The freeware PhoneClean, from Chinese company iMobie, clears unneeded data on iOS devices, creating more free space. The manufacturer promises that deleting this data also improves device responsiveness. PhoneClean is available for Mac OS and Windows.

First, a note about how the software works. The user must first connect their iPhone or iPad device to their Mac or PC. PhoneClean then performs a scan and then deletes the unneeded data, with each step being confirmed by the user. The search includes temporary and junk files, cache and offline files, cookie and script files and Sync-failed media files. Any of these areas can be excluded from the scan.

In testing a scan operation on a iPad 4 with 16 GB of memory the operation takes about ten minutes, including searches of the temporary directories of all installed apps. It is assumed that the duration of the scan varies with the number of installed apps; those with many installed apps that are used frequently may experience scans of a longer duration.

In testing PhoneClean found more than 600 MB of redundant data on the iPad 4. The deletion is somewhat faster than the scan. Whether the device operated more quickly afterwards couldn’t be confirmed in testing, however the device tested had not been in use very long. It is possible that PhoneClean may make an iOS that has been in use for a long time “feel” more responsive after data has been deleted.

Downloads
PhoneClean for Mac OS X
PhoneClean for Windows