Auramy Support

Last updated: 17 August 2026

Need a hand? Email yagjz@icloud.com and I'll get back to you. Auramy is made by one person, so please allow a couple of days — and if you're reporting a problem, telling me your iPhone model and iOS version saves a round trip.

Auramy is a photo gallery, storage cleanup and backup app for iPhone and iPad. It requires iOS 26 or later.

Getting started

Do I need a Google account?

No. The gallery, search, storage breakdown, cleanup, duplicate finder, widgets and Shortcuts all work with no account at all, entirely on your device. Connecting Google Drive is optional and only adds backup, restore and Free Up Space.

Why does Auramy ask for full photo access?

To show your whole library and to find duplicates and clutter across all of it — a scan can only see what you've granted. Limited access is fully supported: Auramy shows a banner offering both "Select More Photos" and "Allow Full Access", and every screen explains itself rather than sitting empty. You can change this any time in Settings › Apps › Auramy › Photos.

Where is my Hidden album?

iOS does not let any third-party app see the Photos "Hidden" album, so Auramy can't show it. The Hidden screen explains this and offers to open Photos instead.

Cleaning up

Where do deleted photos go?

Deleting always goes through iOS, so you get the system's own confirmation and everything lands in Photos › Recently Deleted. Items stay there for 30 days, which is also when the space is actually freed. Nothing Auramy removes is gone immediately, and you can recover it from Photos in the meantime.

Auramy says I can only delete 10 items at a time

That's the free tier. Without Auramy Pro, each delete removes up to 10 items, in Cleanup, Duplicates and Free Up Space alike. Pro lifts the limit and enables "Select All". Scanning, and seeing exactly how much space you could recover, is free and unlimited.

Does Free Up Space delete anything from my Google Drive?

No. It removes the copy on your device of files your Drive already holds. The Drive copies are left exactly as they are. Matching is done by filename within your Auramy folder, which is why the screen asks you to look before deleting.

The duplicate finder pre-selected things — will it delete them on its own?

Never. Nothing is deleted until you tap Delete and confirm. The preselection keeps the largest copy in each group and marks the rest, as a starting point you can change. "Keep All" takes a whole group out of the selection in one tap. Favourites are never suggested for deletion anywhere in the app.

Backup and restore

Where do my photos go when I back up?

Into a folder named Auramy in your own Google Drive. There is no Auramy server and I have no access to your files. Auramy requests only the drive.file permission, which lets it see and manage nothing in your Drive except the files it created itself.

My backup seems stuck

Check these in order:

I got a new phone — how do I get my photos back?

Install Auramy, connect the same Google account, then use Settings › Restore from Drive. It downloads what's in your backup but missing from the device. Restoring is never limited by Auramy Pro — your files are your files.

Auramy Pro

What does Pro add?

Everything else is free and stays free — including the Face ID app lock, backing up on demand with Backup Now, and restoring from Drive. Only the unattended, automatic run is Pro.

What does Deep Clean actually delete?

Four things, and only these four: exact duplicates (the best copy is kept), near-identical burst shots (one is kept), out-of-focus photos, and screenshots older than six months. Large photos and large videos are deliberately not included — a big file is not the same as a worthless one. Favourites are never touched, and deleted items go to Photos › Recently Deleted for 30 days.

Each of the four is its own row, with its own count and size. Everything arrives ticked, so you can press Free straight away — or tap a row to see exactly which photos are in it and untick the ones you want to keep. The tick on a row turns that whole category off at once.

How is Deep Clean different from Find Duplicates?

Find Duplicates (Settings) is for deciding: it lays each group out side by side so you can see which copy is being kept, overrule it, or wave the whole group off with Keep All. It covers duplicates only, and it's free.

Deep Clean is for finishing: it covers the same duplicates plus blurry photos and stale screenshots, totals everything, and clears it in one confirmation. Both screens use the same detection and keep the same copy, so they can never disagree — and each links to the other.

Is my free backup lower quality?

Yes, and deliberately so. Without Pro, photos are uploaded at 2048px and videos at 1080p — full-screen quality on any phone, at roughly a fifth of the size. The capture date, camera and GPS tag are all preserved. With Pro the file your camera actually wrote goes up untouched. If you buy Pro later, Settings offers to re-upload what was saved at standard quality; nothing re-uploads on its own.

What exactly does Compress Videos do to my video?

It re-encodes the video at 1080p, saves that as your video — keeping the original's date and location so it stays where it belongs in your library — and moves the original to Photos › Recently Deleted, where you can get it back for 30 days. The picture quality of the original is not recoverable after that, which is why Auramy never offers favourites, slow-motion clips, or anything already at 1080p or below. If a re-encode doesn't come out meaningfully smaller, Auramy throws it away and keeps your original untouched.

I paid, but Pro isn't showing

Tap Restore Purchases — it's on the Pro card in Settings and on the purchase screen. Make sure you're signed in to the same Apple Account you bought with. If a family member approved the purchase, it unlocks by itself once the approval goes through.

I reinstalled the app and Pro came back on its own. Is that right?

Yes. The purchase belongs to your Apple Account, not to the installation, so deleting and reinstalling Auramy doesn't cost you anything.

How do I cancel the yearly subscription?

Open the iOS Settings app, tap your name at the top, then Subscriptions, then Auramy Pro. Cancelling there stops the renewal; you keep Pro until the period you've paid for ends. The lifetime purchase has nothing to cancel.

My subscription lapsed. Am I locked out of anything?

No. Turning a Pro feature off is never gated — you can always switch off the app lock or automatic backup, whatever your subscription status. Nothing you've already backed up or unlocked is taken away from you.

Refunds

Purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too. Request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. Email me as well if something in the app didn't work as promised — I'd rather fix it.

Privacy and security

What does Auramy send to you, the developer?

Nothing. There are no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no accounts. Full details are in the privacy policy.

I turned on the app lock and now I can't get in

The lock uses Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode — the same credentials that unlock your iPhone. It can't be switched on without passing authentication first, and on a device with no passcode set, Auramy stays unlocked rather than locking you out. If Face ID fails, tap the unlock button again and use your passcode.

Does sharing a photo reveal where it was taken?

Not by default. Auramy strips GPS location from photos and videos you share out of the app. You can turn that off in Settings › Privacy if you want location to travel with the file. Uploads to your own Drive keep the original metadata.

Something else

Found a bug, want a feature, or stuck on something not covered here? Write to yagjz@icloud.com. Feature requests genuinely do shape what gets built next.