We use our iPhones every minute of every day — apps, games, photos, messages, social networks and more are all found in our pockets. We keep so much on our phones that we can begin to fill them — particularly those with smaller storage capacities — and it can become a chore trying to manually manage the contents of our devices.
iMyfone Umate Pro is a tool for Windows and Mac that enables iPhone and iPad users to free up space on their devices and securely delete its contents before selling on a device ahead of an upgrade.
Like any operating system, junk data, app caches and temporary files build up over time on iOS and is not always efficiently cleared. One aim of iMyfone’s Umate Pro is to clear this data from your iPhone and reclaim valuable storage space — all it needs to do is scan your device.
Items like crash logs, photo caches, cookies, temporary files and failed downloads, and other junk created by third-party apps can found and deleted with a single click in the app. While this may not clear out a huge amount of space, it’s some space that would otherwise be unusable.
Your results may vary, but my device has over 3GB of temporary files. I was hesitant to delete this data as the app does not allow you to see exactly what is this is comprised of — I wondered if music I had saved offline in Apple Music or podcast files in Overcast may be adding to the amount, but these were unchanged when the deletion process had finished.
A larger space saving technique in iMyfone Umate Pro is in its Photos tab and compression technology. iMyfone claims that you can save up to 75% of space used by your photos with its lossless compression.
Now, like many of you, I was wary of trusting a third party with my photo library — especially when compression is involved — but Umate Pro gives you the opportunity to back up your photos to your computer before proceeding (I also opted to back up to iCloud and iTunes before going ahead with my testing, just to be sure). I tested the compression on a batch of images and did find considerable space was saved. Most images were reduced in size by 40-65% which could make a huge difference if applied to my whole library.
As for quality, there was minimal noticeable degradation. A photographer with a keen eye may be able to spot the compression but the images were still perfectly suitable for sharing on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook. You can also use the Umate Pro app to view and bulk delete photos from your device — freeing up a lot of space, especially if you have a large photo library.
The Large files tab in Umate Pro flags up, as you may expect, the largest files on your device. For me, this was mostly videos from my camera roll that could have saved me hundreds of megabytes at a time. I deleted a few that I had actually forgotten existed and reclaimed almost a gigabyte. Again, the option to back up the files to your computer is there before you delete the videos from your device.
The last section is probably the least exciting — Apps. This is simply a viewer for the apps on your device which shows you their relative size and allows you to easily delete them. Granted, you can do all of this on your iPhone itself but the process is a little quicker through iMyfone Umate Pro. Deleting a few unused apps the may be hidden away in folders on your device can be a good way to regain some space.
Another key focus with iMyfone Umate Pro is privacy and ensuring data is completely removed before a device is provided to a new owner. We all care about privacy and data protection and want to make sure our information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands and is inaccessible to data recovery software (which iMyfone also makes for PC and Mac). You can use the viewer to find and delete content currently on the phone as well as ones recently deleted, including everything from images to contacts to call history and more.
It takes a long time to scan the device for this data — around 30 minutes in my testing — but when finished it does present data from every corner of your device. You can view and select specific files, or bulk erase content from this menu.
The results you experience with iMyfone Umate Pro obviously depend on the storage usage of your iPhone. If your device has been in use for some time and is running low on free space, you are bound to see greater results. If you have sensitive information on your device, iMyfone Umate Pro can also be used to ensure everything has been deleted.
If you want to try out the app before purchasing, you can. A free trial is available from iMyfone’s website for Mac or Windows and will allow you to test some of the features on your own device — this includes the initial space saving analysis, junk files to be cleared out once, compression on your latest 5 photos and one app to be deleted. You can also preview its data deletion and privacy capabilities. If you like the results, you can purchase licenses from $29.95 which grants you access to the full suite of features — and save a further $5 if you share a link to the iMyfone Umate Pro website on social networks.