subscription.
• Uninstall unwanted apps and clean up associated data to maximize storage efficiency.
• Goes beyond basic cleaning with AI-powered photo organization by category, date, or location.
• Clear browsing history, cookies, and sensitive data from various apps to safeguard your privacy.
• Built-in Wi-Fi speed test ensures your internet connection is strong enough for smooth online tasks.

A bit about CleanMy®Phone app

As long-time fans of MacPaw’s CleanMyMac, we’re excited to explore their new app, CleanMyPhone. While CleanMyMac keeps our Mac running smoothly, CleanMyPhone tackles the clutter that accumulates on iPhones and iPads!

Originally starting as a duplicate photo finder (similar to their amazing Gemini Photos app), MacPaw envisions CleanMyPhone as the ultimate all-in-one cleaning and optimization tool for your iPhone and iPad.

The app is already packed with features. It can find and remove duplicate photos, blurry images, and even those forgotten screenshots that seem to multiply overnight. Plus, it helps clean up other clutter that steals your storage space.

A deep dive into CleanMy®Phone’s capabilities

CleanMyPhone stands out in the crowded space of digital cleaning tools with its array of features designed to simplify the management of your digital clutter.

Setting up CleanMyPhone is straightforward and user-friendly, assuring users of its safety from the start. The app requires minimal permissions, primarily accessing the user’s photo library—no data is uploaded to external servers, keeping personal content secure.

This approach not only speeds up the cleaning process but also enhances user trust, as there’s no risk of personal data being compromised or shared without consent. CleanMyPhone’s commitment to privacy is evident, as it does not access hidden albums and respects user privacy settings on their devices.

The core functionality of the app revolves around three main pillars: Declutter, Organize, and Network Speed Test.

Declutter

The decluttering process in CleanMyPhone is intelligently driven by AI, offering a hands-on yet automated experience. Upon granting necessary permissions, users are introduced to a smart system that periodically notifies them to review and manage clutter—ensuring the app remains actively helpful without being intrusive.

As it scans the library, the AI identifies not just obvious junk like old screenshots and duplicates but also subtly examines photo quality, suggesting the removal of blurry images, especially those taken in portrait mode, and sorting them alongside exact duplicates.

Users can visually compare these suggested deletions side by side, with the app providing detailed metadata for each image, empowering them to make informed decisions about what to keep or discard.

Organize

CleanMyPhone goes beyond just deleting unwanted files; it helps organize photos and documents with ease. This AI-powered feature automatically sorts files into albums based on content, date, or location, creating themed folders like “Travel,” “Pets,” “Food,” and more.

This feature not only helps users find specific photos quickly but also highlights the best copies among similar ones.  CleanMyPhone learns from your usage patterns and suggests new organizational methods, making photo management a breeze.

Network

An unexpected but useful addition, this feature allows users to test their internet connection speed directly from the app.

Simply head to the “Network” tab and tap “Test.” The app quickly provides clear information on upload and download speeds. For example, a speed of 99.7Mbps indicates suitability for browsing, online gaming, media streaming, messaging, video calling, and chatting.

This can be particularly useful for troubleshooting performance issues that might affect cloud backups or online photo syncing, ensuring your device runs smoothly offline and interacts efficiently with online services.

Our experience with CleanMyPhone

Over a month, we integrated CleanMyPhone into our daily routine to gauge its effectiveness and user-friendliness. One of our iPhones, burdened with over 32,000 photos and countless redundant files, served as the perfect testbed for this app’s capabilities.

Initially skeptical, we were pleasantly surprised by how accurately CleanMyPhone identified unnecessary files. The app quickly highlighted several gigabytes of duplications and old downloads we had forgotten.

The visual comparison tool was particularly helpful; it displayed duplicates side by side, with details like file size and creation date, making it easier to decide which versions to keep.

The organization feature transformed our photo access, with categories like ‘Travel’, ‘Family Events’, and ‘Documents’ automatically populated, making navigation effortless.

In one month, CleanMyPhone helped recover nearly 15GB of storage space by identifying and removing redundant files. This quantifiable result highlighted the app’s value.

We appreciated the app’s suggestion to create a ‘Work Documents’ folder after noticing recurring patterns in our downloads during business hours. The network speed test feature was handy for checking connectivity before uploading large batches of photos to the cloud, ensuring our internet speed was sufficient for heavy data tasks.

In summary, our hands-on experience with CleanMyPhone revealed a robust tool that delivered on its promises with an intuitive design and powerful features. It not only helped clean and organize our digital space but also enhanced overall device usability.

Comparative analysis

Compared to other popular cleaning apps like Google’s Files Go and CCleaner, CleanMyPhone holds its ground with its unique combination of features.

Unlike Files Go, which primarily focuses on temporary and junk files, CleanMyPhone offers comprehensive cleaning, including photo management.

CCleaner, while powerful, does not provide the same level of photo organization and lacks the AI-driven categorization that makes CleanMyPhone stand out.

One standout feature is its handling of sensitive photos, allowing users to mark specific images as ‘sensitive,’ ensuring they are excluded from future scans—providing peace of mind and personalized control over privacy.

Additionally, the inclusion of a network speed test within the app cleverly complements its core functionality, allowing users to ensure their connection is robust enough for efficient data management and cloud interactions.

These features distinguish CleanMyPhone in a market where most competitors focus solely on basic cleaning without these nuanced capabilities.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Efficient Decluttering: CleanMyPhone excels in accurately identifying and removing unnecessary files, significantly freeing up storage space.
• Advanced Organization: Automatically categorizes files into intuitive albums, making photo and document management a breeze.
• User-Friendly Interface: The app is straightforward to navigate, with clear options and visual guides enhancing the user experience.
• Privacy-Focused: Requires minimal permissions, focusing only on essential data, a significant plus for privacy-conscious users.

Cons

• Limited Free Features: While the app offers a robust set of tools, some of the more advanced features are locked behind a paywall, which might deter some users.
• May require user review for some deletion suggestion: In some cases, the AI might suggest deleting files that the user prefers to keep, requiring careful review.

Pricing and availability

CleanMyPhone is available for download on the App Store, but to unlock its full potential, you’ll need a subscription. The good news is that the app offers a free 3-day trial to test all its features before committing.

After the trial, a yearly subscription unlocks all features for $24.99. The app requires iOS or iPadOS 16.0 or later.

Download options:

• App Store: This is the most straightforward way to get CleanMyPhone. Simply head to the App Store and search for it.
• Setapp (Optional): If you’re a Mac user and already subscribe to Setapp, MacPaw’s service offering access to various Mac and iPhone utilities, you can also access CleanMyPhone through your Setapp membership for $12.99 per month.

Bonus for EU Users: In April, MacPaw plans to launch Setapp Mobile, an alternative app store for the European Union. This will allow EU users to install apps directly through the Setapp service, eliminating the need for QR code scanning currently in place.

Final words

If you want to extend the lifespan of your iOS device and maintain optimal performance, CleanMyPhone is an invaluable tool. It simplifies the management of your device’s storage and enhances your overall user experience.

For more details, visit MacPaw to try CleanMyPhone.