Cleanup App (Phone Storage Cleaner) – my experience vs an alternative
Cleanup App (Phone Storage Cleaner)
I installed Cleanup App (Phone Storage Cleaner) after my iPhone started throwing the “storage almost full” popup every single day. Photos app was a mess, videos everywhere, bunch of random screenshots. I wanted something quick, not a weekend project.
First impression of Cleanup App was decent. It scanned:
- duplicate photos
- “similar” photos
- screenshots
- big videos
- contacts you can merge
On paper it covers the right stuff. It also offers video compression and some contact cleanup tools.
Then the catch showed up.
Most of what I needed was locked behind a subscription. The free tier mostly tells you what is junk, then blocks the bulk actions unless you pay or sit through an absurd number of ads.
After a few runs I hit these issues:
- The scan is fine, but mass clean requires subscription.
- To do anything useful for free, you have to watch ad after ad. Feels like watching TV with more commercials than show.
- “Fun” extras like animations and a secret vault feature felt out of place, I opened the app to reclaim storage, not to hide photos or watch effects.
- The whole thing started to feel slower because of the interruptions.
Real user feedback matched what I felt. Not the sponsored stuff, the regular App Store reviews:
After a couple of days of trying to make it work without paying, I bailed and tried something else.
I moved to Clever Cleaner
I ended up installing Clever Cleaner from here:
First run, it did the basic job without trying to shove a subscription screen in my face every tap.
What it helped me clear:
- piles of duplicate photos
- similar shots where I kept 1 or 2 and removed the rest
- large files and long forgotten videos
- old screenshots that I never went back to
The main difference for me:
- It let me use the core features for free in a more straight way.
- Less nagging about subscriptions. It exists, but it does not block every action.
- Interface felt simpler, less clutter around stuff I did not need.
Here is how it looks on my side:
After one longer cleaning session plus a few quick runs over a week, I cleared a few gigabytes, mostly from photos and videos I forgot I even had.
If your goal is fast storage cleanup without a lot of paywalls and ad spam, I would start with Clever Cleaner over Cleanup App. Cleanup App functions, but the free usage feels too restricted.
Extra links if you want to check it yourself
YouTube walkthrough of Clever Cleaner:
Clever Cleaner homepage:
Direct App Store link again: