BlancBlanc vs Slidebox: the original swipe cleaner against the one that remembers
Slidebox is the app that made swipe-to-delete a category — it has been on the App Store for a decade, with tens of thousands of ratings and a loyal base. Blanc is a small app built by one person. This page is written by Blanc's developer, so read it knowing that, and check the store pages yourself before you decide.
The short version
- Choose Slidebox if you want to *organise* while you delete: tap to sort into albums, mark favourites, compare two similar shots side by side, undo anything. It is the more complete organiser.
- Choose Blanc if your problem is a library you'll clean over weeks, not one afternoon: every keep or delete is remembered for good, so a session never starts with photos you already judged. Blanc is only a cleaner — it doesn't try to be your album manager.
- Both are free to download and use a subscription for full use. Slidebox's kicks in for larger libraries and album cloud storage; Blanc's after the first 20 photos, with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan.
What Slidebox does better
- Album sorting on the fly. One tap sends a photo into an album while you triage. If your goal is a tidy library rather than a smaller one, this is the feature that matters, and Blanc doesn't have it.
- Compare view. Two similar photos next to each other, swipe between them, keep the better one. Blanc shows one photo at a time and leaves near-duplicates to iOS's built-in Duplicates album.
- Undo and favourites. Small quality-of-life things that add up over a long session.
- Reach. Runs on iOS 15 and later, so older iPhones are covered; Blanc needs iOS 17.
What Blanc does better
- Memory that survives. Blanc ties every decision to the photo's permanent system identifier. Keep it or delete it, it leaves your queue for good — across sessions and, since version 1.8, across phones through iCloud. Slidebox's model is a one-pass sweep; reviewed-but-kept photos can show up again next time, which is what makes long cleanups tiring.
- Deletion with a safety margin. Blanc collects deletions on a review screen and only then hands them to the system Recently Deleted album. Nothing happens on the swipe itself.
- Targeted rounds. Screenshots, videos, large files, a single month — Blanc lets you attack the part of the library that's actually eating space instead of starting at photo one.
- Fully on-device. No account, nothing uploaded, no cloud tier. The memory sync uses your own iCloud, not our servers.
Pricing
Both are free to download. Slidebox unlocks larger libraries (its store page mentions 10,000+ photos) and album cloud storage through auto-renewing subscriptions; Blanc unlocks the full library with a monthly or yearly subscription, the yearly with a 7-day trial. Neither publishes a flat number you can rely on across countries, so check the payment sheet in your own store before starting a trial.
Requirements
Slidebox runs on iOS 15 or later. Blanc runs on iOS 17 or later.
A fair way to decide
Ask what you're trying to end up with. A better-organised library — albums, favourites, the good shot out of every pair — is Slidebox's home turf, and it has had ten years to get it right. A smaller library you never have to re-review is Blanc's, and the memory is the whole product. Plenty of people use a sorter and a cleaner at different times; there's no rule that says pick one.
Weighing other options too? See our tested list of the best photo cleaner apps for iPhone, or the Blanc vs Swipewipe and Blanc vs Cleanup comparisons.