PhoneClean is a free maintenance program to free up storage space on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This is particularly useful if you have a model with a low storage capacity or which is nearly full – freeing up more space may also help speed up launching apps and playing big games.
It works by cleaning off-line files, app caches, media temp files, cookies and reclaiming other storage space on iOS devices. It also removes the junk media files left after an unfinished iTunes sync.
Note that PhoneClean is not an app – it is a program for Windows only (XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8) so is perhaps best viewed as being like a Ccleaner for iOS devices.
Download PhoneClean setup (3.9MB) from the developer here – you need .NET 3.5 and iTunes 9.0+ installed to use the program.
The download page provides links to both if you don’t already have them.
Using PhoneClean – install PhoneClean and run the program. Follow the instructions to connect your Apple device to your computer – it supports the following iOS devices:
- iPhone: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, etc.
- iPad: iPad (wi-fi, wi-fi+3G), iPad 2 (wi-fi, wi-fi+3G), the new iPad (wi-fi, wi-fi+4G), etc.
- iPod Touch: iPod touch 1, iPod touch 2, iPod touch 3, iPod touch 4, etc.
It should recognize your device and display how much free space is currently available.
You may see a tickbox “I’d like to keep off-line files”. Off-line files can include news, articles, magazines, comic books and other cache data – if you want to keep them, make sure you tick this box so PhoneClean can skip them.
Click ‘Start Scan’ to let PhoneClean analyze your device’s storage condition – it will then display how much storage space you can save:
Now click ‘Clean’ to free up space on your iOS device – after the process finishes it confirms how much free space was released.
User feedback on PhoneClean is generally very good – the amount of storage space it can free up will depend on how the individual device has been used and may vary from a few hundred MB to several GB.
Backup
Like many other storage space cleaners (Ccleaner etc), the program does not backup any files that it deletes.
It is a good idea to backup your iOS device regularly anyway but it is particularly important before running a maintenance program like this – just in case.
Conclusion
PhoneClean is a good free way to free up more storage space on an iOS device – it would of course be even more helpful if it was available for Macs too.
