A camera roll cleaner that starts at the beginning
Most of what fills a phone is old. Screenshots of parking tickets. Eleven tries at the same group photo from 2019. PhotoGenie opens at your oldest photo and walks forward, so the first swipes clear the photos you forgot you had.
Each photo gets the whole screen. Videos play inside the card. A zoom button lets you check a face or a blurry detail, and a pinch never counts as a swipe. Ten a day gets through more than you would think.
What the first ten minutes look like
- Open the app and allow access to your photos. Full access shows the whole library. A limited selection works too, and you can widen it later from the Sort screen.
- Your oldest photo fills the screen. Swipe up if it can go. Scroll past if it stays.
- When a photo belongs in an album, drag it down onto a folder in the row at the bottom.
- After a few dozen photos, open the Space tab. Look over what you marked and delete it in one go.
- Read the result screen. It says how many photos left and how much space Recently Deleted still holds.
Ten minutes makes a good first session. Next time, the strip opens where you stopped.
Delete photos and still change your mind
A swipe on its own deletes nothing. The photo gets a bin badge and stays in the strip. Swipe down on it and it comes back.
When you are ready, open the Space tab. It shows every photo you marked. Delete them in one go and iOS asks you to confirm. From there they sit in Recently Deleted in the Photos app for 30 days, in case you want one back.
Sort photos into albums as you go
Some photos belong somewhere tidier than the camera roll. Drag one down onto a folder and it moves into that album in Photos. The folders are your real albums, so they show up in the Photos app and in iCloud exactly as you filed them.
Pin the folders you use most and they sit first in the row. Tap any folder to page through what is inside. People use it to pull receipts and school drawings into their own albums while they clean.
See the space you got back
Deleting a photo does not free space straight away. iOS holds it in Recently Deleted for 30 days. PhotoGenie reads the library again after every delete and tells you two numbers: what left, and what Recently Deleted is still holding. One tap takes you to that album to empty it.
If your library is optimised for iCloud, your phone keeps smaller copies of each photo. The app reports what your phone gives back, which is the figure Settings shows.
Free, with no swipe limit
PhotoGenie is a free photo cleaner app with nothing to buy. You can go through as many photos a day as you like. Several swipe apps stop free users after a set number of swipes and ask for a subscription.
Who it is for
If your iPhone keeps showing Storage Almost Full, start here. The oldest photos tend to be the ones nobody misses, and they go first.
Parents whose camera roll is mostly one child get the most out of folders. File the good ones into an album per year and toss the forty near-identical shots around them.
Anyone who has put off a cleanup because it felt like a weekend job can do ten photos while the kettle boils. PhotoGenie never picks photos for you. Every photo that goes is one you swiped.
Your photos stay on your phone
The app reads your library so it can show it to you. Nothing from your library is uploaded. It sends us a short record of how the app is used, with no photo in it. The privacy policy has the detail.
Questions
Is there a free app to swipe and delete photos?
Yes. PhotoGenie is free on the App Store with no subscription and no daily swipe limit. You swipe up on a photo to mark it, then delete the marked photos together from the Space tab.
Why did my storage not change after I deleted photos?
iOS keeps deleted photos in Recently Deleted for 30 days and frees the space only when that album is emptied. PhotoGenie's result screen has a button that opens it. The support page has the steps.
Does PhotoGenie find duplicate photos?
No. It shows every photo in order so you decide. For exact duplicates, open Photos, then Collections, Utilities, Duplicates, and tap Merge.
Can I undo a swipe?
Yes. Swipe down on a tossed photo, or tap it and choose Keep it. After you confirm a delete, the photo stays in Recently Deleted for 30 days.
What are folders?
Folders are albums in your Photos library. Dropping a photo on a folder moves it into that album. A photo lives in one folder at a time.
Do my photos leave my phone?
No. Photos stay on your iPhone. The privacy policy explains what the app does send.
Does it work on iPad?
PhotoGenie is an iPhone app. It is built and tested for iPhone screens only.