If you’ve ever wondered where the hell all of the available space went on your iPhone, or on the other end of the spectrum, deleted something from your iPhone that wasn’t backed up, then today’s mini-review double-shot is for you!
Developer iMyFone has created two apps that could come in handy for anyone who finds themselves running short on space, or lamenting a lost file on their iPhone. Remember, MacTrast bears NO responsibility for ANY lost data when trying these, or any other cleaning or data recovery apps.
iMyFone Umate
iMyFone Umate is designed to get rid of the gunk taking up space on your device. Simply connect your iPhone to your Mac via your Lightning cable, just as if you were going to sync it to iTunes, and run the Umate app.
With a click of a button, the app begins scanning for “junk” it can rid your device of. The types of files it looks for include: Junk files, temporary files, photos it can compress, Large files, and unused apps.
While I didn’t take advantage of everything Umate offers, I did use it to delete my junk files and my temporary files, which are things like cache files, temporary files left over from apps, and similar files, and in just a few moments, the app had recovered almost 5GB of space. I haven’t noticed any ill effects from the deletion of the files.
The “Delete Large Files” option also offers promise, basically finding huge files like that 1 hour 4K video you took at the concert last week, and promptly forgot about. You can use the app to delete the files like that, but I found it handy to be reminded about those files, and offload them myself.
The “Remove Unused Apps” option is also handy, as it lists all of the apps on your iPhone, ranked according to the space they’re using. While again, I didn’t allow Umate to delete the apps, I did find the list handy to show me what was taking up all of the space on my device, apps-wise.
I found Umate to be a handy utility to have around. iMyFone offers a free download of the app, which will scan your device, and show you what could be deleted or offloaded to regain lost storage space. If you think it would be useful, you can then buy the app for $19.99. For more information, visit the iMyFone website.
iMyFone D-Back
iMyFone D-Back is designed to recover lost data from your iPhone. The company claims it can recover files in the case of:
- You have accidentally deleted or lost your iPhone data
- iPhone locked by forgotten code
- You have forgotten the code to your locked iPhone
- iPhone jailbreak, iOS upgrade, factory reset or others
D-Back allows users to recover files from their iPhone, an iTunes backup, or an iCloud backup. Hopefully users are making a regular backup of their device, and if so, D-Back can scan either the iTunes backup or the iCloud backup, and recover the lost data they are shedding tears over.
Once the iTunes or iCloud backup is scanned, it offers a preview menu of each item you have backed up, including photos, videos, contacts, texts, etc. Simply click to pick what you want to recover, and the app grabs and saves the file to your Mac for you, so you can then copy it back to your device.
iMyfone D-Back can even recover data directly from your device, even if your iPhone is giving you a blank screen, or appears to be caught in a loop. (Luckily, I didn’t have to try this feature.) D-Back can access and recover the data stored on the device, and the developer claims it can even repair a failed iOS installation. (Again, lucky to have not needed this feature.)
I did try all of the recovery options – Direct from the device, and from an iTunes and an iCloud backup – and can report the app batted 2 out of 3. The direct method was able to find the photos I had deleted, and was able to restore them for me. I could not sign into iCloud via the app to connect to my iCloud backups, receiving a “verification failed” message. However, the iTunes backup method were able to restore the contact info, and text conversations I asked it to extract. (The process can take awhile, so be patient.)
iMyFone D-Back is available directly from the iMyFone website for the price of $49.95, but there is also a free download version that can perform a scan of your device or backups and show you what it can recover. For more information about D-Back, visit the iMyFone website.
Disclaimer: I was not paid to do these reviews. I was furnished with promo codes to enable the app’s features.
