You have hundreds, maybe thousands, of photos and videos in your library. Your storage space is crying out for help–guiltily, you realize you don’t remember the last time you deleted anything because you’ve been so busy.
That’s okay. Depending on the type of clutter you have, you can get at least 70% of the work done automatically using third-party apps. We rounded up the 5 best iPad cleaner apps that can help you instantly reclaim gigabytes of storage space.
Table of Contents
How We Chose Our Featured Apps
When we created this list, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t just recommend “good cleaner apps.” We wanted to find the best apps that made the most impact on your storage space without sacrificing user experience or value.
Specifically, here are the factors we considered that allowed us to narrow down our list from dozens of iPad apps to 5 high-impact tools:
- Features. When we selected apps, we really wanted features that made cleanup easier, faster, and more impactful than manual cleanup without compromising on safety or control. For example, some apps use AI to auto-delete perceived clutter, but they provide a trash folder you can manually review.
- Value. All apps on this list had to either be free or offer a usable free trial. That way, you’ll be able to tell yourself if an app’s function is worth its cost to you. That said, we only included apps that were also worth paying for (in our opinion).
- Usability. Modern iPad cleaner apps are supposed to help cut down clutter, not add complexity. We sought apps that had interfaces that were clean and intuitive, making it easy for you to pick them up during commutes, waiting in line, or during breaks.
- Scope. The apps we selected had varying scope—some apps managed specific types of data, while others offered general cleanup features. This ensures we prepared a well-rounded list that should also help make you aware of clutter you might have missed during manual cleanup.
The Top 5 iPad Cleaner Apps
In this section, we’ll cover 5 iPad cleaner apps and provide a breakdown of their features, pros, cons, and pricing information. We also wrote short summaries on each app, detailing the unique ways they help with cleanup.
1. Clever Cleaner: AI Cleanup App
Clever Cleaner: AI Cleanup App is our latest favorite photo library cleaner for iPad (and iPhones!). It’s completely free with no ads, has the core tools that get rid of common clutter, and has one of the best interface designs among its competitors.
Its standout feature is similar detection, which is capable of identifying both exact duplicates and identical images—something that the native Photos app can’t do. Our second favorite feature is Live Photo management, which can automatically trim the video part, leaving a high-quality photo in its stead. This alone can save gigabytes of storage space if you take a lot of Live Photos.
Clever Cleaner can also compile screenshots and “Heavies” (see the features section for more info), making it well-rounded in scope for the average user. Overall, Clever Cleaner is a polished and well-designed cleaner app for your iPad that costs nothing—so there’s no reason not to try it!
Main Features:
- Smart Cleanup. Purge all similar and duplicate photos with one tap, courtesy of AI-powered image analysis. Don’t worry, you can still review and restore images before erasing them permanently.
- Similar photo detection. Review all similar and duplicate photos in your iPad’s library and allow Clever Cleaner to intelligently select the best version for you.
- “Heavies” compilation. Browse the largest media files in your library and sort them by size or date for precise and high-impact cleanup.
- Live Photo management. View all your Live Photos conveniently and compress them with one tap. Clever Cleaner can automatically trim the video portion and keep the primary photo intact for you.
- Screenshot deletion. Simply delete all your screenshots with a single tap—you probably don’t need them anymore.
Pros:
- Completely free with no ads and limitations (perfect for beginners who want to explore)
- Fast and lightweight
- Simple and beautiful interface that simplifies cleanup
- Detection of similars makes it easy to get rid of subject-specific clutter (e.g., multiple blurred photos of the same subject)
Cons:
- No way to sort photos into albums, folders, or categories
Price:
- Free
2. CleanMy®Phone: Storage Cleaner
CleanMy®Phone: Storage Cleaner is an AI-based decluttering tool for your iPad’s photo library. We really like how it leveraged AI for cleanup—basically, the app automatically categorizes photos for you based on content and allows you to declutter from within those categories. For example, you can view duplicate and similar images among your travel photos.
It also compiles the clutter directly for you, allowing you to browse any blurred images, duplicates, and old screenshots (among many others) as their own categories.
Overall, CleanMy®Phone: Storage Cleaner is a pretty unique general cleaner that we recommend to users whose library is filled with a rich variety of photos with different subjects. This would actually maximize the app’s AI features.
Main Features:
- One-tap cleaning. Tap a button and let CleanMy®Phone do the rest—you can review the Recently Deleted album in case important photos get deleted.
- Declutter tool. Browse automatically compiled clutter, such as duplicate and similar photos, old screenshots, blurred images, redundant photos, and more.
- AI organizer. Automatically sort your photos into the most-used categories, such as Travel, Family, and Pets. You access decluttering tools while browsing each category.
