Frequently asked questions

The app

What is Swipellio?

Swipellio is a free iPhone app for cleaning up your camera roll. You swipe left to delete a photo and right to keep it. Everything runs on the device, nothing is uploaded, and nothing is deleted until you empty the in-app Trash Bin yourself. It requires iOS 17.5 or later.

How do I delete thousands of photos on my iPhone quickly?

The stock Photos app requires you to tap into a photo, tap the trash icon, confirm, then tap back, which is roughly four actions per photo. Swipe-based cleaners reduce that to one gesture. Swipellio shows one photo at a time: swipe left to send it to the Trash Bin, swipe right to keep it, and the next photo is already loaded. A double tap undoes the last swipe. Nothing leaves your library until you empty the Trash Bin.

Can I undo if I delete a photo by mistake?

In Swipellio, yes, twice over. A double tap immediately undoes your last swipe with no dialog. Beyond that, swiping left never deletes anything: it moves the photo to an in-app Trash Bin where it stays until you deliberately empty it, and you can restore anything from there. Undoing or restoring does not consume the free allowance on the paid modes.

Does Swipellio work on Android?

No. Swipellio is an iPhone app and requires iOS 17.5 or later. There is no Android version.

Privacy and safety

Is it safe to use a photo cleaner app?

It depends entirely on the app. Three things are worth checking before you grant photo library access: whether the App Store listing's App Privacy section says "Data Not Collected" or lists data used to track you, whether the app shows ads (which implies an advertising SDK), and whether it requires an account. Swipellio's listing reads "Data Not Collected". It has no trackers, and it uses the internet for one thing: loading your own photos from iCloud.

Do photo cleaner apps upload your photos?

Some do, some do not. Apps that use cloud processing for features like image enhancement necessarily send images to a server. Apps that use Apple's on-device Vision frameworks do not. Swipellio does all of its analysis on-device: blur detection, quality scoring, face and expression analysis and similar-photo matching all run locally. Nothing is uploaded — the internet is used for one thing, loading your own photos from iCloud.

Why do photo cleaner apps ask for full access to my photos?

Deleting a photo from your library requires write access to the whole library, which iOS grants only through Full Access. Limited access, where you hand-pick which photos an app can see, works for apps that only need to read a few images, but it makes a cleanup app largely pointless because it can only ever show you photos you already selected. Swipellio explains this before the iOS dialog appears and still functions in Limited mode, with a worse experience. What matters more than the permission scope is what the app does afterwards: Swipellio has no trackers and no server of its own, so access to your library does not create a path to anyone else.

Does Swipellio need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no email and no login. The app has no server to hold an account on.

Does Swipellio show ads?

No. Swipellio has no ads, no advertising SDKs and no cooldown timers. You are never asked to watch anything or wait before cleaning the next batch.

Price and Pro

What is free in Swipellio and what costs money?

Manual cleanup in Swipellio is free and unlimited: the core swipe loop, the Everything, Photos and Videos filters, every sort order including Largest, the Trash Bin and undo, with no daily cap, no cooldown timer, no ads and no account. An entire library can be sorted without paying. Swipellio Pro lifts the free allowances on the two automated modes, Smart Mode and Similars, which find the clutter for you. Pro buys speed, not access.

How much does Swipellio cost?

The app is free to download, and manual cleanup is free with no limits. Swipellio Pro is an optional in-app purchase, available as a subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase. It doesn't unlock anything — it makes the cleanup faster, by lifting the free allowances on the two modes that find the clutter for you. Current prices are shown on the App Store listing.

What do you actually get with Swipellio Pro?

Time. Everything Swipellio does can be done for free by hand, one swipe per photo. Pro lifts the free allowances on Smart Mode, which surfaces blurry, dark and blown-out shots and screenshots, and Similars, which groups near-identical shots into packs. Together they shorten the queue, so a library of eight thousand photos becomes a review of the few hundred that were never worth keeping.

Features

What is the difference between similar photos and duplicate photos?

Duplicates are identical copies of the same file, usually created by saving or importing an image twice. Similar photos are different files showing nearly the same moment, like the eleven shots you took of the same thing hoping one would come out. Removing duplicates is safe and mechanical, since the copies are interchangeable. Choosing between similar photos requires judgment about which frame is best. Swipellio's Similars mode handles the second problem: it groups near-identical shots into packs so you compare them side by side instead of scrolling past them one at a time. The distinction is explained at length in similar photos vs duplicates.

What does Smart Mode do?

Smart Mode scans your library on your phone and surfaces the photos you probably don't want: blurry ones, too dark, blown out, screenshots of receipts and documents.

How do I free up iCloud storage without paying for more?

The largest gains usually come from videos and screenshots rather than photos, since a single video can be larger than a hundred images. Sorting by file size and reviewing the biggest items first gives the fastest result. Swipellio has a "Largest" sort for this, and shows how many gigabytes were reclaimed when you empty its Trash Bin.

Who makes it

Who makes Swipellio?

Swipellio is built by Eugene Grunin, an independent developer working alone, listed on the App Store as Evgenii Grunin. There is no company behind the app, which is one reason it has no analytics, no ad SDKs and no third-party dependencies — and why it downloads at 8.2 MB.