Pixtide vs Clever Cleaner: Free Swiping vs an AI Cleanup Suite

On this page

Pixtide and Clever Cleaner: AI CleanUp App are both iPhone photo cleaners with a free swipe mode, but they differ on money, tracking and AI. Clever Cleaner, made by CleverFiles, has sold a $6.99 weekly plan and a $39.99 lifetime purchase since version 3.0 on 2026-08-17, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. Pixtide has nothing to buy. Clever Cleaner wins on duplicates, similar photos and compression.

This page is written by the Pixtide team (we make Pixtide). We name where the other app wins.

The verdict

Clever Cleaner and Pixtide are both honest picks, because they do different jobs and each one is better at its own.

Side by side

Every row was checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25.

Cost: $6.99 a week against nothing to buy

Clever Cleaner is no longer fully free for new users: since version 3.0 on 2026-08-17 it sells "Clever Cleaner Weekly with Trial" at $6.99 with a 3-day trial and "Clever Cleaner Lifetime" at $39.99, checked on the Clever Cleaner App Store page on 2026-09-25. A yearly plan is mentioned but not priced in the in-app purchase list. The free tier is real. CleverFiles says the app is "free to download and use within generous daily limits" and that "Swipe remains completely unlimited". The allowance is not published; reviewers describe about 5 GB or 700 photos a day. Anyone who installed before 3.0 keeps the old free access. The change shows in recent reviews: "it's $6.99 a week or $39.99 for a lifetime. Where's the free Clever Cleaner??!!" (1 star, 2026-09-01). Pixtide has no subscription, no trial and no premium tier. The full breakdown is in is Clever Cleaner free.

Privacy label: tracking identifiers against Data Not Linked to You

Clever Cleaner's App Store privacy label lists Identifiers under Data Used to Track You, while Pixtide's label lists Data Not Linked to You only, both checked on 2026-09-25. The label also links a Device ID used for developer advertising, a User ID and product interaction data to your identity. None of this means your photos leave the phone. Clever Cleaner processes photos on the iPhone, and CleverFiles states that "no photos or personal data get uploaded to the cloud." The tracking entry concerns identifiers, which is consistent with an app that pays for advertising, and one reviewer wrote "I clicked on this from a YouTube ad that said it was completely free" (1 star, 2026-09-06). Pixtide also works entirely on the phone, needs no account and never uploads a photo; its anonymous usage statistics can be switched off in Settings.

AI selection against deciding every photo yourself

Clever Cleaner lets AI choose candidates for you, and Pixtide never does. Smart Cleanup is a one-tap cleanup that pre-selects items, and Best Shot picks which photo to keep from a group of duplicates or similar shots. That saves real time: about 170 of the 965 US reviews we read on 2026-09-25 praise the duplicate detection. The trade-off is trust: about 8 low-star reviews say non-duplicates were flagged, one titled "Forces Auto-Delete, Not Safe" (3 stars, 2026-04-12). You still confirm, but you are checking the AI's choices rather than making your own. Pixtide has no AI at all. Nothing is scanned, scored or pre-selected: each photo appears on its own card and you swipe right to keep, left to delete or down to decide later. More on that approach in a photo cleaner without AI.

Video and the maybe pile

Pixtide plays videos inline on the card with sound and a scrub bar, so you can jump to the end of a clip before you decide. Clever Cleaner's Swipe includes photos, videos, screenshots and Live Photos, but playback or scrubbing inside Swipe is not mentioned in the listing, and a 2025 review notes there is no Live Photo preview in Swipe. For large clips, Clever Cleaner offers something Pixtide does not: video compression, added in version 2.1 in October 2025, which keeps the video and shrinks the file. The second difference is what happens to a photo you cannot decide on. In Pixtide a downward swipe sends it to the Decide Later queue for another look later. Clever Cleaner has a Skip List that keeps items out of cleanup; a decide-later queue is not mentioned in the listing.

Deletion safety: both keep a safety net

Both apps let you review before deleting, and both send deleted items to the iPhone's Recently Deleted album for 30 days. In Clever Cleaner's Swipe, left-swiped items land in an in-app trash where you can restore them before confirming. In Pixtide, a swipe only marks the photo, and a review screen shows everything marked before you confirm. After that, Apple's rules apply to both: the item stays in Recently Deleted for 30 days unless you empty the album, as Apple's support page on deleting photos explains. Apple's delete or hide guide has the Photos app steps. The difference is undo. Clever Cleaner lists undo of a deletion; an undo across a whole session is not mentioned in the listing. Pixtide's Undo button under the card steps back through every decision in the session, one at a time.

