Cleaner Guru: Cleaning App Review

Wonder if Cleaner Guru is the answer to your iPhone storage mess? With so many cleaning apps out there, it’s tough to tell which ones actually work and which are just fancy-looking gimmicks.

Well, let’s find out together. We put this app to the real-world test, and by the end of this Cleaner Guru: Cleaning App review, you’ll know everything about it—from its features and performance to whether it’s worth your time and money.

Overview

Cleaner Guru: Cleaning App, developed by GM UniverseApps Limited, is a popular iPhone cleaner designed to help free up storage and optimize iPhone performance. With a 4.6-star rating and 89.3K reviews on the App Store, it ranks #9 in Utilities, it is one of the more widely used cleaning apps on the market. However, we’ve seen apps with an even higher number of ratings that placed lower in the top Utilities rankings—so App Store ranking isn’t always about sheer numbers.

Features and Functionality

Let’s start with what this app has to offer. At first glance, it comes with a pretty standard set of tools you’d expect from an iPhone cleaner. But does it bring anything new to the table? Let’s break it down.

• 🌅 Duplicate and similar photo cleanup – Detects and removes duplicate or nearly identical photos to free up space.
• 📹 Video compression – Reduces video file sizes without noticeable quality loss.
• 📞 Contacts cleanup – Merges duplicate contacts to keep your address book tidy and organized.
• 📂 Large file cleanup – Identifies big files that are taking up space and lets you remove them easily.
• 📊 Widgets – Displays battery and memory usage directly on your home screen for easy monitoring.
• ⚡ Charging animations – Adds custom animations while charging.
• 🔒 Secret folder – Allows you to securely store private photos and videos behind a password-protected vault.

It’s a good set of features. The must-have tools—like duplicate photo cleanup, contacts cleanup, and video compression—are all here. On top of that, it includes extras that many apps throw in, but aren’t exactly important, like widgets and charging animations. While these add-ons are nice to have, they don’t really enhance the core experience of cleaning up storage.

Verdict. We’re giving it a 4 out of 5. It’s a solid set of tools, but nothing exceptional. If you’re looking for a cleaner with the basics covered it’s this one, but it doesn’t really stand out.

Interface

The design matches the feature set—it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it does the job. The layout feels clean, simple, and compact, so navigation is easy and intuitive. Everything sits where you expect it, getting around isn’t an issue.

That said, we didn’t like that there’s no swipe gesture to minimize previews or go back, which makes interactions feel less fluid than in other apps. It’s a small thing, but once you notice it, it’s hard to ignore.

On the plus side, it runs fast. No lag, no hiccups, just smooth performance.

Overall, the interface works well—simple, easy to use, and straightforward—but the lack of polish holds it back. The navy blue theme might not be for everyone, and we would’ve appreciated a light/dark mode option like some competing apps offer. It’s a small detail, but customization always adds to the experience.

We can’t be too strict here. The design is functional and well-organized, and while it doesn’t feel as premium as some others, it doesn’t get in the way of usability.

Verdict. As it stands, it’s a good design with room for improvement. So we’re keeping it in line with the previous score—4 out of 5.

Cleanup Results

Okay, so far, Cleaner Guru has earned 4 out of 5 for its feature set and design. But the real test—and the most important one—is how well it actually cleans up your storage.

To see what it could do, we ran it on an iPhone used by our QA specialist—the perfect test device, packed with thousands of photos, videos, large files, screenshots, and contacts. If any app could prove its worth, it would be here.

Here’s a breakdown of what Cleaner Guru detected as potential clutter:

• 1,208 similar photos (2.58 GB) out of 1,781 total (3.73 GB)
• 1,378 Live Photos (3.53 GB) out of 2,104 total (5.4 GB)
• Total storage cleanup potential: 6.11 GB out of 9.13 GB

Not bad, not bad at all. But it’s one thing when an app finds a lot of potential storage to free up, as we’ve seen before, not all cleanup apps make useful suggestions. Some recognize completely different photos as “similar” and suggest deleting non-surplus images, which can lead you to accidentally delete important things.

Thankfully, Cleaner Guru isn’t like that. We loved how it groups similar photos—it’s easily one of the best we’ve tested. The Best Photo selection is also impressive, getting it right about 90% of the time. That’s a solid result, which means you won’t have to manually double-check every single suggestion. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely reliable enough to speed up the cleaning process.

