FAQ
Questions about PhotoBroom
The questions people ask before installing a photo cleaner at all: whether it is safe, whether free means free, what it will and will not touch. If you already have the app and something is not working, the support page is the one you want.
Before you install
Is PhotoBroom safe to use?
Yes, on the two counts that matter for an app whose job is deleting. Your photos and videos are analysed on your device and are never uploaded; there is no account and no sign-up. The analysis runs on Apple's Vision framework, on the device itself. And PhotoBroom cannot remove anything on its own: every deletion goes through the standard iOS confirmation sheet, and whatever you approve lands in Recently Deleted, where iOS keeps it for 30 days before removing it. The privacy page states exactly where that boundary sits.
Is PhotoBroom really free, or does it hide results behind a paywall?
Nothing is locked. Every cleanup category is free and every scan result is fully visible. Free users can delete 50 items of any type per day, plus 2 large videos. Keeping, skipping, scanning and browsing never count against that allowance, and it resets at midnight in your device's time zone. PhotoBroom Pro removes the daily cap and adds Auto-Process All Groups, and is sold as a yearly or weekly subscription or as a one-time lifetime purchase. This site publishes no prices, because they change, they are often discounted in promotions, and they differ from one country's App Store to another. The listing shows the current price for your storefront.
Do I have to give PhotoBroom access to my whole library?
No. PhotoBroom works with the limited photo access iOS offers, and then sees only the photos you selected. Full access is what makes a whole-library scan possible: finding duplicates means comparing every photo with every other, so a scan of a selection only finds duplicates inside that selection. Either way, PhotoBroom reads the library on the device and uploads nothing.
Does PhotoBroom work with iCloud Photos?
Yes. PhotoBroom works on the device's photo library, and with iCloud Photos turned on that library is the shared one. A deletion you approve on the iPhone is therefore a deletion on every device, after the usual 30 days in Recently Deleted on each of them. iCloud Photos is sync, not backup: a photo removed from the library is not something an iCloud backup brings back, so the Recently Deleted window is the safety net.
I deleted photos and my iPhone storage is still full. Why?
Because the photos are not gone yet. iOS moves deleted photos to Recently Deleted and keeps them for 30 days, and they count against storage until then. To reclaim the space now, open Photos › Albums › Recently Deleted, tap Select, then Delete All. The storage panel in Settings can also lag several minutes behind a large deletion while iOS re-indexes the library. The figure PhotoBroom shows for a group is the space those files occupy; it becomes free space once Recently Deleted lets them go.
What it finds, and what it leaves alone
What is the difference between duplicate and similar photos?
A duplicate is the same file saved twice: an imported batch, a photo sent back to you, a re-saved edit. A similar photo is a different file of nearly the same moment: the six frames you fired off to get one good one. The Photos app's Duplicates album handles the first kind and merges the copies. PhotoBroom's Similar Photos handles the second. Photos taken within a configurable time window of each other (five minutes by default) are compared using Apple Vision feature prints. Shots whose prints fall within a similarity threshold are clustered into a group. The highest-scoring photo in each group is highlighted and pre-selected.
My iPhone already has a Duplicates album. Do I still need PhotoBroom?
For exact duplicates, possibly not: the built-in album, documented from iOS 16 onward, finds identical copies and merges them into one, which PhotoBroom does not do. What the album does not look at is everything else: near-identical bursts, old screenshots, screen recordings, oversized videos, accidental clips and low-scored shots. If your library's clutter is exact copies, use the album. If it is the rest, that is what PhotoBroom is for. The full comparison goes row by row.
Will PhotoBroom sweep up my Live Photos as short videos?
No. Short Videos collects clips shorter than a threshold you set (three seconds by default), and Live Photos are excluded from it automatically: they are not accidental clips and should not be swept up with them.
Does PhotoBroom decide what to delete?
No. PhotoBroom groups and suggests; you decide. In a similar-photos group the highest-scoring shot is pre-selected to keep and the rest are proposed, and you can change any of that before the iOS confirmation sheet appears. Low Scored Photos is a sorting aid with a sensitivity you control, not a verdict. Keeping anything the model got wrong is free, and PhotoBroom remembers the keep.
Can PhotoBroom compress videos instead of deleting them?
No. PhotoBroom deletes; it does not re-encode. Large Videos lists the files above a size threshold you set so you can decide which to keep. If what you want is to keep every video and still reclaim space, a compression app is the right tool, and the large-video roundup says which ones do that.
Does PhotoBroom clean contacts, mail, WhatsApp or System Data?
No. PhotoBroom does one job, the photo library, and it cannot reach contacts, mail, calendar, another app's cache or the System Data band in Settings. Apps that advertise all of those in one place exist, and the all-in-one roundup covers what that breadth costs.
Devices, languages and the rest
Does PhotoBroom run on iPad, Mac or Android?
iPhone and iPad natively, on iOS 18.0 or later and iPadOS 18.0 or later. On a Mac it runs as the iPad app and requires macOS 15.0 or later on a Mac with an Apple M1 chip or later; it works on that Mac's own Photos library, and one purchase covers every device signed in to your Apple Account. There is no Android version.
Which languages does PhotoBroom speak?
The app is available in 22 languages. This site is in English plus 10 translations, this page included; the support and privacy pages are English only.
How long does the first scan take?
It depends on the library, and the first scan is the slow one: it reads every photo once. Later scans are incremental and only look at what is new. Scanning continues in the background, so you can leave the app and come back to the results.
How does PhotoBroom compare with other iPhone photo cleaners?
In writing, and with the case for the other app included. The comparison pages put PhotoBroom next to each of the cleaners people weigh it against, Apple's own tools included, and every one has a section on when to pick the other app. Two things matter most when choosing: whether an app's free tier lets you act on what it finds, and what its App Store privacy label declares. The free-tier comparison and the privacy audit lay both out, with PhotoBroom as one row rather than a highlight.
Where do I go if something is not working?
The support page answers the operational questions: what happens to a deleted photo, undoing a keep, restoring a Pro purchase, and what to do when a scan looks stuck. For anything else, write to photobroom.com@aisoftwa.re.
Still deciding?
Everything the app finds is free to see, so the quickest answer is to run one scan and look at the groups. Nothing is deleted until you say so.
Download on the App Store