PicBroom Guides
Updated: September 2026
When the "iPhone Storage Full" banner appears, most guides list twenty tips. In practice, storage on a full phone breaks down the same way almost every time: photos and videos first, then apps' cached data, then messages attachments. Work in that order and you're done in an hour.
Settings → General → iPhone Storage. The colored bar tells you whether this is a media problem or an app problem. If "Photos" or "Media" dominates — it almost always does — the rest of this guide applies.
The free wins usually reclaim a few gigabytes; the camera roll holds the rest. Thousands of near-identical shots, screenshots and blurry frames won't be caught by any automatic merge — they need a decision per photo, which is where swipe cleaners earn their keep. PicBroom makes it a left/right swipe per photo, groups bursts so you keep only the sharpest frame, and shows how many gigabytes each session freed. Analysis is 100% on-device — nothing gets uploaded while you clean.
Deleted photos remain in Photos → Utilities → Recently Deleted for 30 days and still count against storage. After a big cleanup, empty it (or wait out the window if you want the safety net).
iCloud+ solves sync, not clutter — you'll pay monthly to keep the same five copies of every sunset. Clean first, then decide how much cloud you actually need.