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FatPuppy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 14, 2012
1,709
151
The usage memory on my iphone 4 on ios 6 is slowly going down and I want to know if this tool is any good or if I use it to often, will it make the phone slower?
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
Completely and everything? Seems like at least some things can be cleared up using a tool like that.
 

DMaki650

macrumors 6502
Jun 23, 2010
348
157
Rhinelander, WI
I've used the paid version, there was a website that was handing out keys. Anyway it worked for me. It freed up around 2 - 3gb or space. It actually deletes all the extra stuff every app saves that you can't delete.
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
I used it before and it was able to remove about 1 gb of junk that had no noticeable effect on the phone.

I'd assume it's looking for predetermined cache stores in the file system and clearing them.

I wish iOS had the feature to manually do that baked in. Only way to do it is to delete and reinstall the app, not the most elegant solution.
 

bransoj

macrumors 68000
Jul 31, 2013
1,541
725
I've used it before with decent success on both my iPhone and iPad....only thing to be careful with is if you have anything like VLC or AVPlayer be careful what you delete as it does flag up videos stored in those apps as stuff to delete.
 

scaredpoet

macrumors 604
Apr 6, 2007
6,627
342
Completely and everything? Seems like at least some things can be cleared up using a tool like that.

It's basically snake oil. At best it deletes some cache files and old database content that will eventually just be rebuilt and end up right back on the phone anyway. But for some people, seeing some data get cleaned out (even though the effect is temporary) makes them think they've truly helped the situation.

So far, these programs don't do any permanent harm, so if you absolutely feel you need to buy this software and "clean" your iPhone, then go for it. If you feel it's a waste of time and money, then don't.
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
It's basically snake oil. At best it deletes some cache files and old database content that will eventually just be rebuilt and end up right back on the phone anyway. But for some people, seeing some data get cleaned out (even though the effect is temporary) makes them think they've truly helped the situation.

So far, these programs don't do any permanent harm, so if you absolutely feel you need to buy this software and "clean" your iPhone, then go for it. If you feel it's a waste of time and money, then don't.
Seems like some people got as much as a few gigs freed up as mentioned in some of the posts, that seems somewhat more than snake oil (especially since you can or at least could get a free full version as well).
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
It's basically snake oil. At best it deletes some cache files and old database content that will eventually just be rebuilt and end up right back on the phone anyway. But for some people, seeing some data get cleaned out (even though the effect is temporary) makes them think they've truly helped the situation.



So far, these programs don't do any permanent harm, so if you absolutely feel you need to buy this software and "clean" your iPhone, then go for it. If you feel it's a waste of time and money, then don't.


That's a bit more then snake oil if you are looking for storage in a pinch especially if it took years to accumulate that amount of cached data. Plus it's impossible to do without aid of such a program.
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
What Apple needs to provide is a "clear all caches" setting.

I agree. Even in the usage area of settings it tells you how much extra data the app is using under documents and data. It just needs a button to clear that data.

Recently though apps have been much better. There was a time where an app like Facebook would be 50-60 mb on install and have 500 mb of cached data. It seems to linger around 100 mb now which isn't too bad I guess. Even though when I delete the app and reinstalled there is no noticeable change expect much less cache.
 

gaanee

macrumors 65816
Dec 8, 2011
1,433
244
It crashes every time without telling how to fix it. Also the interface is not user friendly.
 

JayLenochiniMac

macrumors G5
Nov 7, 2007
12,819
2,389
New Sanfrakota
Many of you probably have old photos stored on your phone that's taking up lots of space. Move them to iPhoto and modify the settings to sync only photos from the last three months. You can create an album if you have older photos that you need.
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
Many of you probably have old photos stored on your phone that's taking up lots of space. Move them to iPhoto and modify the settings to sync only photos from the last three months. You can create an album if you have older photos that you need.

Phoneclean doesn't remove photos. So while a lot of people may have an excess amount of photos using a lot of space, the space gained from running phone clean isn't from deleting photos, or messages/email/etc for that matter. Its removing things cached files you cannot access from the phone and is tedious to do from file explorers on a PC/Mac...
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
Which will come back fairly quickly. But hey, if it "works" for you, it's your money.
Not too worried about the money since they have been giving the app away for free through some promotions for some time. As for space, some might come back and some perhaps might not if it clears out some saved message attachments that aren't really accessible otherwise, for example. Usefulness might mainly depend on the user and their setup, where it might not do much for some and might do a decent amount for others.
 
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