Oof, the iPhone’s “Storage Almost Full” saga—classic. Appreciate @mikeappsreviewer’s deep dive into the “Clever Cleaner app” (and yeah, not having to view 42 ads in the process is refreshing). But real talk, I’ve never loved offloading a big chunk of sensitive photos and personal video to any random app, no matter how chill the UI. Call me old-fashioned, paranoid, or just grumbling, but sometimes keeping your precious puppy vids local just feels safer.
Here’s another angle if you want to compress a single (or just a few) hefty videos without too much drama—or third-party magic:
- iMovie (free, built-in, didn’t ask for my soul)
- Open iMovie, import your big video, start a new project.
- Trim it if you like (bonus storage!).
- Tap “Share” > “Save Video” and pick a smaller export size (like 720p or 540p).
- The newly exported video is much smaller. Check both quality & size, then trash the original.
Downside: Not everyone wants to spend 10 minutes fiddling just to shave some MBs, but iMovie generally keeps quality surprisingly good at lower sizes.
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Files App Trick
- Go to Share > Save to Files from Photos.
- Sometimes, just running a big video through Files and re-importing it reduces size (weird iOS voodoo, but I’ve seen it shrug off 20% without noticable degradation).
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Third-Party Apps (Not All Are Equal)
- If you wanna try something beyond Clever Cleaner, “Video Compress” by “Zuhanden” and “Compress Videos & Resize Video” get decent marks and aren’t too scammy.
- PROTIP: ALWAYS duplicate your video before compressing in a new app—some will overwrite without blinking.
I’m not throwing shade at Clever Cleaner—it sounds like a real fuss-free option for whole-library spring cleaning, and it seems to have fans (even if I’m more hands-on). For those who want to make space with just a couple taps, maybe especially folks low on time/patience, their reputation for straight-up compressing without messy subscriptions or hidden fees is worth a look. You can check their smart iPhone storage cleanup features for an easy path.
But yeah, Apple still hasn’t nailed this natively, so either jump through menu hoops in iMovie or place your trust in something like Clever Cleaner. Just don’t manually upload everything to iCloud assuming it’s “gone”—you’d just be burning $0.99/month for extra storage to store the bloat somewhere else 
