If you need a quick and easy way to clean your iPhone, using an iPhone cleaner is your best choice – especially if you haven’t reset or upgraded your device in a while. However, there are many iPhone cleaners on the App Store… Which one do you choose?
In this article, we’ll recommend our top 7 best iPhone cleaner apps for 2023 along with useful sections about how we chose them.
Table of Contents
How Do iPhone Cleaner Apps Work?
iPhone cleaners are apps that erase unnecessary data on your device in an attempt to free up storage and in some cases speed up your phone. Some apps specialize in one type of cleaning (for ex. duplicate photos) while others offer general cleaning tools. Here are some of the common features you can expect:
- Storage viewer/declutter tool: Find the largest files in your iPhone so you can efficiently free up storage space.
- Similar & flawed photos remover: Automatically detect photos that are duplicated, blurred, burst, etc.
- Spam emails cleaner: Quickly delete the hundreds of newsletters sitting in your mailboxes.
- Duplicate contacts merger/remover: Locate and delete duplicated contacts or merge their data into one contact.
- And more…
How to Choose the Best Cleaner for iPhone
To choose the best cleaner for the iPhone, we created a simple rubric of the most important factors to consider when choosing an app. You’ll see it in action once we get to the next section – in the meantime, here’s a list of what you should look out for:
- Main Features. Can the app do what you need it to or would another app serve your needs better?
- Pricing. Is the app free or within your budget?
- System Requirements. Is the app compatible with your device and iOS?
- Pros & Cons. Is it worth downloading to you?
Below, we’ll use the same rubric to break down our favorite iPhone cleaner apps.
Top 7 Best Cleaner Apps for Your iPhone
We rounded up the 7 best cleaner apps for your iPhone for this list – all of them have thousands of 5-star and 4-star reviews on the App Store (for good reason). With each app, we included a breakdown of our rubric accompanied by a short summary so you have all the info you need to choose the best app for you.
1. Cleaner for iPhone
Cleaner for iPhone by Cleaner LLC is a popular tool for managing photos and videos, and for cleaning up a messy contacts list. Its GUI is bold and easy to understand, making it perfect for users who aren’t familiar with this kind of software. However, even if you can download it for free on the App Store, note that you need to purchase a subscription to fully access its features.
Main Features:
- Fast Clean. Tap a few buttons to quickly scan photo and video clutter and delete them by category. Scan everything at once or set a time period.
- Storage analysis. Get a bird’s eye view of your iPhone’s remaining storage and find the storage hoggers.
- Media library cleaner. Delete flawed, duplicate, or unnecessary photos and videos. Start with the biggest files first.
- Contacts management. Merge or delete duplicate contacts or contacts with missing information.
System Requirements:
- iOS 13.0 or later
Pricing:
- Monthly subscription: $2.99
- Lifetime subscription: $9.99
- Free 3-day trial
- 3-day free trial with unlimited access to all of the app’s features
- Affordable prices for both monthly and lifetime subscriptions
- Nice GUI (graphical user interface)
- No general storage management
2. Cleanup: Clean Storage Space
Cleanup: Clean Storage Space is another popular iPhone cleaner app, this time focusing solely on cleaning up the gallery. The app’s developer provides intuitive tools that allow users to quickly go through their photos and videos and decide what to keep.
Main Features:
- Intuitive gallery cleaner. Swipe left and right to delete or keep your photos and get AI recommendations on what shots to keep.
- File sorting by size. Find out what files are taking up the most space on your iPhone and delete the ones you don’t need.
System Requirements:
- iOS 12.0 or later
Pricing:
- Weekly subscription: $3.99
- Lifetime subscription: $39.99
- Free 3-day trial
- The app’s gallery cleaning tool is well-designed (especially compared to general cleaners)
- Because it only focuses on one type of data, the user experience is simpler
- 3-day free trial with unlimited gallery cleaning (for a limited time)
- Only works for photos and videos
- Its lifetime license is expensive considering the app’s features
- Weekly subscription is more expensive that other apps’ monthly subscription
3. Easy Cleaner
As you’ll notice when we go over its main features, Easy Cleaner is a contacts management app. As a more focused tool, it only offers one type of data cleaning – however, the app provides advanced features that help users manage their contacts more efficiently. For more details, see the breakdown:
Main Features:
- Merge contacts. Identify similar or duplicate contacts and decide whether to delete or merge them.
