PrunePic vs Swipewipe

Swipewipe details checked on October 24, 2026 against its App Store page.

Both apps turn your camera roll into a stack of cards you swipe through, and both are free to download. They differ in what happens around the swipe: what you can do with the photos you keep, when deleted photos actually leave your library, and how the free version is limited.

We make PrunePic, so read this with that in mind. We did not install Swipewipe for this page: everything about it comes from its App Store page, its website and help pages, its privacy policy, and 1,000 recent App Store reviews. Checked on October 24, 2026.

The short version

• Pick Swipewipe if you want extras around the cleanup, such as AI enhancement of old or blurry photos, a map of your photos, highlight videos and daily streaks, or if you use an iPad, an Android phone or an iPhone on iOS 18.
• Pick PrunePic if you want an app without ads, a daily allowance you can count, the photos you keep filed into albums in the same swipe, and a trash where you check everything before it leaves your library.

How each app cleans

Swipewipe works through lists: each month, recent photos, On This Day, a random set, duplicates, your albums, and, with a subscription, places on a map. Each photo is a card: swipe right to keep it, left to mark it for deletion. An undo button, or a tap on the photo, takes you back, and you can bookmark a photo to decide later.

PrunePic shows your library one photo or video at a time, full screen. Swipe left to send it to the PrunePic Trash, up to keep it, right to add it to Favorites or drop it on an album. Up to three pinned albums sit in the swipe tray, and you can pick any album or create one; album filing puts the photo in a regular Photos album. Cleaning modes focus the feed on screenshots, videos sorted longest first, a batch, a single trip or today’s date in past years.

When your photos are actually deleted

In both apps, a left swipe only marks a photo. Nothing leaves your library until a final step, and then iOS asks you to confirm and the photos sit in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

• Swipewipe deletes at the end of each list. When you reach the end, a review screen shows the photos you marked; you can change your mind there, then confirm. Its help page also mentions a trash button for deleting earlier, when it is available. The same page answers “why aren’t my photos deleted when I swipe?” with this step: until you confirm, nothing is deleted.
• PrunePic collects everything you swipe left in the PrunePic Trash, across sessions and modes, with a counter of how much it weighs. You empty it when you choose: after five photos or after five hundred. Put Back returns anything, and Undo reverses your last swipe.

The difference matters if you clean in short bursts. In PrunePic, you can stop anywhere and come back tomorrow; your decisions and the trash are saved. If you are wondering why your storage did not change, iPhone storage full explains Recently Deleted and iCloud, and how to recover deleted photos covers getting one back.

Free version, ads and pricing

Swipewipe’s free version has ads. Its help page says the free version limits the number of swipes: when you reach the limit, a countdown starts, or you can watch a short video to get more. Reviewers describe the allowance as roughly one list, or about 20 swipes, every seven to eight hours, and since mid-September 2026 many free users report watching an ad before a deletion completes. The subscription removes the ads and the limit, and unlocks extras such as the AI enhancer, the Places map, Time Travel for missed On This Day dates, and tools to compress, trim and split videos.

On October 24, 2026, Swipewipe’s US App Store page listed weekly plans from $3.99 to $9.99, a yearly plan at $29.99, and two items named “Premium” at $5.99 and $9.99 without a stated period. Reviewers and press describe a 3-day trial, and US reviewers most often mention $9.99 a week. None of the listed purchases is named as lifetime.

PrunePic’s free plan gives you 10 decisions a day in the Everything and Random modes, with the trash, Undo, Favorites and widgets included, and no ads. Every keep, delete, favorite or file counts as one decision. PrunePic Pro, weekly or yearly, removes the daily limit and unlocks the Photos, Screenshots, Videos, Batch, On This Day and Trips & Moments modes. Its US App Store page lists in-app purchases at $4.99, $29.99 and $49.99.

Privacy and what leaves your phone

The App Store privacy labels, as each developer declares them, on October 24, 2026:

Swipewipe’s help page says it needs access to your full photo library. Its privacy policy, shared by MWM’s apps, says AI features may send images you upload to AI providers such as OpenAI, Google Gemini or Anthropic, where relevant to the app. Swipewipe’s pages do not say whether its AI enhancer works on your iPhone or sends the photo out.

PrunePic reads your photos through Apple’s Photos framework, works on them on your iPhone, and never uploads them. It records how the app is used, with Firebase Analytics and Mixpanel, and measures which ads bring people to it with the Meta SDK; those events never include your photos. The privacy policy lists them.

What Swipewipe reviewers mention

These are customers’ reports, not tests of ours. In 700 App Store reviews rated 1 to 3 stars between May 2025 and October 2026, from 11 countries:

• Ads come up in about 24%, rising to 39% of the reviews from the last six months, as longer ads and ads before deletions appeared.
• Paying comes up often: about 18% hit a paywall straight away, 18% mention the free limit, 15% the price, and 6% a billing problem such as a charge after cancelling.
• Reliability comes up in about 28%. The most common report, in about 11% of these reviews, is photos still in the library after swiping; Swipewipe’s help page points to one cause, the end-of-list step described above. Versions 3.5.1 and 3.5.2, from October 2026, both say they fix issues with deleting photos.
• Lost progress after an update or a crash comes up in about 6%.

In 300 reviews rated 4 or 5 stars between June and October 2026, people praise the space they got back (about 27%), how easy and fun it is (20%) and how fast it goes (13%), and some like going month by month and the On This Day nostalgia.

Where Swipewipe is better

• More devices. It runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later, on Apple Vision and on Android. PrunePic needs iOS 26 on iPhone, and runs on Macs with Apple silicon and on Apple Vision, but has no iPad or Android version.
• More languages. Swipewipe’s App Store page lists 12. PrunePic’s app is in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
• More extras. An AI photo enhancer, a Places map, Faces, Supercut highlight videos, streaks, and duplicate piles have no PrunePic equivalent.
• Decide later. Bookmarks set a photo aside for another day. In PrunePic, you keep it, delete it or file it.
• A long track record. Swipewipe has been on the App Store since 2022 and has about 99,000 US ratings averaging 4.7. Its developer says it has passed 25 million downloads.

The bottom line

If you want the most features, or you use an iPad or Android phone, Swipewipe does more. If ads and a refilling swipe allowance put you off, or you want each keeper filed into an album as you go and every deletion waiting in a trash you control, PrunePic is built for that. Both are free to try; the clean-up guide works with either.