Slider Alternative: A Free Photo Cleaner With No Ads or Premium

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Pixtide is a free iPhone photo cleaner that keeps the swipe-to-clean flow of Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider without ads or a premium tier. Slider, rated 4.84 from 11,147 US ratings, added Google AdMob ads and a $19.99 a year Premium in July 2026, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. Slider still runs on more devices and in more languages than Pixtide, which is iPhone only and needs iOS 18.0 or later.

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

Slider in September 2026: the short version

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider is a swipe photo and video cleaner by June Ninth LLC with a 4.84 average from 11,147 US ratings and 4.78 from 723 UK ratings, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. It launched on 2022-11-28, sits in Utilities and Photo & Video, and its App Store listing calls it "the fastest and most addictive way to clean up your camera roll". The developer shipped 25 versions between January and August 2026; the current one is 70.0, released on 2026-08-13.

For most of those years Slider was the answer people gave when someone asked for a swipe cleaner that did not charge. Of the 434 reviews we read, about 165 praise it for being free and about 85 for having no ads. That changed on 2026-07-19, when version 66 added Slider Premium.

Verdict: Slider is a good app with a big head start. If you use it on an iPad, a Mac or an older iPhone, keep it. If you are here because it started showing ads, Pixtide is the free swap.

Pixtide and Slider compared

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider and Pixtide share the core idea (swipe left to delete, right to keep, then review) and differ on price, ads, the privacy label and the extra tools around the swipe. Slider figures come from its App Store listing and its privacy policy at thesliderapp.com/privacy, checked on 2026-09-25. Where the listing is silent on a feature, the table says "not mentioned in the listing" rather than "no".

Why people look for a Slider alternative

People searching for a Slider alternative in 2026 are mostly reacting to one change: an app they chose because it was free and had no ads started showing ads and selling a subscription in July 2026.

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider built its reputation on reviews like "No ads, no limits, no paywalls. This app is perfect." (5 stars, 2025-12-06) and "OMG finally found one that doesn't charge you ANYTHING" (5 stars, 2026-08-22). Many reviewers compare it with Swipewipe, whose free tier is reported to cap swiping; one reviewer summed Slider up as "This is just swipewipe... except free." (5 stars, 2026-06-11).

Then version 66 arrived on 2026-07-19 with Slider Premium. A 1-star review from 2026-07-22 reads: "I used to love this app because it was completely free and had no ads. Now ... you have to buy premium". In our read, July 2026 reviews averaged about 4.38 stars, against about 4.79 in August and 4.77 in September, so the dip was sharp but short. Our guide to which photo cleaner apps are actually free tracks the same shift across other apps.

Ads, Premium and what $19.99 buys

Slider Premium (Annual) is the only in-app purchase on Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider, priced at $19.99 a year in the US and £19.99 in the UK, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. The listing does not document what Premium unlocks. Reviewers say it removes ads, which fits the timing.

The ads themselves come through Google AdMob, which Slider's privacy policy names. How often they appear is disputed: some reviewers describe only a few in hours of use, others say ads show up only after a deletion, and many reviews from July to September 2026 still say "no ads" at all. That suggests a staged rollout, which we could not verify. Most reviews date the ads to July 2026, though a UK 1-star review from 2026-05-26 already reports an "advertising consent popup". A 2026 bug in which ads paused users' music was fixed in version 65.3.

Earlier experiments, a "share with one friend" wall after 150 swipes and a June 2025 swipe lockout, were reversed after complaints. For the wider picture of free tiers that stop you mid-session, see our photo cleaner with no swipe limit guide.

What the privacy label shows

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider's App Store privacy label lists Data Used to Track You (Identifiers and Usage Data), and Device ID and advertising data linked to you for third-party advertising, checked on 2026-09-25. That section is what ad-funded apps typically carry, because the ad network needs an identifier to measure and target ads.

This is not a claim that Slider uploads your photos. Its listing says "PRIVACY FIRST: Slider works entirely on-device", and its privacy policy from May 2025 says photos stay on the device. The tracking entries cover the ad and analytics data around the app, such as the device identifier, IP address and usage logs, not the pictures themselves.

Pixtide's label has no tracking section: it lists Data Not Linked to You only. Pixtide has no account, no ads and never uploads a photo. It does send anonymous usage statistics, and you can switch those off in Settings. If the label on your cleaner matters to you, it takes ten seconds to compare on each App Store page, under App Privacy.

Where Slider wins

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider does several things Pixtide does not, and for some people they settle the question.

• Older iPhones. Slider runs on iOS 15. Pixtide needs iOS 18.0 or later, so an iPhone stuck on iOS 15, 16 or 17 cannot run it.
• iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. Slider runs on iPad, on Macs with an M1 chip or later, and on Apple Vision Pro. Pixtide is iPhone only.
• Languages. Slider's listing covers 10 languages, including Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Pixtide's live App Store listing is in English.
• Add to album. A long press in Slider files a photo into an album while you sort. Pixtide has no album sorting.
• Hidden photos and excluded albums. Slider can show your Hidden album in the stack and leave chosen albums out.
• Sort by biggest files. Slider can serve the largest items first, which is the fastest route to freeing gigabytes.
• Track record. Slider has 11,147 US ratings since 2022 and, per a developer post from August 2025, 63,000 monthly active users. Pixtide launched in 2026 and is much newer.
• Small download. Slider is 15.6 MB.

