Lighter

Plenty of cleanup apps try to decide for you, grouping duplicates or flagging blurry shots. Lighter doesn't. It shows one photo, you choose, and it moves on in date order. For a library holding years of memories, that's a reasonable trade. You stay in charge of what goes.

The controls are a left swipe to mark for deletion and a right swipe to keep, with buttons if you'd rather tap. Undo brings back an earlier photo, and the viewer lets you zoom in or play a Live Photo before you decide.

A swipe only marks a photo. Tapping Finish opens a grid of everything you marked, where you can take any of them back. Then you confirm in Lighter, and Apple Photos asks again. Deleted photos normally stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and the site points out that with iCloud Photos turned on, deletions also sync to your other devices. It suggests keeping a separate backup of anything important, which is fair advice for any cleanup tool.

Progress saves on the device, so you can sort for five minutes, close the app and pick up in the same spot later.

Lighter sorts photos, including Live Photos. It doesn't handle videos or hidden photos, and it won't hunt for duplicates. If your main problem is dozens of near-identical shots, a duplicate finder will be faster.

The privacy policy, effective October 19, 2026, says your library stays on your device, with no account, no ads and no tracking, and that the developer only receives personal information if you contact support. You can also give it limited Photos access and choose which pictures it sees. The App Store lists Lighter as free for iPhone and iPad on iOS 18 or later. It comes from Lab&Co, which also makes the Vocab First vocabulary app.