Nana’s Photo Cleaner
iPhone app · Free, with ads

Your phone says it’s full
and won’t say why.
She will.

Nana goes through your photos and videos and splits what she finds in two: the half that can go without you losing a single picture, and the half that is your only copy. She starts you on the safe half, tells you what each pile is worth in gigabytes, and then waits. Nothing moves until you say so.

On the App Store

Supper is on the table. Version 1.0 went into the App Store on 4 September 2026 for iPhone on iOS 18 or later. Since version 1.0.1 every tool is free, with ads, and one purchase switches the ads off.

Get it on the App Store What it costs
10
tools, all on one screen
30 days
before anything is really gone
Not one
photo leaves the phone
Sort mode in Nana’s Photo Cleaner, showing January 2025. A photograph of a surfboard on a beach at sunset fills the card, marked roughly 2.2 megabytes. The counter above reads 6 of 8 with three on the pile and about 6.6 megabytes waiting, and a purple button at the bottom reads Delete 3, frees about 6.6 megabytes.
One photo, one thumb, one month at a time. The pile sits and waits for you.
The Room screen in Nana’s Photo Cleaner. A large ring reads about 3.72 gigabytes waiting here, and beneath it the total is split in two: about 2.69 gigabytes that can go without losing a picture, and about 1.03 gigabytes that are your only copy. A button reads Start with the free half. Below, Similar shots holds about 81.2 megabytes across 37 photos and Long videos about 3.44 gigabytes across 5.
The whole library in one number, cut into the half that is safe and the half that is not.
The Similar shots screen, on the Similar tab of three. A set of five near-identical photographs of drinks in front of a mountain lake, the first one marked BEST in green with a sharpness bar under each, and a line reading 17 percent sharper than the next one. A banner above says looking is free and removing needs the key, and the button at the bottom reads Delete 37, frees about 81.2 megabytes.
Five tries at the same picture, the sharpest one marked, and the reason printed underneath.
How it is laid out

Three places, and you can tell them apart

Storage apps usually give you one long list and hope you keep your nerve. This one has three rooms, and each answers a different question.

Sort — the deck

Your library one photo at a time, one month at a time. Two hundred photos is about a month, and a month has an end, which is the difference between this and scrolling. Swipe left onto the going pile, right onto the staying pile. Both piles sit there. She remembers where you stopped, even if you close the app in the middle of 2019.

Room — the scan

One ring with the whole number in it, split into what can go without losing a picture and what is your only copy. Underneath sit the ten tools, each with its own count and its own weight in gigabytes, so you can pick the one worth your afternoon instead of starting at the top.

Files — the folders you show her

Point her at a folder and she draws you a map of where the space went, hunts the caches other apps left lying inside it, and keeps a box for anything you are not sure about. Whatever goes in the box stays there for seven days before she lets go of it.

Inside Room

Ten tools, and three of them lose you nothing at all

Shrinking is not deleting. A video comes back at Full HD, HD or small with every frame still in it, the picture stays on your phone, and the original waits until you say otherwise.

Similar shots

The same picture taken five times, laid out as a set with the best frame marked, a sharpness bar under each one and a sentence telling you how much sharper the keeper actually is. Disagree and tap another. “Keep this one instead” is one tap, not a hidden gesture.

Didn’t come out

Out of focus, too dark, or just a dud. She shows you what she thinks and why, and she is wrong often enough that she asks rather than acts.

Screenshots

Receipts, bus times and things you meant to read. Clear as many as you like.

Live Photos

Drop the three seconds of video and keep the picture. The photograph is copied across exactly as it was, not re-encoded, so what you keep is the original file and only the moving part goes.

Heavy photos

The biggest single pictures in the library, largest first. Sometimes one bad export from years ago is worth more than a month of holiday snaps.

Shrink photos

Keep every picture, lose the weight. The date, the place, the camera and the orientation all travel across to the smaller copy, so your library still sorts and maps the way it did before.

Panoramas

A wide shot weighs what several ordinary ones weigh. There are rarely many, and they are rarely the ones you look at.

Videos

Longest first, because that is the order that matches the gigabytes. Watch one before you decide — she opens it right there rather than making you go and find it.

4K videos

The ones worth shrinking most, kept in their own pile for that reason. Four times the pixels of Full HD, and you are watching them on a phone.

Shrink videos

Keep the video, lose the gigabytes. Full HD, HD or small, with the saving for each one worked out before you choose. She makes the new file first and offers you the old one afterwards, so for thirty days the phone is holding both and you can change your mind.

The quiet bit

Your photos never leave the phone, and here is how

Every app in this aisle says your photos are private. Here is what actually happens to yours, including the one part of the free version that does talk to the internet.

None of her own code talks to a server The app’s own code opens no connection, so there is no moment at which it could upload a photo. The one part that does go online is the advertising in the free version, described next, and it is never handed a photo, a video, a file or anything she found in them.
The ads come from Google, and paying switches Google off Since version 1.0.1 the free version shows ads served by Google AdMob, and Google’s software collects what its own disclosure lists. Buy the one ad-free purchase and, from the next launch, that software is not started at all, so nothing goes to Google.
You are asked before anything is personal No account and no sign-in. In the free version, Google’s consent form (in Europe) and then the iPhone’s own tracking question come before any ad is personalised. Say no and the ads stay generic, and you can change your answer in Settings at any time.
The clever part runs on your phone Working out that five photographs are the same picture, and which of them came out best, is done by the phone itself using what iOS already has on board. No image is sent away to be looked at, and there is no server that could look.
Shrinking happens here too The re-encode runs on the phone’s own chip. Sending somebody’s holiday video to a server to save them a gigabyte would be slower, cost money and break the promise above, so it was never built.
What she remembers stays in her own drawer Your piles, your protected photos and the folders you pointed her at live in the app’s own storage on the phone. Delete the app and all of it goes with her. None of it was ever anywhere else.