Big wins show up in reviews too: one reviewer "went from having no space, to over 20GB" (5 stars, 2026-09-22).

What Pixtide keeps free

Pixtide keeps the swipe and adds the tools Slider's listing does not mention, all without a premium tier: a Decide Later queue, month-by-month sorting, session-wide undo and a video scrub bar.

Right keeps a photo, left marks it for deletion, and down sends it to a Decide Later queue for the ones you cannot judge yet. Slider tried something similar with a "2nd Pass" mode in version 68, then removed it in version 70 as confusing. You can sort one month at a time, a whole year, a category (screenshots, videos, selfies, Live Photos, panoramas, favourites, bursts), your recent photos or On This Day. A 3-star Slider reviewer asked for exactly that on 2025-02-19: "Please add sections by date!!"

Nothing is deleted while you swipe. A review screen shows every photo you marked, you rescue any mistakes, and only then do you confirm. The Undo button under the card steps back through the whole session. Videos play inline with sound and a scrub bar, so you can check the middle of a long clip before deciding. Progress saves, so you can stop and pick up later.

Why storage does not drop straight away

Deleting a photo on an iPhone, from Slider, Pixtide or the Photos app itself, does not free the space immediately: the photo moves to the Recently Deleted album and stays there for 30 days before iOS removes it for good.

This catches people out. About 13 of the Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider reviews we read say deleting did not free storage, including a UK reviewer who wrote: "It says I deleted 20 gb but when I checked my iPhone storage nothing changed" (1 star, 2026-03-29). The photos were almost certainly waiting in Recently Deleted. Apple explains how to find, recover and permanently delete them in its Recently Deleted support article and in the iPhone User Guide section on how to delete or hide photos and videos.

The 30-day window is also your safety net when you switch apps: anything either app deleted by mistake can be restored from there. To get the space back now, open Photos, go to Albums, open Recently Deleted and delete the items there. Our guide to where deleted photos go on iPhone walks through it.

One honest limitation

Pixtide is not a like-for-like replacement for everything Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider does, and the gaps are worth knowing before you switch.

Pixtide does not detect duplicates or similar shots. Apple's Duplicates album in the Photos app finds exact copies for free, so use that alongside any swipe cleaner. For bursts, Pixtide shows only the representative photo, and deleting it removes that photo only; to prune individual frames, use the Photos app for now.

Pixtide is iPhone only and needs iOS 18.0 or later, so it will not run on an iPad, a Mac or an iPhone that cannot update past iOS 17. It has no album sorting, no hidden-photo view and no largest-first sort; for big videos, the videos category and our guide to deleting large videos on iPhone are the closest route. And Pixtide is new: it launched in 2026 with a small number of ratings, while Slider has more than 11,000.

Who should pick which

Pick Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider if you sort on an iPad, a Mac or an iPhone on iOS 15 to 17, if you want to file photos into albums or see hidden photos while you swipe, if you prefer the app in Japanese, Korean or Chinese, or if the ads you see are rare enough not to bother you. Paying $19.99 a year for Premium is also a reasonable choice if Slider already fits how you work.

Pick Pixtide if the reason you searched was the ads or the new Premium, and what you want is the same swipe flow on an iPhone with iOS 18 or later, with a Decide Later queue, month-by-month sorting, a video scrub bar and a review screen before anything is deleted, at no cost. If you are comparing several swipe cleaners at once, the free Swipewipe alternative and Picnic alternative pages cover the two apps Slider users most often mention next.

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 Slider. 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 the Slider photo cleaner app still free?

Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider by June Ninth LLC is still free to download, but since version 66 on 2026-07-19 it sells Slider Premium at $19.99 a year, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. The listing does not say what Premium unlocks; reviewers say it removes ads. Pixtide is a free alternative with no ads, no subscription and no in-app purchases.

Does the Slider photo cleaner have ads now?

Yes, for at least some users. Slider's privacy policy names Google AdMob, and App Store reviews from July 2026 onward describe ads and an advertising consent popup, while other recent reviews still say "no ads", which suggests a staged rollout. Reviewers disagree on how often ads appear. Pixtide, a free swipe photo cleaner for iPhone, shows no ads at all.

How much does Slider Premium cost?

Slider Premium (Annual) costs $19.99 a year in the US and £19.99 in the UK, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. It is the only in-app purchase listed for Photo & Video Cleaner: Slider and appeared in version 66 on 2026-07-19. The listing does not document what it unlocks; reviews say it removes ads. Pixtide has no premium tier and nothing to buy.

What is the best free Slider alternative with no ads?

Pixtide is a free iPhone swipe photo cleaner with no ads, no subscription, no in-app purchases and no swipe limit, checked on the App Store on 2026-09-25. Right keeps, left deletes and down decides later, and a review screen comes before any deletion. It needs iOS 18.0 or later and runs on iPhone only, so Slider remains the better fit for iPad, Mac or iOS 15 to 17.

Why did my iPhone storage not go down after deleting photos in Slider?

Photos deleted by Slider, Pixtide or Apple's Photos app go to the Recently Deleted album and keep using storage for up to 30 days. To free the space now, open Photos, go to Albums, then Recently Deleted, and delete them there. Some Slider reviewers, such as a UK reviewer on 2026-03-29, reported deleting 20 GB with no change in storage for this reason.