Introducing Purgo. Photo Cleaner that puts your memories first

Hey everyone,

As with my previous app Retakee, I've been very quiet while building my new app! It's an iOS app called Purgo that helps you declutter your photo library, and I'm excited to tell you all about it!

The Idea

The idea came to me from a real need. I hit my iCloud storage limit, but the step from 200GB/month to 2TB/month was a bit too large for my taste. So I decided to clean up my photo library. The first thing I did was open my Photos app to find out I have around 19k items. Phew... I started, but soon found out that the process wasn't really comfortable.

In total, I discovered several problems I wanted to solve:

1. Saving progress
2. Enjoying the process
3. Being able to make a proper decision
4. Clean up using different categories
5. Privacy explanation
6. Being able to organize library along the way

The First Problem: Progress

I was able to delete around 200-300 photos at once before getting bored. So I closed the app and wanted to continue later. When I reopened the app, I realized the first problem I had with this approach: I didn't know exactly where I left off. So I randomly chose a place to resume. But over time this became more and more annoying because I had to scroll quite a lot, I had to remember the date of the last photo, plus if I captured some new photos, I also had to remember which ones I'd already reviewed. On top of that, you have to be careful to select only the photos you want, otherwise you can get lost about what you've selected on purpose and what not.

So this defined my first goal: Make it save your progress so you don't have to remember which photos you've been through.

The Second Problem: Enjoying the Process

While the process of cleaning up your library alone can be tiresome, I was thinking that browsing through your old photos should be fun! But when selecting photos in the native library, you have just the thumbnail and that's it. You can't see the full photo, you can't play a video, zoom, play a live photo, or share it with friends.

This defined my second goal: Make sure you can enjoy the process. Really make it feel like browsing through your library, remembering all your memories, and sharing them with friends if you want to.

Finding an App

So I went to the App Store to look for an app that would help me with this. And I have to say, there are a lot of them. I tried quite a few, and I wasn't able to find one that would check all my boxes, plus I discovered I had other problems as well.

The Third Problem: Being Able to Make a Proper Decision

It looks like swiping is the norm in the photo-cleaning space. And to be honest, it makes sense. You see a photo and swipe left/right like on Tinder. The gesture is easy, accessible, and fun. However, one flaw this approach has - and it was a big one for me - is that you are forced to make a decision on the spot.

You see, the photos are served in a stack and you are presented only with the photo you are currently reviewing. So I felt like I was missing the context to make a proper decision - the pictures/videos that I took before or after. In short: being able to browse the photos before making up my mind or skipping a photo altogether to decide later.

Thanks to this, the third goal was defined: Make it possible to freely browse through the photo library and make it easy to see the context to make the decision.

The Fourth Problem: Clean Up Using Different Categories

It can be helpful to browse through just a part of your photos. For example: only videos, screenshots, large files, or chronologically. There are a lot of different categories to go through. In this regard, the native library is super helpful, and some existing apps are as well, though not all of them offer this functionality.

The fourth goal: Make it possible to go through the photos by different categories.

The Fifth Problem: Privacy Explanation

This was a smaller issue, but still a problem for me. While I believe that none of the apps do anything suspicious with my photos, I still felt much better if the app presented a simple explanation of how they would be treating my photos before giving full access to my library.

The fifth goal: Explain that the photos/videos will never leave the device.

The Sixth Problem: Being Able to Organize the Library Along the Way

While I was going through the photos, sometimes I felt like I'd like to mark a photo as a favorite, hide some, or sort them into an album. This formed my last goal - being able to organize the library while I'm browsing and make sure it is in sync with the native Photos library.

The App

And with the goals above in mind, I built Purgo. I hope it lives up to the goals above, and I will be happy to hear any feedback or ideas you might have if you decide to give it a go.

What's Next

As with any app, I guess - launching is just the beginning. I have a lot of ideas I'd like to add to Purgo, but for now, I want to see whether it will have some traction and whether it works well for everyone. So the next few weeks/months will be about making it stable and addressing feedback.

If you'd like to give it a go, you can download it here! Thanks!

Until next time,
Tony