# Lean - Clean up Live Photos — user reviews > 179 indexed App Store user reviews of Lean by Tiny Whale Pte. Ltd., rated 1.90/5 from 73 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/lean-clean-up-live-photos/id1051075379/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/lean-clean-up-live-photos/id1051075379.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 11 · 4★ 5 · 3★ 3 · 2★ 3 · 1★ 51 ## What do users think of Lean? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - ✅ Successfully converts Live Photos to static images - 💾 Recovers significant storage space (several GB) - ⚡ Fast processing once working properly - 🎯 Preserves original photo metadata and timestamps - 🔍 Easy to identify and view all Live Photos - 📱 Minimal app size - 👍 Simple and intuitive user interface **Cons** - 🐛 Persistent 'not enough storage' error despite available space - ❌ Fails to process multiple photos in batch mode - 🔄 Scrambles photo chronological order in library - 🗑️ Deletes photos without creating replacements - 📍 Removes EXIF metadata (location, date, time, lens info) - 📂 Doesn't save converted photos to original folder locations - 🔌 Incompatible with iCloud-backed photos - 💥 Frequent crashes and error messages - 🚫 No customer support or developer communication - 📸 Converted photos appear as 'most recent' instead of chronologically - ⚠️ Doesn't actually reduce file size despite claims - 🔍 Cannot detect edited or cropped Live Photos **Commonly reported bugs** - Storage space error appears even with ample free space available - App crashes when processing multiple photos - Photos deleted without static replacement created - Metadata and timestamps stripped from converted images - Converted photos appear out of chronological order - App fails to recognize Live Photos in library - File size remains unchanged after conversion - iCloud-synced photos deleted without processing - Duplicate photos appearing in library - App stops working after processing 50-200 photos - Error messages with no clear resolution path **Most requested features** - Select All button for bulk processing - Batch conversion functionality - Option to choose which frame to save from Live Photo - Ability to disable Live without deleting original - Automatic processing of entire Live Album - Save converted photos to original location/folder - Preserve chronological order of converted photos - Retain all EXIF data during conversion - Support for edited/cropped Live Photos - Accessible customer support channel ## Newest reviews (17 of 179) ### 2/5 — Problematischer Datentransfer *2023-09-27, version 1.9.1* Was die App macht, ist sehr gut. Eigentlich! Mich stört auch nicht die Tatsache, dass die Fotos unter „Zuletzt“ als neue auftauchen - das wusste ich ja vorher. Allerdings verweigert diese App immer wieder ihre Arbeit und behauptet, mein Speicher wäre wahrscheinlich voll (ist er aber nicht!). Liegt es vielleicht eher daran, dass die Server des Entwicklers nicht erreichbar sind, um die „statistischen“ Daten zu senden? Selbst wenn das vom Datenschutz her unbedenklich ist, darf davon nicht der Erfolg des Umwandelns abhängen! Bitte korrigieren! ### 2/5 — No “select all” option…? *2022-02-15, version 1.8* I’ve got about 5000 I want to convert. No “select all” option means it’s going to take me forever 😅 I wouldn’t have paid £4.49 for it if I’d know. ### 2/5 — Bug *2022-01-26, version 1.8* After deleting a thousand photos, I’ve found that the metadata of the original photos were not duplicated over as described. I’m running iOS 15.2.1, please fix the issue, otherwise very easy to use! ### 4/5 — Très pratique mais avec une limite de taille *2022-01-08, version 1.8* Super pratique et efficace. Par contre les données EXIF ne sont pas toutes conservées, mais surtout la date de prise de photo est perdue, remplacée par la date à laquelle Lean à effectué sa modification… C’est très dommage par ce que du coups je ne pourrai pas utiliser cette application. J’attends une mise à jour avec impatience pour peut être corriger cette fonction. ### 2/5 — Degrade of time stamp treatment *2021-12-28, version 1.8* I have been using lean for about two years and love it. However on latest update, it began to ignore Exif’s time stamp and rewrite it with when live photo is converted by lean. I hope it will soon be fixed. