Android phones have a habit of getting bogged down later half dozen to 12 months of use (or do they?). A phone that was in one case a speed demon starts to experience a bit sluggish; apps don't load as quickly, the keyboard takes a while to pop up, and animations go laggy. Many people put this down to the realities of their telephone getting older, and start thinking about upgrading to something new.

But before you lot hand over some difficult-earned cash for a new smartphone, there are some things that can be done to speed up your phone feel, and some things that practice utterly nothing.

What Doesn't Work

Clearing apps from the app switcher

Some people seem to think if they articulate the apps from the app switching screen, which shows the apps you've been recently using, that this will free up system resources like RAM. Notwithstanding it's no longer 2008: Android has been managing RAM usage and organisation resources extremely well for years now. The OS automatically suspends and closes apps you're not using, freeing up RAM for whatever apps you are using. The process requires no user intervention and consistently works away in the background.

In fact by closing apps in the app switcher, you can actually boring down your telephone. Apps suspended in RAM are much faster to resume than apps you've closed entirely. If you keep endmost everything, your phone volition take to spend more time slowly re-launching apps from scratch, and you're not actually freeing up system resources every bit Android already does this in the background.

The simply legitimate reason to close an app in the app switcher is if it's not working correctly. Kick information technology from the app switcher, relaunch information technology, and the system volition have to load everything from scratch, hopefully correcting whatever result you were experiencing.

What Works

Uninstalling and/or disabling junk apps

Many Android apps like to run background processes. The more than apps you take installed on your smartphone, the more than background processes you'll likely be running. Groundwork processes consume CPU cycles, potentially slowing your telephone down and reducing its battery life.

The best manner to resolve this trouble is to uninstall whatsoever apps you don't regularly utilize. Go through and remove all those games y'all played one time or twice, and all the apps you lot installed equally a test. If your phone is only running groundwork processes for apps y'all actually use, you'll take a smoother experience.

Information technology'south likewise worth disabling any organization apps or bloatware you don't use. Did your telephone come with Evernote, Microsoft Discussion, or Facebook installed only you never use these apps? Head into the 'apps' menu in the settings screen, notice any apps you don't use, then click on the 'disable' button to rid them from your life.

Disable animations

Ane way to make your phone feel faster to use is to remove all organisation animations. Y'all'd be surprised how much of a difference this makes, equally many phones utilise long and attractive animations to improve the visual feel of their software implementation. Speed demons will want to remove these animations to make loading apps and screens feel faster.

To practice so, you'll first need to activate the developer options. Head to the 'Virtually' section of your phone and find the build number. Tap on the build number seven times to unhide the programmer menu.

Then head into the developer options, and find the post-obit 3 options: window animation scale, transition animation calibration, and animator duration scale. Set all three options to 'off', and without much fuss your telephone will feel a practiced bit faster to use.

Free upward storage infinite

If yous're running low on internal storage infinite, your phone can first to tiresome down equally flash storage functioning typically degrades when the storage approaches capacity. And wink storage performance tin can be the biggest limiting cistron in how fast apps load, and how fast your phone is in full general.

On top of that, lots of Android apps rely on data caches to speed upwards the experience; if apps are fighting for cache infinite, you'll also see slowdowns.

It's typically a good idea to keep 10 to fifteen percent of your telephone's storage gratuitous at all times. Just fifty-fifty if your telephone isn't that full, removing junk tin help performance at times. The all-time way to free up space is to uninstall apps you don't use (equally we talked about earlier) and offload your captured photos and videos to a PC or to the cloud. If y'all'd rather not do either of those things, yous tin clear out your cache data. Those with plenty of storage space probably shouldn't clear out cache files that practice assist performance at times, simply those struggling to continue that last bit of storage costless can swiftly first fresh.

To clear your cache data, caput to the storage section of your telephone'due south settings menu. From in that location, tap cached data and click clear or OK to wipe away the cache for every app. Oftentimes this can complimentary several gigabytes of storage infinite.

Use a fast microSD card

Installing apps on your microSD card is a bad idea, and well-nigh always leads to a slower experience. Just sometimes apps themselves shop data on the microSD carte du jour automatically, rather than on your telephone's faster internal storage. To speed upward these apps, you should install a fast microSD card in your phone if y'all wish to expand its storage.

For the best performance, yous should opt for a microSD card with a UHS Speed Grade of three. This is denoted on the card by a U icon with a three in the center. U3 microSD cards are rated for xxx MB/s sequential writes, and that'south typically fast plenty for smartphones.

Remove widgets

This tip is straightforward. Home screen widgets tin can hog system resources and go on apps open in the background. If you have a ton of widgets, remove them and you lot should run across better performance in some circumstances.

Use Chrome's Data Saver fashion

This is a tip that can non only speed upwards your phone, but also salve yous valuable mobile data. Chrome'southward Data Saver mode compresses web pages by approximately xxx pct, reducing spider web page loading times on slow connections, especially on handsets with fast processors. It's a handy feature to enable if you use Chrome as your principal web browser.

To enable Data Saver, caput into Chrome, open the settings screen, find the data saver bill of fare, and plow it on.

Resetting your phone

This is a last resort option. Earlier you go frustrated and throw abroad your slow phone for something newer, information technology could be worth giving it a manufacturing plant reset to meet if it speeds upward once again. Often this works wonders, and restores your phone to how information technology operated out of the box. The downside? It deletes all your apps and (optionally) your information equally well, so exist sure to back upward everything before y'all proceed.

The factory reset feature can be hidden in a variety of settings menus, withal on most phones it's under the Backup and Reset heading. In there, y'all'll find the factory information reset office. Click on it and follow the prompts to wipe your phone, so set it up from scratch once more.

5 days, 5 killer tech tips is a TechSpot monthly feature

On the 3rd week of every month, we'll publish 5 killer tech tips, one for each day of the week for a given app, service, or platform. This month we're covering Android.

  • Mean solar day 1: Useful or Little Known Android Tricks + Easter Egg Games
  • Day 2: How to Reboot and Reset Android Devices
  • Twenty-four hour period iii: How to Secure Your Android Phone and Get the Almost Out of Smart Lock
  • Day iv: Android Functioning Tips and Tweaks
  • 24-hour interval 5: How to Merge and Remove Duplicate Contacts in Android