Keepworthy
Clever Cleaner is the one people recommend. In August it stopped being free.
For about three years it was the honest answer in this category, and it earned that: 82,000 ratings at 4.78 stars, on-device, no ads, and no in-app purchases at all. On 17 August 2026, version 3.0 added a $6.99 weekly plan, a $39.99 lifetime purchase, and daily limits on the free tier. If someone recommended it to you before then, they were recommending a different app.
What it does well, first
This is a good app, and the goodwill it has is earned. It groups duplicates and similar photos, marks a best shot, sorts your videos from largest to smallest, and compresses with three presets. It converts Live Photos to stills. The analysis is on-device. There are no ads. Its swipe mode has no daily limit at all, which its own listing states plainly.
CleverFiles can afford that because Clever Cleaner isn't the business. Disk Drill, their data-recovery software, is. For three years the cleaner was effectively subsidized, and now it isn't.
The sentence that used to be on the listing
On 2 August 2026 the App Store page said this. It carried no In-App Purchases section at all, because there were none.
“Completely Free: No hidden costs, subscriptions, or premium upgrades. Everything is free, forever.”
“A rare combination of powerful cleanup tools and truly generous free daily limits.”
The free tier now has a limit, and the number is not published
Their terms of use describe the cap. Here is the wording, rather than my summary of it.
“some cleaning and compression tools are subject to usage limits, such as a maximum amount of data that can be deleted or compressed per day. Current limits are displayed in the App… limits may be updated remotely without an App update.”
“This usage counter may be stored on your device and synchronized through your iCloud account, so that it persists across reinstallations of the App.”
“users who first installed earlier versions of the App may continue to use it without certain limits”
“you receive a non-expiring license to use the Premium features of the App as they exist at the time of purchase… major upgrades or newly introduced features may be offered as separate paid purchases.”
What their reviewers are actually upset about
Not the cap. Two other things, both from September 2026, both from people who liked the app.
“ever since the latest update it is unusable for me. I want to be able to actually look through all the similar pics before moving them to the trash. The new swipe feature doesn't allow for that, rendering this app useless for me now.”
“As a former huge advocate for this app, the Aug 2026 update destroyed what had been a great and sleek photo clean process. It's much harder now to efficiently go through photos, less intuitive & more glitchy - risking losing good photos.”
“Everyone says Clever Cleaner is free. But when I tried to download it, it says you have a three day. Free trial. Then it's $6.99 a week or $39.99 for a lifetime. Where's the free Clever Cleaner??!!”
“This app does say to get premium when you open the app for the first time, but you can just click the x at the top and use the app.”
Where the line falls
Clever Cleaner
Free with daily limits · $6.99/wk · $39.99 lifetime
- Duplicates and similar photos, grouped, with a best shot marked.
- Swipe mode has no daily limit, stated in their listing.
- On-device, and no ads. Both true, and both uncommon in this category.
- Video compression with three presets, and Live Photo to still.
- 82,000 ratings at 4.78. A lot of people are happy with it.
- Videos are sorted by size. They aren't grouped by similarity, and there's no side-by-side.
- No written reason for the shot it marked, and no note on the ones it didn't.
- No Mac app.
- The free allowance is a number you can't see before installing.
Keepworthy
Free to clean up. Pro $19.99 once
- Eight kinds of clutter, not two: exact duplicates, near-duplicates, similar screenshots, blurry photos, similar videos, blank frames, screenshots, large videos.
- No daily limits and no cap on how much you clear, and no usage counter anywhere in the app.
- The pick says why, under the photo. The frames it passed over carry a short note each.
- Near-duplicate videos are grouped and played side by side, lined up to the same second.
- Compression is measured. The copy is compared against the original and the change is shown as a number.
- iPhone and Mac, one purchase.
- Newer, smaller, and unproven next to 82,000 ratings.
- No Live Photo to still converter yet.
Questions
Is Clever Cleaner still free?
Partly. You can still use it without paying, and swipe mode has no daily limit. The automated tools, meaning the smart cleanup, the similar-photo pass and compression, run against a daily data allowance whose size is only visible in the app. If you installed it before August 2026, their terms say you may still be on the old unlimited behavior.
Should I use it instead of Keepworthy?
If what you want is duplicate and similar-photo cleanup with a swipe flow, it's a good app with a long track record and I'd have no problem with you using it. Where I'd point you at Keepworthy instead: if you want to see why a shot was picked before you agree, if your storage problem is videos rather than photos, or if you want the same thing on a Mac.
Is $39.99 once a fair price?
It's a reasonable price for an app that does its job, and I'd rather people pay once than weekly. Worth knowing what it covers: their terms say a lifetime purchase buys the premium features as they exist when you buy, and that major new features may be sold separately later.
Will Keepworthy do the same thing?
I can't promise you what the price will be in five years, and I'm not going to, because that's the promise this page is about. What I can say is that cleaning up stays free, Pro is a one-time $19.99 today, and there are no daily limits or usage counters in the app. If that changes, the store listing will show it the way theirs did.
Other comparisons
Sources
- Clever Cleaner on the US App Store. Read 15 September 2026: version 3.4, released 14 September 2026, 82,081 ratings at 4.78, minimum iOS 16.0, seller CleverFiles Inc. In-app purchases listed that day: Weekly with Trial $6.99 and Lifetime $39.99. Apple publishes only an app's ten best-selling in-app purchases.
- The archived listing. The 2 August 2026 capture shows version 2.5, 78,008 ratings, the “Everything is free, forever” sentence, and no In-App Purchases section on the product page.
- Clever Cleaner Terms of Use, revised 31 July 2026. Sections 7 and 8 are quoted above.
- Reviews from the US App Store review feed for the same app, sorted most recent, pulled 15 September 2026. 300 reviews covering 24 August to 14 September.
- One note on independent reviews: several sites that rank this app first share authors with CleverFiles' own content operation. Worth knowing before you weigh a “best cleaner apps” roundup that recommends it.
Who wrote this. Bill Dirkes, of Dirkes Medical, PLLC. I build Keepworthy, which competes directly with the app on this page, so this is not a neutral source and you should treat it as one side of a comparison. I've quoted their own words throughout rather than characterizing them, led with what the app does well, and included the part where most of their users aren't bothered by the change.
Checked 15 September 2026. Prices and terms in this category move quickly. If anything here has gone stale or is wrong, tell me and I'll fix it.
Look at the group before it goes.
Keepworthy shows you every frame it grouped, with the reason under the one it put first. Free to clean up, with no daily limits.