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2021-10-29, version 1.6* It will not process any of my pictures and continues to give me an error message. Don’t waste your $5! ### 1/5 — If only it worked *2021-10-02, version 1.6* Great concept but doing more than one photo results in an error even when there is plenty of free space. Makes the app basically useless ### 1/5 — Does not work on iPhone 11 or iPad mini 6. *2021-09-29, version 1.6* Not useable - all I get in the app are error messages that suggest I’m trying to convert too many photos at once (even when I select just a single image) and that my device memory is low (my iPhone 11 and brand new iPad mini both have plenty of free space). ### 1/5 — Broken :( *2021-05-30, version 1.6* Cannot convert even a single photo - error message says “not enough space”, though that is clearly wrong. Drat, this app sounded perfect! ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2021-05-11, version 1.6* How do I get a refund? I spent $4.99 he keeps telling me there’s not enough storage to convert my pictures from live to still. I have plenty of storage and it doesn’t work even when I do one picture at a time. ### 1/5 — Waste of money *2021-04-26, version 1.6* Waste of money I should have seen all the reviews are 1 star...Apple should remove this from the store...a rip off ### 1/5 — Werkt niet meer *2021-03-25, version 1.6* Doet niet langer wat het beoogt te doen. ### 1/5 — Geld verspild *2021-02-24, version 1.6* Niet mogelijk om meerdere foto’s ineens te selecteren. Datum van foto wordt veranderd, zodat de chronologie niet meer klopt. Pure afzetterij. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work!!!! *2021-01-15, version 1.6* It did clean about 20 images the first shoot I I stalled it, but after I stop!!! I have to clean then 1 at the time!!!! Better do it with Photo instead of paying for nothing! Poor developer service!!!! They don’t even answer to post or emails !!! Do not purchase! ### 1/5 — Falls short *2020-12-30, version 1.6* ‘Bulk’ conversion requires the user to tick photos individually. 🙄This is not bulk. While the new stills duplicates have the same date and time as the originals they will appear as MOST RECENT in your camera roll, and so they are no longer in the original order you took all your other pictures and videos. 🙄 This is bad. After about 50 conversions an error message appeared saying there was likely not enough storage on my device. There is over 60Gb of storage available. 🙄 This is useless. The app does not put the new stills in the same folders as the originals. 🙄Have fun putting 1000s of travel pictures into their folders again! Waste of money. ### 1/5 — waste of money *2020-12-30, version 1.6* I can select photos only one by one. There is no “select all” option. ### 3/5 — No sound *2020-12-23, version 1.6* Can you unmute live photo sound? I keep some live photos only because of audio. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Waste of money *2024-07-17, version 1.9.1* I should have read the reviews first. I want my money back. ### 1/5 — Avoid this app! Good idea but waste of money *2023-10-07, version 1.9.1* Awful execution of a good idea. The size of the photos remains the same! That defeats the whole idea of converting from live to single photo. In addition, the app deletes all the meta data, such as location, data and time. ### 1/5 — Useless. *2023-06-17, version 1.9.1* You can actually do what this app claims to by taking a screenshot. ### 1/5 — Failure if not a fraud *2022-10-04, version 1.9.1* It says I have no Live Photos to fix, which is wrong. I have 1322, which it ignores. There are ZERO instructions, so app does nothing. Do not buy. Disgusting that Apple allows this in the App Store, and Apple should allow refunds. If no stars were available option that is what this app deserves. ### 1/5 — Does not work *2022-09-03, version 1.9.1* It does not work after I changed about 70 photos. Not loading after I tried to change more photos and changing photo order now everything is a mess. Can you consider refunding me for this app? ### 1/5 — Lean did not work at all on my iphone 15.5 *2022-07-30, version 1.9.1* Lean did not work at all on my iPhone 15.5 ### 1/5 — Ruined my photos! Nightmare! *2022-02-15, version 1.8* I spent an entire evening converting thousands of my Live Photos to still photos. There is no button to say select all. I had to click the photos one by one for a few thousand times. And what a mistake it was. My photos are completely ruined by the app. What the app does is that I ended up with thousands of still photos all dated the same date, with no more