Of the 24 hours in a day, the average American spends 5.4 hours of it on the phone. It’s no secret, these days, it’s hard to go a paltry two minutes without picking up your phone. Understandably, nowadays, phones are more than just tools for communication but are tools for life.
Any smartphone user, both iOS and Android, will attest that their phone gets noticeably slower with time. This can get pretty frustrating, and you’d be tempted to throw your phone in the trash and get a new one. However, if you knew how to make your phone faster, you wouldn’t need to do so.
Although phones can get dead slow, there’s still a chance of reverting them back to their glory days. There are plenty of reasons why your phone gets slower with time. If you could find the root cause of the slowness, you can make your phone faster again.
In this post, we’ll be highlighting a few tips to make your phone faster again. So before you ditch your current phone for a shiny new model, at least read this article first.
Contents
How to Make Your Phone Faster: Restart Your Phone
If your phone slows down all of a sudden, then one fix you can try to make it faster is restarting it. Doing so clears the memory and shuts down all background apps that make your phone lag. All you have to do is shut down the phone completely and turn it on again after about five seconds.
Restarting your phone clears all the current clutter and gives your phone a fresh breath of life. However, this only works for phones that suddenly slow down during normal use. If you have a more persistent problem, then keep reading.
Close the Apps You Don’t Use
Keeping non-essential apps open only uses app your memory and drains your battery. The trick is not to close all apps, but only the ones you don’t use. Throughout the day, you’ll open several apps, and you’ll only use about four.
Once in a while, check the app drawer, and close any apps that you don’t think you need open. Save your battery and memory for only the apps that you’ll use throughout the day. Do that, and your phone will get faster.
Clear Cookies and Cache
Make a point of clearing your cookies and cache at least once in a while. Of course, this means you won’t get any suggestions when typing on the search box, but it’s something you can live without. If you really need suggestions for a webpage, then just add it to your bookmarks.
While you clear your cookies, don’t forget to clear cache data too. Most folks don’t know how to clear cache data on iPhone, but it’s easier than you think.
Doing so frees up a lot of memory and will make your browsing much faster. You’ll get about 50 MB of extra memory, but it makes a difference.
Turn Off Automatic Background Processes
By automatic background processes, we mean automatic downloads and background app refreshes. These processes happen in the background, and they take up a lot of memory and, you guessed it, battery life.
If you have iOS 13, it’s even easier to turn off these background processes. All you have to do is go to settings, then tap general, go to background app refresh and toggle it off. For automatic downloads, go to settings, then iTunes and App Store, then under automatic downloads, turn off Apps and Updates.
Delete Old Apps and Photos
Deleting old photos is a great way to free up internal storage and make your phone much faster. If you’re too clingy about your photos, then just transfer them to your computer. Better yet, you can sync them to iPhotos on your computer, or back them up on your iCloud.
Once you back them up, you have the green light to get rid of all your old photos. Once you delete all your old photos, it’s time to get the apps. All those old apps only bloat your phone and make it much slower.
You might have some old games you never play or silly apps that your kids download. For the sake of your phone’s speed, get rid of all of them.
Update Your Operating System
Update your operating systems as soon as the developer releases it. If you keep getting notifications to update your OS, please don’t ignore them. These periodic updates fix any or most issues with the current OS.
These issues include bugs and glitches that may be plaguing your phone. Even minor updates go a long way in fixing your glitchy phone. So next time you see that “new update available” notification, don’t hesitate to tap it.
Delete Old Messages
Most people have the habit of keeping messages from years ago in their inbox. Admittedly, no one thinks about deleting their messages unless it’s from someone outside their contacts. These messages you keep in your phone could be detrimental to your phone’s speed.
Open your inbox and browse through old message threads. Find the ones that don’t add any value to you currently and delete them. If the message has any vital information, take a screenshot of the important part, and discard the rest.
Reduce Motion
For iPhone users, reducing motion can help speed up your phone. Transitioning from app to app is seamless with the iPhone. However, these seamless transitions and animations come at a price; they drain your battery.
If you reduce motion, you won’t clear any memory, but your phone feels faster. That’s because it doesn’t waste time on animations and zooming in on apps when switching from app to app.
A Fast Phone Is a Great Phone
Hopefully, you now know how to make your phone faster. With these tips, your phone will be lightning fast as long as you charge it. Also, if the phone gets too slow, then it’s okay to get a new one.
Thankfully, you don’t need a super-fast phone to check out the other pieces on the site. For more informative reads, have a look at the other pieces on the site.