- Contacts cleanup. Automatically delete contacts with missing data (such as names or phone numbers).
- Restore points. Create restore points before making changes to your address book to avoid permanent data loss.
- Filters. Filter contacts by creation date, company name, job title, and birthday.
System Requirements:
- iOS 12.0 or later
Pricing:
- Free
- Free
- As of mid-2022, the developers have been frequently updating the app
- The tool is only good for managing contacts
4. Boost Cleaner
Boost Cleaner is an iPhone cleaning tool that helps you manage your photos, contacts, and general storage. Like the apps we’ve mentioned so far, Boost Cleaner offers a 3-day free trial where you have unlimited access to all of the app’s tools. This is a good chance to try Boost Cleaner’s extra features, which we’ll briefly cover below.
Main Features:
- Photos cleaner. Find and delete duplicate or similar photos or photos based on location.
- Contacts management. Merge or delete duplicate contacts and remove contacts with no information.
- Contacts backup and restore. Avoid deleting important contacts by mistake by backing up before cleaning up.
- General storage cleaner. Find and delete large files from your iPhone.
- Extra features. Remove ads and test your cellular or wifi connection.
System Requirements:
- iOS 12.0 or later
Pricing:
- Monthly subscription: $9.99
- Annual subscription: $29.99
- Free 3-day trial
- Multiple useful features for an affordable price
- Free trial with unlimited access
- General storage cleaning
- No lifetime subscription
5. Smart Cleaner
Entry #5 is Smart Cleaner, another general cleaner tool with a focus on gallery cleaning and contacts management. The app is slightly on the expensive side, but it offers some extra features that may be appealing to some users.
Main Features:
- Gallery cleaner. Search and delete duplicate photos and videos, as well as live photos and burst shots.
- Contacts management. Backup, merge, and delete your contacts.
- Extra features. Backup, merge, and delete your contacts.
System Requirements:
- iOS 13.0 or later
Pricing:
- Weekly subscription: $4.99
- Lifetime subscription: $34.99
- Free 3-day trial
- Free 3-day trial with unlimited access
- Extra features aren’t relevant to cleaning/optimizing an iPhone
- The weekly and lifetime subscriptions are both expensive considering its features
6. Gemini Photos: Gallery Cleaner
Gemini Photos is the creation of well-known developer MacPaw. It only cleans up the camera roll but the Gemini Photos provides advanced tools (some unique to the app) that help you sort and manage your photos efficiently. We’ll go through each of them below.
Main Features:
- Advanced photo selection. Get recommendations on good or poor photos.
- Declutter tool. Delete duplicates, old screenshots, photos of text, etc.
- Sort and delete. Browse your entire library and use swipe gestures to easily keep or delete each media file.
- Photo Radar. Allow Gemini to monitor new shots and videos and send you notifications before your storage gets full.
System Requirements:
- iOS 13.0 or later
Pricing:
- Monthly subscription: $4.99
- Annual subscription: $19.99
- Lifetime subscription: $34.99
- Free 3-day trial
- Beautiful GUI
- Great subscription prices considering the value and quality of the app’s tools
- Intuitive user experience
- Only manages gallery storage
7. Slidebox Photo Manager
Slidebox Photo Manager is a lesser known but highly regarded cleaner app. As the name suggests, Slidebox Photo Manager declutters your Photos app. Its most distinct feature (and what turned us into fans) is its gestures, which allows you to quickly organize your photos with a couple of swipes.
Main Features:
- Declutter with swipes. Quickly organize your entire library with a few swipes– swipe to delete, organize, compare, and favorite each photo.
System Requirements:
- iOS 10.0 or later
Pricing:
- Monthly subscription: $4.99
- Annual subscription $49.99
- Works with older versions of iOS
- Highly intuitive user experience
- Ability to undo last action
- No free trials for the premium subscriptions
- No lifetime subscription
Conclusion
There are a lot good iPhone cleaners on the App Store… And while many of them look and sound the same, the best apps have unique features and advanced tools that make cleaning your iPhone even easier. Just be careful when testing out free trials, as most of them only last 3 days (and you’ll need to cancel 24 hours in advance).