Pros:
- Good at auto-detecting clutter
- Neat and beginner-friendly interface
- Leverages AI a lot more than most of its competitors
Cons:
- The app has good features, but other apps offer more cleanup tools
Price:
- $4.99 per month
- $19.99 per year
- $34.99 lifetime
3. Phone Cleaner – Phone clean
Despite its name, Phone Cleaner – Phone clean is a fully-featured iPad cleaner with a strong line-up of tools that can help you tidy up your library and address book. The app provides really good coverage for both.
Without fully spoiling the features section, Phone Cleaner can utilize techniques like compression, duplicate detection, and file size sorting to help you trim library clutter. It can identify duplicate contacts and merge their data into individual entries.
And if you have another iPad (or iPhone), you can utilize the backup and transfer feature as an extra redundancy—so you can clean up your device without worry.
Main Features:
- Photo and video compression. Compress photos and videos in the app to instantly cut down on storage space consumption.
- Similar and duplicate photo deletion. Review similar photos, Live Photos, and Burst Photos all from one menu.
- Video cleaner. Browse and delete large videos on your iPad, organized by size range (e.g., 11-50 MB, 51-100 MB, etc.).
- Contacts organizer. Merge duplicate contacts and identify contacts with missing number, name, or email.
- Media file transfer. Download the app on another device and transfer all your photos and videos wirelessly.
Pros:
- Provides lots of cleaning tools, but they all make sense (cohesive in scope)
- Covers cleanup from every angle and works well
- Simple interface, accessible user experience
- Lightweight and fast performance
Cons:
- Free trial is very limited
- The app’s interface isn’t pretty (in our opinion), but it’s functional
Price:
- $4.99 per month
- $24.99 lifetime access
4. Phone Cleaner for iPhone, iPad
Phone Cleaner for iPhone, iPad is a comprehensive cleanup suite loaded with features for photo library organization (as well as the ability to merge contacts). Its main selling point is that it provides so many tools that cover most of the pain points that power users face when cleaning up their photo library.
For example, the Smart Search feature makes it easy to create custom lists out of your media files using a variety of parameters like file size and date. This makes it possible to perform highly targeted bulk cleanup–a feat that even the native Photos app struggles with. The app also provides a video compressor (super useful), a duplicate detection tool, and a very basic contacts manager, among other features.
Overall, Phone Cleaner for iPhone, iPad is a well-designed photo library cleaner that we recommend for users who take a lot of photos and videos year-round. For the right user, the app’s monthly and lifetime prices are reasonable compared to a lot of its competitors.
Main Features:
- Smart Search. Use advanced filters like file size range, creation date, media type, etc. to quickly generate custom lists so you can easily organize library items.
- Duplicate and similar photo detection. Automatically find and select duplicate and similar photos in your library.
- Contacts manager. Automatically identify and merge duplicate contacts along with their data, and erase contacts with no saved information.
- Video compressor. Significantly reduce the size of your videos via compression, which reduces the file’s overall footprint without noticeable degradation in quality.
Pros:
- Nice interface with solid user experience
- Very rich set of cleanup features—the developers understand user pain points
- The app is lightweight considering how many features it has
Cons:
- Subscription is baked into the free trial; you’ll need to agree to subscribe in order to try the app (you can cancel 24 hours before the cutoff)
Price:
- $2.99 per month
- $29.99 lifetime
5. Slidebox: Photo Cleaner App
Slidebox: Photo Cleaner App is a crowd favorite photo library organizer for iPad. While it’s not strictly a cleaner app like the other entries, we think it deserves at least the 5th spot because it can help keep clutter down to a minimum.
What makes this app stand out is its clever UX design—think Tinder, but for your photo library. Using swipe features and minimal buttons, you can favorite, archive, and save photos to your albums through a comfortable photo viewer. Slidebox also upgraded its album viewer to a tabbed browser, making it much easier to organize albums compared to using the native Photos app.
Overall, Slidebox is a very well-designed album organizer. If you take enough photos to need third-party cleanup solutions, this app would be a solid addition to your kit anyway.
Main Features:
- Cleanup interface. Browse your photo library with an interface functionally and aesthetically designed to make cleanup less stressful and chaotic.
- Touch-based toolkit. Utilize intuitive swipe gestures and buttons to delete, favorite, or organize photos into albums.
- Album organizer. Power-organize your albums using a file browser-like interface. Assign albums to tabs so you can easily find what you need, whether you’re cleaning up, organizing, or simply sharing your photos.
Pros:
- Beautiful interface
- Excellent user experience that maximizes touch control
- Great performance—the app is really fast, making the sorting feature satisfying
Cons:
- Doesn’t automatically detect clutter for you
Price:
- $4.99 per month
- $49.99 per year
Before You Go, Some Extra Words of Advice
iPad cleaner apps will continue to become more and more impressive (especially with the development of AI), but they are still far from perfect. We strongly recommend that you back up your data beforehand so that you can maximize features like AI clutter detection and automatic cleanup without worrying about accidentally deleting anything important.