location data in the photos. I am a designer who always rely on the location of my photos to work. My photos have been ruined. This is not fair. ### 1/5 — Very unhappy! *2022-02-13, version 1.8* I keep getting an error which says the error is due to lack of space. I loaded the app in order to free space. Wasted my money. ### 1/5 — Strips EXIF data *2022-02-06, version 1.8* DO NOT USE IF YOU CARE ABOIT EXIF DATA like location, date, time, lens info, etc. I’ve used this app before and I thought it kept all EXIF data and just removed the Live Photo. It ruined a bunch of my photos which is disappointing. ### 1/5 — All photo details gone *2022-02-02, version 1.8* This app removes all the date and time information of each photo changed and that scrambles the order the picture were taken, I had several hundred photos that I needed to keep in the order I’d taken them and now I spend hours sorting them to correct order. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Thank god *2025-02-02, version 1.9.1* This app save my life!!! ### 5/5 — It just works! *2022-04-07, version 1.9.1* If you're getting error messages about free space, but you have the space, the problem's most likely you've already backed up to iPhoto. So the live photo's in the cloud. Delete your unwanted live photos before you plug in at home, or on a device that stores your full resolution photos, and you'll be good! Been using this app for years, couldn't live without it! ### 5/5 — Need apple to add this feature *2021-03-04, version 1.6* 6 years and apple haven’t include this feature!!! Wow ### 5/5 — 98% happy - wish iOS itself could do this *2020-09-24, version 1.4* I have found Live photos have contributed massively to consumption of most storage on my iPhone. I really like that this Lean app does retain the original date+timestamp as the original photo as that was extremely important to me. I am now on iOS v14 and the security of allowing all photos or just some to the Lean app is good, I just wish I could suggest there be some way to enable the “Live Album” as a whole to Lean. When it does the copy, the photo will appear at the newest end of your list of photos and not next to the original, but at least the Date+Timestamp remain unchanged and I am extremely happy it does that (if that date reflected when I converted the photo instead of the original date then that would have been a problem). I do think it could be nice to allow a selection option that could do the whole Live album but honestly that’s a bonus on top of what I really needed - reduction of file size without ruining the original date/time information. Thank you so much! Was worth the approx $3AUD and the app size is tiny - very useful when your problem is already not much space remaining! Cheers! ### 5/5 — 素晴らしいアプリ。 *2020-01-01, version 1.0* アプリが落ちることなく問題なく使用できています。要望としては、iPhone X以降の画面の大きさにも対応してほしいです！ ### 5/5 — これこれ！！ *2019-02-04, version 1.0* iPhoneのカメラ音がうるさいのでライブフォトで写真を撮ってたものの、ライブフォトを撮りたいわけではなくて…という私にぴったりのアプリです。簡単に不要な部分をごっそり削れるので、とても有難いです。 ### 5/5 — 可以的 *2018-06-06* 亲测，十二块值得入手！ ### 5/5 — Works as described *2018-05-11, version 1.0* I had hundreds of Live photos which I did not need the “live” portion of the file. Based on other reviews, I noted my iPhone storage before and after deleting the live data. Note: The deleted photos are put into your Deleted album, so you won’t see any storage savings until you clear your Deleted folder. After clearing my Deleted folder, I recovered a few GB of storage, as expected. All the original photos are still exactly where they were originally / chronologically, and my Live album is now empty. I was surprised how fast the clearing takes place, once you select the photos you want “cleaned”. ### 5/5 — Saved me a lot of space *2017-08-26, version 1.0* Those who complains about the increased size of the photo library should delete the deleted photos. ### 5/5 — Some possible bugs *2017-07-18, version 1.0* Hi I get an error when trying to clean my oldest live photos, which seem to bit be stored on my phone, only in iCloud. They are shown in my library, but when I go to the native app to edit them, they are first downloaded to my device before I can make edits. Maybe this is expected behavior, but then I would make the error message more intuitive. I would still prefer to be able to clean all photos, not only those on my device, as there is no clear indication of which photos are present and which not. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-18.*