A slow phone can be incredibly distracting and unproductive. If your device is running slowly and you aren’t quite prepared to get a replacement, there are a few tricks that might speed up your device a little and keep it chugging along until you’re ready to get a new one.
Have fewer apps
Your operating system periodically checks in with the apps on your phone. And some apps run processes in the background even when you aren’t actively using them. Games and social media apps (I’m looking at you Facebook!) are especially bad citizens and will use tricky ways to stay active in the background when you aren’t using them.
Delete the apps you aren’t using. Or ones you want to use less.
Keep storage free
It’s been long recommended to keep 15-20% of the storage free on your device. This can be relaxed down a little now (10%) with larger capacity devices, but the principal is a good one. Computers use storage to augment their active RAM and when they keep bumping up against storage limits everything slows down.
If you’re unlucky enough to be using a 32 gigabyte device (or worse! 16GB), it might be time for an upgrade if your device has been full for a long time.
Throttled? Need a new battery?
Of course, when Apple Throttled devices, it made the news. But it’s a common practice for phones to slowdown certain sudden processes (like opening an app) on older batteries so it does crash the whole system. I remember before throttling when my phone would crash every hour. It was awful.
Now you can check your battery health in Settings. I recommend a replacement if your battery is below 85% of functioning. Definitely replace it if it’s below 80%.
Please don’t get any repairs from a mall kiosk. Ever.
Contact your manufacturer for an authorized repair place. If it’s a very cheap model, it might not be worth replacing the battery.
Factory Restore?
The nuclear option. This wipes everything from your device, like it’s brand new. Please backup your device first!