However, not all features were useful. The “Organize Videos” and “Screenshots” sections only offer deletion—no real sorting or additional management, which makes them feel like pointless filler.

Also, Live Photos and Similar Photos should have been combined into one feature—we see no logical reason to separate them. In both cases, the app groups similar images together, so splitting them into two categories only adds unnecessary steps. Instead of two categories, the app should have offered an option to convert Live Photos into still images, as Live Photos take up more space than regular images, and many users don’t need the motion effect. That would have added real value.

Verdict. Cleaner Guru does its core job well. Cleaner Guru does its core job well. It groups similar photos accurately, picks the best one most of the time, and contact cleanup works exactly as advertised. The Swipe Photos game is a great touch, it makes the cleanup process feel less like a chore and adds a bit of fun to what’s usually a tedious task.

That said, we don’t think it deserves a perfect 5 here. While it performs well, it’s not flawless. The separation of Live Photos and Similar Photos doesn’t make sense, and some users may still need to double-check the app’s suggestions before deleting files. It’s a strong performer but not quite best-in-class.

So, we’re giving it another 4 out of 5. That makes it a clean streak of 4s across the board so far.

Scan Speed

As for its speed, we won’t spend much time here—just like the app itself. It’s simply fast.

The scan finished in 30 seconds, it is one of the quickest apps we’ve tested. No delays, no unnecessary waiting—it gets straight to work and delivers results fast.

Verdict. 5 out of 5. No complaints here.

Pricing and Free Version

Now, let’s talk about the cost—because let’s be honest, a good cleaner isn’t worth much if the pricing is unreasonable.

Cleaner Guru offers these subscription plans:

• Pro Plan: $7.99 per week or $39.99 per year
• Lite Plan: $6.99 per week (with limited features)

The Lite version is barely worth considering. It doesn’t include swipe cleaning, video compression, contact cleanup, or secret storage, which means you’re paying $6.99 per week for the absolute bare minimum. That’s way too much for way too little. This plan isn’t something we can recommend—it simply doesn’t offer enough value. What makes even less sense is the tiny $1 price difference between Lite and Pro. For just one extra dollar per week, you get the full feature set instead of a stripped-down version.

As for the Pro plan, it’s also not the most affordable option. At $7.99 per week, it’s on the higher end of the pricing scale for this type of app. At that point, you might as well pay $39.99 for the yearly plan, since it’s a much better deal.

But when looking at other apps in this category, Cleaner Guru doesn’t come out on top. Cleaner Kit, for example, is cheaper, slightly better in performance, and offers more functionality (except for the Swipe Photos game). That makes Cleaner Guru hard to justify at this price.

If there was no competition, the pricing might seem reasonable, and we’d give it a 5. But with better and more affordable options out there, we’re settling on a 4 out of 5 for a paid version.

As for the free version, we think 0 out of 5 is fair. We spent half an hour carefully selecting photos to delete, only to hit a paywall at the last second. No warning, no indication—just a “Gotcha!” moment from the developers. It felt like a joke—”Want to delete? Haha, buy a subscription.”

Honestly, just call it a paid app from the start and stop misleading users. We really don’t like when apps pull this kind of stunt. If your app requires payment, be upfront about it. Put the paywall at the beginning, not after users have already invested time into cleaning up their library.

Verdict. So, we gave it 4 out of 5 for the paid version, which leans toward the pricey side, and 0 out of 5 for the so-called “free” version. Math says that averages out to a 2 out of 5 overall.

Final Score

Cleaner Guru does many things right—its photo grouping is among the best, and the swipe-to-delete feature makes cleaning fun. But its pricing strategy, lack of a usable free version, and some questionable design choices hold it back from being a top-tier option.

Would we recommend it? If you’re willing to pay, Cleaner Guru is a decent app. It’s not the most feature-packed, and it’s far from the most affordable, but overall, it’s a good product.

But as for the free version? It’s a definite pass. This was the most frustrating part of our experience. The developers promise functionality, but all you actually get is placeholders and constant paywall prompts—after you’ve already spent time selecting files. It feels like a bait-and-switch, and that’s what ruined the experience for us.

It’s a shame because this app had the potential to be one of the best.