Breadth: where Clever Cleaner wins

Clever Cleaner is the broader tool, and for many libraries it is the better one. It finds duplicates and similar photos, picks a best shot, lists large videos, compresses photos, screenshots and videos, turns Live Photos into stills and has handled iCloud items since version 3.1. Its free Swipe mode sorts by month with no daily limit, which is the core of what Pixtide does, and since 3.0 it also browses Recents, Favorites or Random: "Love the new upgrade to 'swipe' by month" (5 stars, 2026-09-15). It has 4.78 stars from 82,579 US ratings, 20 languages, runs on iOS 16.0 or later, and works on iPad and M1 Macs. It shows no ads. Roundups often call it the best free iPhone cleaner. If duplicates or compression are why you are cleaning, start with Clever Cleaner. The Clever Cleaner alternative page looks at the two workflows in more depth.

One honest limitation

Pixtide does not detect duplicates or similar photos, and that is its biggest gap against Clever Cleaner. Apple's Duplicates album in the Photos app finds and merges them for free on the iPhone, so the two work well together. The other limits: Pixtide shows only the representative photo of a burst, runs on iPhone only with no iPad or Mac version, needs iOS 18.0 or later where Clever Cleaner supports iOS 16.0, and compresses nothing. It launched in 2026, so it has far fewer ratings and a shorter track record than an app with 82,579 US ratings.

Who should pick which

Clever Cleaner suits people whose storage problem is duplicates, near-identical shots or big videos they want to shrink rather than delete.

• Clever Cleaner for duplicates, similar photos and compression, or if you installed before 3.0 and keep free access.
• Clever Cleaner on iOS 16 or 17, on an iPad, or in a language other than English.
• Pixtide for an app with no purchase screen and no tracking identifiers on its label.
• Pixtide to decide every photo yourself, with a maybe pile, a video scrub bar and an undo for the whole session.
• Both: Clever Cleaner or Apple's Duplicates album for duplicates, then Pixtide for the one-by-one pass.

Pixtide at a glance

• Free: no subscription, no in-app purchases, no premium tier.
• No ads.
• No AI: you decide every photo.
• Works entirely on your phone: no account, no photo ever uploaded.
• Swiping only marks a photo; you review everything before confirming, and deleted photos stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.
• Photos and videos, sorted by month, year, category or recent shots.
• iPhone with iOS 18.0 or later.

Pixtide is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Clever Cleaner. All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This comparison reflects publicly available information as of September 2026; pricing and features change, so please check each app's App Store listing for the latest details.

Frequently asked questions

Is Clever Cleaner still free?

Partly. Since version 3.0 on 2026-08-17, Clever Cleaner is free within daily limits on its cleanup tools for new users, while its Swipe mode stays free and unlimited. Paid plans are $6.99 a week with a 3-day trial or $39.99 for lifetime access, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. People who installed before 3.0 keep the old free access. Pixtide has no paid plan at all.

What is the difference between Pixtide and Clever Cleaner?

Clever Cleaner by CleverFiles is a cleanup suite: AI duplicate and similar-photo detection, compression, Live Photo conversion and a free, unlimited Swipe mode, with paid plans from $6.99 a week (checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25). Pixtide is a swipe-only photo and video cleaner with no purchases, no AI selection, a Decide Later queue, a video scrub bar and an undo for the whole session. Clever Cleaner finds duplicates; Pixtide does not.

Does Clever Cleaner track you?

Clever Cleaner's App Store privacy label lists Identifiers under Data Used to Track You and links a Device ID used for developer advertising, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. CleverFiles says no photos or personal data are uploaded to the cloud, and the app processes photos on the iPhone. Pixtide's label lists Data Not Linked to You only, and Pixtide never uploads a photo.

Does Clever Cleaner's swipe mode have a daily limit?

No. Clever Cleaner's Swipe mode has no daily limit, even for new users after version 3.0, and it sorts photos and videos by month with an in-app trash to review before deleting. The daily limits added on 2026-08-17 apply to its other tools, such as duplicates, compression and Smart Cleanup. Pixtide has no limit on any feature and no paid tier to unlock.

Should I use Pixtide or Clever Cleaner for duplicate photos?

Clever Cleaner. It finds duplicates and similar photos and suggests a Best Shot to keep, which Pixtide does not do at all. Apple's own Duplicates album in the Photos app also merges duplicates for free on the iPhone. Pixtide fits the one-photo-at-a-time pass afterwards, where you decide every keep or delete yourself with no AI pre-selection.