A quick disclosure
This page is written by the developer of deja, one of the apps below, so it isn’t a neutral third party’s roundup. Every fact about another app in the table above comes from that app’s own official page or support site, listed under Sources. Prices and ratings are left out on purpose: they vary by country and change often.
What “best” depends on
Most lists rank apps by star rating. But ratings mix reviews from people solving completely different problems with the same app. The question that matters is simpler: do you want a scan that finds clutter for you, or do you want to look at your photos and decide yourself? Those are different products wearing the same “photo cleaner” label, and choosing by the job gets you to the right one faster than a star rating does.
Start with what’s already on your iPhone
Before installing anything, know what’s built in. Since iOS 16, the Photos app has a Duplicates album: open Collections, scroll down to Utilities, then tap Duplicates. It finds duplicate photos and videos by itself, and merging a set keeps one photo, with the best quality, and moves the other copies to Recently Deleted. It costs nothing and is a good first pass. It won’t catch near-duplicates like bursts or retakes, though: those are different photos, not copies.
Whatever you delete, from whichever app, lands in the same safety net: the Recently Deleted album, which keeps deleted photos for 30 days before iOS removes them for good.
Pick by what you’re trying to do
You want an app to scan and find clutter for you. CleanMy®Phone (formerly Gemini Photos) scans your library for duplicates, similar and blurry photos, screenshots and large videos, and helps you clear them in one sitting. It’s built for a big cleanup pass.
You want to sort photos into albums as you clean. Slidebox is a swipe-based cleaner built around sorting: swipe to delete, file photos into albums with a tap, and compare similar photos to decide which to keep.
You already back up to Google Photos. Google Photos can remove the copies on your iPhone of photos it has already backed up, and when your Google storage runs out, it suggests similar photos to delete. It needs a Google Account and backs your library up to Google’s servers. More in deja vs Google Photos.
You want to look back, not delete. Timehop replays photos from your camera roll and posts from connected accounts such as Facebook, on the same date in past years. It doesn’t delete photos; you can hide a memory so it doesn’t come up again.
You want to clean up while you relive your photos, with nothing uploaded. That’s deja. It deals you a day or a week from your past to relive full screen, in the order you took the photos, so near-duplicates and clutter sit side by side, in context. You mark what you don’t need as you go and clear it all with one iOS confirmation at the end. No scanning, no account, nothing leaves your iPhone. Cleaning up is free with no limit; reliving uses credit, with 50 to start.
Using more than one
None of these rule the others out. A common combination: run the Duplicates album once for the copies, keep iCloud Photos or Google Photos for backup, and use deja for the ongoing decision of what to delete — the part no automatic scan can fully make for you.
Each app also has its own side-by-side page with sources: deja vs the Photos app, deja vs Slidebox, deja vs Gemini Photos (CleanMy®Phone), deja vs Timehop and deja vs Google Photos.
