Today, we’ll take a close look at the Clever Cleaner app for iOS - a relatively new iPhone cleaning app that aims to tackle the everyday media clutter. We’ll examine what makes it stand out from other tools on the market and why it’s worth a spot on your home screen.

About Clever Cleaner

This iPhone cleaner developed by CleverFiles stands out for multiple reasons. First, it’s one of the very few truly 100% free cleaning apps you can find on the App Store. While many similar tools advertise themselves as free, they often come bundled with restrictive conditions - like short trial periods, paywalled features, or mandatory 30-second ad views before each cleanup. Clever Cleaner, on the other hand, takes a different road; it delivers genuine, ad-free cleaning capabilities right from the start. No hidden fees, no subscription prompts, and no forced ads - just straightforward cleanup whenever you need it.

Second, the developers have made it clear that Clever Cleaner aims to be both powerful and user-friendly. You install it, grant permissions, and - voilà - you’re ready to start cleaning. At the bottom of the main screen, you’ll find four cleaning tools - no cluttered menus, no intrusive popups - so you won’t waste time hunting for the features you need. Better yet, Clever Cleaner leverages AI algorithms that can often reduce your entire cleanup workflow to just one tap.

The Core Features Explained

Clever Cleaner strikes a balance - it’s not an all-in-one monstrosity that tries to cram in 20 different bells and whistles, most of which people never use. But it’s also not a single-purpose tool with limited functionality. Instead, it tackles four key aspects of media storage clutter. Let’s cover each feature in detail.

Similar Photo Detection

The first cleaning feature in Clever Cleaner is called “Similars”, and as the name suggests, it helps declutter your photo library by detecting both exact duplicates and visually similar images. If you’ve ever snapped ten pictures of your pet from slightly different angles or taken multiple shots of the same scene to get the best lighting, you know how quickly these near-duplicates can pile up.

To some extent, iPhones can handle duplicates on their own - since iOS 16, Apple has introduced a built-in duplicate finder in the Photos app. However, that feature only detects identical photos, so it won’t catch near-duplicates or visually similar images. Another drawback of this tool is that it might take time to detect duplicates. As Apple itself states on its official support page, the Photos app needs to first index your photos before duplicate detection becomes available.

Unlike the built-in Photos app, Clever Cleaner works instantly. This iPhone cleaner uses high-end AI detection to group similar shots and does so quite well.

The fastest way to use this feature is by tapping the “Smart Cleanup” button. The app’s AI will automatically analyze all groups and flag unnecessary photos for deletion, keeping only the Best Shots from each set. You can free up space in seconds with just one tap.

For those who prefer a more hands-on approach, Clever Cleaner allows you to go through each group of similar photos manually. If you agree with the AI’s selection, simply delete the rest. If you think another image is better, you can change the selection, and if you want to keep everything, just tap “Skip All”, and the app will instantly move to the next group for review.

Performance-wise, Clever Cleaner nails it. We didn’t notice any major AI misfires - everything was grouped correctly, and the suggested Best Shots were consistently on point. While “best” is always subjective, the app’s choices were hard to disagree with. It successfully identified the clearest, best-lit images in each set, avoiding awkward expressions or poor framing.

With a perfect mix of automation and manual control, Similars is one of the most useful tools in Clever Cleaner.

Screenshot Bulk Removal

The next feature is super simple - it automatically detects and displays all the screenshots stored in your photo library. We all take screenshots of memes, shopping lists, tickets, reference notes, and random app screens, but most of them quickly become useless clutter. This iPhone cleaning app makes it effortless to clear out old, forgotten screenshots in seconds. You have a few cleanup options:

• Move to Trash in one go – Instantly send all detected screenshots to the app’s built-in trash bin.
• Select individual screenshots – If you prefer to keep some, you can review them one by one.
• Bulk delete first, review later – A great option if you want to clear everything upfront but still have the option to restore important screenshots before permanently deleting them.

Clever Cleaner keeps everything in its own dedicated Trash bin. This means you don’t have to worry about accidentally losing an important file - you can restore any one before emptying the trash for good.

Live Photo Conversion

The “Lives” feature is an interesting and creative way to free up storage - something most people don’t even think about. Live Photos are fun, but they also take up more than double the space of a regular image because they contain a short video clip along with the still shot. If you’re not actively using the motion effect, those extra frames are just wasting storage.

Clever Cleaner offers a one-tap solution: it converts Live Photos into standard still images, instantly reclaiming space while keeping your photos intact. Unlike manually converting Live Photos through the Photos app - which requires duplicating each file and deleting the original - this app makes the process seamless.

Heavies (Large Video Finder)

The last feature is called “Heavies,” and it exists because of one of iOS’s limitations - as many people only realize when they run into storage issues. Like this Reddit user, they start looking for a way to see which videos are eating up the most space, only to find that iOS doesn’t offer a simple way to sort videos by size. That’s exactly what Heavies allows you to do. It automatically scans your media library and sorts files from largest to smallest so you get a clear picture of what’s consuming space. Instead of manually scrolling through your camera roll trying to guess which files are the biggest, you can quickly delete the largest unneeded video in the “Heavies” tab.

Since high-resolution 4K and slow-motion videos can take up gigabytes, this function provides a very quick solution to clear storage. It is particularly handy for an iPhone with limited capacity, such as the 64GB version, where every bit of space counts.

Video Tutorial

What Else?

Clever Cleaner is also a secure and privacy-friendly iPhone cleaning app. Everything is processed locally on your device - your photos, videos, and data never leave your phone or get uploaded to external servers. This guarantees that your personal files stay private, unlike some other apps that might upload files to the cloud.

Another big plus? The developer has promised that all current users will always have free access, even if future updates introduce new features. While many apps eventually lock tools behind paywalls, Clever Cleaner demonstrates a commitment to staying truly free.

Final Verdict

To sum up, we have a capable iPhone cleaning app that stands out in multiple ways. It uses clearly sophisticated AI algorithms to streamline cleanup, offers 4 different ways to free up storage, and does all of this completely free - no conditions, no paywalls, no strings attached. On top of that, it shows you zero ads and doesn’t just claim to stay free - it also hints at even more features coming in future updates.

Our verdict? Clever Cleaner is easily one of the best free iPhone cleaner apps out there. If you want a powerful yet simple way to keep your device organized without dealing with subscriptions or intrusive ads, this app is a no-brainer. It definitely deserves a spot on your home screen.