Photo Cleanup

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 7 September 2026

Photo Cleanup (“the App”) is developed and published by Etienne Pers, trading as Ticked Apps, France (“we”, “us”, “the Service Provider”). This policy explains what the App does with your data, and — just as importantly — what it does not do.

Contact for any privacy question or request: support@tickedapps.com

1) The short version

Photo Cleanup helps you review your photo library and remove photos you no longer want. To do that it needs to read your photos on your device.

Your photos never leave your iPhone. We have no server, no account system, and no way to see your photos, your thumbnails, your metadata or your library. Photos are read on the device, analysed on the device, and displayed on the device. Nothing about a photo is uploaded anywhere.

The only data that ever leaves your device is a small number of anonymous, aggregated usage counters (for example: “a review session was completed, 20 photos reviewed”), described in section 4.

2) Access to your photo library

When you first use the App, iOS asks whether you want to give Photo Cleanup access to your photo library. You control this permission, and you can change or withdraw it at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos on your iPhone.

The App uses this access to:

  • list the photos in your library and show them to you for review;
  • display thumbnails and previews of your photos inside the App;
  • read basic properties of a photo, such as its creation date and the size iOS reports for it, so the App can group photos by month and show you how much space your deleted photos were taking;
  • analyse photos on-device to detect visually similar ones (see section 3);
  • move the photos you have explicitly confirmed to your Recently Deleted album.

The App never copies, uploads, transmits, backs up or shares your photos, videos, thumbnails, file names, album names, location data or any other photo metadata. There is no network transfer of photo content of any kind, because there is nowhere for it to go: the App has no backend.

If you grant limited access (only selected photos), the App works only with the photos you selected.

3) On-device analysis

To find similar or duplicate photos, the App uses Apple’s on-device Vision framework to compute a “feature print” — a mathematical fingerprint of a photo’s visual content. This computation happens entirely on your iPhone, using Apple’s system frameworks. Feature prints are not images, cannot be turned back into your photo, and are never transmitted.

To avoid recomputing the same expensive analysis over and over, the App stores the following locally on your device, inside the App’s own private storage:

  • for each analysed photo: its iOS local identifier, its feature print, and the date it was analysed;
  • the groups of similar photos found, and the groups you have already dealt with, as lists of local identifiers;
  • the identifiers of photos you have already reviewed, so the App does not show you the same photo twice;
  • your lifetime totals (number of photos reviewed, number of photos deleted, and the corresponding size), used to show your progress;
  • small preferences and counters, such as whether you completed onboarding, your reminder setting, and the timing of App Store rating prompts.

None of this is synced, backed up to our servers, or shared with anyone. It lives in the App’s container on your device. Deleting the App deletes all of it.

4) Analytics

The App uses PostHog to understand how the App is used in aggregate — how many people install it, open it, complete a review session, and confirm a deletion. This is the only data that leaves your device.

Where it goes. PostHog Cloud, EU region (servers in the European Union). PostHog acts as our data processor. Nothing is sent to the US region.

What is sent. Only a fixed, closed list of events with numeric counters and fixed labels:

  • Application installed / opened / updated / backgrounded — nothing but the fact that it happened.
  • onboarding_completed — whether photo access was granted, denied or limited; whether reminders were enabled.
  • mode_opened — which cleaning mode was opened (random, screenshots, similar, timeline, on this day).
  • batch_completed — the mode, and how many photos were reviewed, kept and marked.
  • group_completed — how many photos were kept and dropped in a similar-photo group.
  • similarity_scan_completed — how many groups the scan found.
  • deletion_confirmed / deletion_cancelled — the mode, and how many photos.
  • deletion_failed — the mode only (no error text).

What is never sent. No photo, no thumbnail, no feature print, no photo identifier, no capture date, no location, no file name, no album name, no free text, no e-mail address, no name, and no account — because there is no account.

Who it is attached to. Nobody. The App never calls PostHog’s identify, and person profiles are disabled. Events are counted against an anonymous device-level identifier generated by the PostHog SDK, which is not linked to your Apple ID, your name, your e-mail or any other identity. We cannot tell who you are, and we cannot single you out.

What is disabled. Session replay, screen recording, screen-view tracking, autocapture of taps and gestures, heatmaps, surveys and automatic error capture are all switched off in the App’s configuration. Session replay in particular is switched off deliberately and permanently: this App’s screens are made of your photos.

Legal basis (GDPR). We rely on our legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)) in understanding aggregate product usage in order to maintain and improve the App. The data is not personal data in any usual sense — it is anonymous counters attached to no identity — and it is not used for advertising, profiling, or automated decision-making.

No advertising, no tracking, no selling. The App contains no advertising SDK, no attribution SDK, no social SDK, and no third-party tracker beyond the analytics described above. We do not track you across apps or websites, we do not use the Advertising Identifier (IDFA), and we do not sell or share your data with anyone. We never receive money for your data, because we never have it.

5) Notifications

If you allow it, the App can send you occasional local reminders to come back and clean up. These are scheduled by iOS on your device. They are not push notifications: no server is involved, and nothing about you is sent anywhere to produce them. You can turn them off in the App’s Settings, or in iOS Settings → Notifications.

6) Deleting your photos, and Recently Deleted

When you confirm a deletion, the App asks iOS to move the selected photos to your Recently Deleted album, and iOS shows you its own confirmation. Photos stay in Recently Deleted for about 30 days before iOS removes them permanently, and the storage they occupy is not released until then. You can restore them from the Photos app at any point during that period. The App never permanently erases a photo itself, and it keeps no list of what you deleted.

7) Children

The App is not intended for children under the age of 13, and it does not knowingly collect any personal data from anyone, of any age. Where the law of your country requires it, you must be at least 16 years old to consent to the processing of personal information. If you believe a child has used the App in a way that concerns you, contact us at support@tickedapps.com.

8) Your rights

Because we hold no personal data about you, there is normally nothing for us to look up, export, correct or erase in response to a request — we genuinely cannot identify you.

You can nonetheless exercise complete control at any time:

  • Withdraw photo access: iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos → Photo Cleanup.
  • Turn off notifications: in the App’s Settings, or in iOS Settings.
  • Erase everything the App stores: delete the App. All local analysis, history and statistics are removed with it.

If you are in the EU/EEA or the UK, you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability under the GDPR/UK GDPR, and the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority. If you are in California, you have the rights described by the CCPA/CPRA; we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined. To exercise any right, or simply to ask us a question, write to support@tickedapps.com and we will respond within 30 days.

9) Retention

Data stored on your device is kept for as long as the App is installed, and is deleted with it. Anonymous analytics events are retained by PostHog on our behalf for no longer than is necessary for the statistical and product-improvement purposes described above, and are not linked to an identifiable person at any point.

10) Changes to this policy

If we change how the App handles data, we will update this page and change the “Last updated” date above. Material changes will be reflected in the App before they take effect.

11) Contact

Etienne Pers — trading as Ticked Apps, France
Email: support@tickedapps.com