Apart from Google’s ads in the free version, two things talk to Apple, and both are Apple’s doing rather than hers. If your photos live in iCloud, the phone fetches your own originals from your own iCloud when she needs to show or shrink one. And buying, restoring or cancelling goes through the App Store, which is where your payment details stay. The full picture is in the privacy policy.

Before you buy anything

What she can’t do, said out loud

The shop is full of apps promising to clean your whole phone. iOS does not let any app do that, including this one. Here is exactly where the wall is.

She can’t see other apps, or the junk they leave iOS does not let one app look inside another. Anything claiming to clear the clutter out of your other apps is either guessing or talking about something else entirely.
She can’t clean System Data No app can, from the inside — that number belongs to iOS. She shows you what it is and walks you through the things you can actually do about it yourself in Settings.
No photo is deleted for good Every photo or video you delete here is moved to Recently Deleted, and the phone holds it for thirty days. Files you remove in the Files tab are not photos and do not go there, which is why Files has its own box for anything you are unsure about. She cannot open that album for you either, because iOS closed that door — she walks you over to Photos and you empty it there. The space comes back when you do.
Photo sizes are her estimate The phone will not tell an app what a photo weighs, so those numbers carry a ≈ wherever they appear, in the app and on this page. Video sizes and free space are measured, not guessed.
With iCloud Photos on, deleting deletes everywhere Take a photo off this phone and it comes off every device signed into the same library. That is how iCloud works, not something an app can change, so she says it once before your first delete rather than in a footnote.
iPhone only, upright only No iPad version and no landscape layout. It needs iOS 18 or later. A tidy-up you do with one thumb does not need to rotate, and pretending otherwise would be more layouts to keep honest.
What it costs

Free to use. One payment to switch the ads off.

Every tool on this page is in the free app: the scan, the piles, shrinking, Files and the widget. Nothing is held back behind the payment, and there is nothing to subscribe to.

The app
Free

The whole app, with nothing withheld. It carries ads from Google: a banner on the main screens and in the Sort deck, and now and then a full screen after a clean-up or between cards. Some of those full screens show one of our own apps instead.

One payment No ads, for good
$2.99

It removes the ads and changes nothing else, because there is nothing else to unlock. From the next launch Google’s software is not started at all. Paid once: nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.

Get it on the App Store See the other apps

Bought through the App Store, so Apple takes the payment, handles the tax and handles refunds. The price is in US dollars; your own store shows it in your currency. The monthly plan sold with version 1.0 is no longer on sale, and if you have one, it keeps the ads off for as long as it runs.

Fresh from the oven

Changelog

Version 1.0 reached the App Store on 4 September 2026. Since version 1.0.1 every tool is free, with ads, and one purchase of $2.99 switches the ads off.

1.0.28 October 2026
  • A refreshed App Store page, with a new subtitle and description. The app itself works the same as in 1.0.1.
1.0.129 September 2026New
  • Every tool is free. The free version shows ads, and one purchase, $2.99, removes them for good. Nothing renews.
  • Bursts open up. See the hidden frames of a burst and keep only the ones you want.
  • Screen recordings get their own row in the scan, so the long ones stop hiding among your videos.
  • Shrink a video without losing resolution. Videos in the older format can move to the newer, lighter one at the same size on screen.
  • Big and forgotten, in Files. She finds the biggest files, old downloads and duplicates, and a file already in iCloud Drive can live there only, which frees the room on the phone.
  • The second scan is quicker, because she remembers the photos she has already looked at.
1.04 September 2026New
  • Three places to work. Room, where she scans and hands you the tools. Sort, where you go through the library a month at a time onto two piles. Files, where she looks at the folders you show her and the caches other apps left in them.
  • Ten tools in Room, each with its own count and its own weight: similar shots, the ones that didn’t come out, screenshots, Live Photos, heavy photos, panoramas, videos, 4K videos, shrink photos and shrink videos.
  • Shrinking loses no frames and the file never leaves the phone. Videos come back at Full HD, HD or small; photos keep their date, place and camera.
  • Similar shots come in sets with the best frame marked, a sharpness bar under each and a sentence saying how much sharper the keeper is.
  • Nothing goes until you say so. A swipe files a photo onto a pile; the pile is where you confirm. Deleting means moved to Recently Deleted, and the phone holds it for thirty days.
  • A box in Files that holds anything you are unsure about for seven days. A home screen widget with your free space on it. Two Siri shortcuts, neither of which can delete anything.
  • Everything happens on the phone. No account, no advertising, and nothing sent anywhere.
Out of the oven

She’ll find the room. You decide what goes.

Nana’s Photo Cleaner has been in the App Store since 4 September 2026. Every tool is free, so see what the number says and clear what you like. If the ads get in your way, one purchase sends them off.

Get it on the App Store Ask her something

Made for iPhone on iOS 18 or later, upright. She needs to see your photo library, because she cannot count duplicates she is not allowed to look at. In the free version she also asks whether ads may be personalised, and your answer changes nothing else in the app.

Made with a wooden spoon.