Cleanup alternatives for iPhone
Updated 27 October 2026 · By Dimitar Zurnov. We make Emptie, one of the alternatives below, so read this knowing that. Facts about other apps come from their US App Store listings; we didn’t test them.
Pick the alternative by what fills your iPhone. For duplicate photos, Photos already finds them for free. For videos, which usually take the most space, a video compressor such as Emptie (free, nothing to buy) frees more than a cleaner. For one app that covers photos, contacts and email, the other cleaners cost about the same as Cleanup.
Why people look for an alternative
Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner is the most-rated storage app on the US App Store (4.65 from 747,177 ratings). The two reasons people look elsewhere are on its listing. One is the price: Cleanup Pro is listed at $5.95–$11.99 a week or $29.99 a year. The other is its privacy label, which declares data used to track you. Emptie vs Cleanup, side by side.
Start here: what is filling your iPhone?
Open Settings › General › iPhone Storage. The bar at the top shows what takes the space, and the list below shows each app. If Photos is the biggest item, look at your videos first: a minute of 4K video at 60 fps takes roughly 400 MB, as much as a hundred or more photos. iPhone storage full of videos: what to do.
Every alternative, side by side
| Alternative | Best for | Price (US listing) | Privacy label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emptie | Getting storage back from a whole library of videos, keeping their dates and albums | Free, with nothing to buy | Data Not Collected (planned) |
| Photos and Settings (built into iOS) | Duplicate photos and videos, and the storage recommendations iOS makes | Free | Apple |
| Compress Videos & Resize Video | Shrinking a few videos to share them, or phones on older iOS versions | $5.99 a year or $14.99 lifetime | Declares data used to track you |
| Video Compress | One-off shrinking of a single video to a target size | Free with ads, or $1.99 to remove them | Declares data used to track you |
| Shrink Vids | Choosing the resolution and bitrate yourself and checking a before-and-after preview, on iPhone or iPad | Free download; one-time purchases up to $22.99 | Declares data used to track you |
| Squeeze | Sending videos under a size limit, with presets for WhatsApp, email and social apps | One free export a day, or $29.99 lifetime | Data Not Collected |
| CleanMy Phone | People who already use MacPaw apps and want photo sorting as well as video | $7.99 a month or $36.99 a year | Declares data used to track you |
| Clever Cleaner | People who mainly want to clear similar photos and screenshots | $6.99 a week or $39.99 lifetime | Declares data used to track you |
| Cleaner Kit | People who want one app for photos, email and contacts as well as video, and are happy to subscribe | Purchases from $4.99 to $9.99, billed weekly or yearly | Declares data used to track you |
| AI Cleaner | People who want to compress photos as well as videos and tidy email and contacts in the same app | $6.99–$11.99 a week, or $34.99 a year | Declares data used to track you |
Free, built into iOS
- Duplicates in Photos. Photos finds duplicate photos and videos itself and lists them in Duplicates under Utilities. Merging keeps the highest-quality version and moves the others to Recently Deleted (Apple Support).
- Storage recommendations. Settings › General › iPhone Storage lists each app with its storage use and suggests what to remove (Apple Support).
- iCloud Photos. With Optimize iPhone Storage on, full-size photos and videos stay in iCloud and smaller versions on the phone. It frees phone space but uses iCloud space, which is a paid plan beyond 5 GB (Apple Support).
What iOS doesn’t do is make your existing videos smaller. That’s the gap the apps below fill.
If videos fill your iPhone: video compressors
A compressor makes each video smaller and keeps it, instead of asking you to delete it. What separates them is what happens to the original: whether the app replaces it for you, and whether the copy keeps its date, place and albums.
- Emptie scans your whole library, sorts every video by how much compressing it would free, and replaces the originals after you review the copies. Dates, places, favorites and albums carry over. Free, with nothing to buy.
- Compress Videos & Resize Video: compresses and resizes videos you pick, with no watermark. $5.99 a year or $14.99 lifetime. Compared with Emptie.
- Video Compress: compresses a video to a size you choose with a slider, locally and without internet. Free with ads, or $1.99 to remove them. Compared with Emptie.
- Shrink Vids: compresses one or more videos you pick to a preset resolution, from 1080p down to 360p, with a bitrate slider, shows a before-and-after preview, and can delete the original afterwards. Free download; one-time purchases up to $22.99. Compared with Emptie.
- Squeeze: compresses videos from Photos or Files with one-tap presets for WhatsApp, email and social apps, or your own resolution, bitrate, codec and frame rate, and saves the copies to Photos. One free export a day, or $29.99 lifetime. Compared with Emptie.
If you want one app for everything: other cleaners
These cover duplicates, similar photos, and often contacts and email, like Cleanup does. Most are sold by the week or the year, and every one of them declares data used to track you.
- CleanMy Phone: sorts and removes clutter in photos and videos, and offers video compression with “minimal quality loss”. $7.99 a month or $36.99 a year. Compared with Emptie.
- Clever Cleaner: finds similar photos, screenshots and large files, and handles video by deleting or compressing large files. $6.99 a week or $39.99 lifetime. Compared with Emptie.
- Cleaner Kit: finds duplicate and blurry photos, sorts photos by swipe, groups email and contacts for deleting, and lists compressing large videos among its tools. Purchases from $4.99 to $9.99, billed weekly or yearly. Compared with Emptie.
- AI Cleaner: finds duplicate photos and videos, sorts photos by swipe, tidies email, contacts and calendar events, and compresses photos and videos at high, medium or low levels. $6.99–$11.99 a week, or $34.99 a year. Compared with Emptie.
Do iPhone cleaner apps work? What we found in 888 apps.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Cleanup?
Yes. iOS finds duplicate photos and videos in Photos (Duplicates, under Utilities), and Settings › General › iPhone Storage lists what takes space with recommendations. For video, Emptie is free with nothing to buy: it compresses the videos in your library and replaces the originals.
What does Cleanup cost?
Free download. Cleanup Pro is listed at $5.95–$11.99 a week or $29.99 a year. Kept for a year, that’s $29.99 a year (yearly plan), or $309–$623 a year if kept on a weekly plan. Prices are from the US App Store listing as of 27 October 2026.
Which Cleanup alternative frees the most space?
Usually the one that matches what fills your phone. Settings › General › iPhone Storage shows it. If Photos is the biggest item and your library has a lot of video, compressing the videos frees far more than removing duplicate photos.
How we put this together
We pulled every iPhone app matching storage and video-compression searches from Apple’s App Store APIs on 23 October 2026 and read their listings, in-app purchase lists and privacy labels. The apps here are among the most-rated in their groups, plus Squeeze as the newest compressor with real traction. All were rechecked against their listings on 27 October 2026. We didn’t install or test other apps. Prices and labels change, so check the App Store before you buy. Corrections: [email protected].