Is your phone running slow? No worries! Here are nine tricks and tips on how to speed up your Android phone.

We’ve all been there before.

You go to show someone a funny video on your phone and for whatever it just won’t load. So now you’re left standing there awkwardly as the person you were excited to show this video to has quickly begun to lose interest.

And even when you’re connected to your home’s lightning fast WiFi, your phone still loads slowly far too often. Using social media apps, watching videos online, or just trying to text someone doesn’t work as well as it did when you first got your phone.

If you’ve got an older Android phone, odds are it doesn’t run as well as it used to. Phones, like all other electronic devices, slow down over time, for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with anything you’ve done.

The good news? You can probably fix it, and rather easily, without spending any money. If you’re wondering how to bring your phone back to its former glory, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, we’ll give you 9 tricks that you can use to speed up Android phones. With these tips, you can avoid the headaches caused by a lagging phone and have an enjoyable user experience with your Android device once again!

Now then, let’s get started!

 

Keeping up with the latest updates for your Android phone can be a real hassle. Downloading those updates can often take hours to complete, and during that time, your phone is rendered completely useless. Because of this, many people put updates off for long periods of time or skip them completely, which is just a really bad idea.

Updates often bring with them a ton of improvements to your phone, many of which can fix some of those lagging issues. So before doing anything drastic to your phone, like deleting all of your pictures and the precious memories that come with them, check to see if your phone is in need of an update.

If it is, there’s a good chance that’s your problem.

A useful trick? Start downloading your update right before you go to bed. Your update will most likely be complete once you wake up in the morning and you’ll be starting your day with a smoother and faster phone!

 

This one may sound a bit elementary but hear us out…

A lot of folks are guilty of never shutting their phone off unless the battery dies completely. Simply putting it on “do not disturb” before we go to bed is the norm for most of us.

Well, believe it or not, doing that can actually lead to some problems that can slow your phone down tremendously. Shutting your phone down completely, and then rebooting it back up, allows for all of your apps to close out and cleans up the memory on the device.

That’s why it’s a good idea to restart your phone once a week or so to allow your device to reboot and get a fresh start. This is something you should do with all electronic devices, especially phones, tablets, and computers.

Not to mention, turning your phone off at night before bedtime will also allow you to get a fresh start, as it can greatly improve your quality of sleep.

Restarting your phone, and keeping up with the latest updates, can also help extend the battery life of your phone, which is a nice added bonus. Because the only thing worse than a slow phone is a slow phone that dies quickly.

There’s a good chance that once you restart your phone, it will run faster and smoother. Best of all? and it takes a lot less time than that massive software update does!

 

If you’re someone who uses a lot of apps on your phone, that’s not necessarily a problem. But if you’re someone that never closes out an app once you’re done with it, that’s actually a pretty big problem that can really affect the way your Android performs.

Simply closing out apps once you’re done, and limiting the number of apps you have open at one time, can really speed up your phone and improve its performance.

Asking the computer in your phone to do a lot less allows for it to spend more of it’s processing power running one or two apps, which in turn leads to them working better.

So take a second every now and then to make sure you’re only running the apps you need up at the moment. It may seem like a hassle at first, but once you get in the habit of closing apps as soon as you’re done with them, it’ll become the norm.

 

Sure, widgets are awesome. They’re a great way to customize your home screen and can give you quick access to some neat tools that you use on a daily basis.

And if you’ve got an Android phone, it may be tempting to load up your home screen with a ton of widgets that you think you’ll use every day so that they’re right there for you whenever you need them.

Well, that can be a problem for a lot of devices.

Having a ton of widgets on your home screen actually slows down the initial load speed of your phone. So when you’re closing out of an app or entering the home screen for the first time in a while, your phone can struggle to load all the various icons and widgets that are located on your home screen.

The best advice? Pick a few of your favorite, most-used widgets and get rid of everything else. Also, live wallpapers may look neat, but they can slow down your phone, too. Avoid those as well, if you’re still having issues.

 

Smartphone apps have completely changed the way we live life. From turn-by-turn directions to easy access to food delivery services, smartphone apps are a must for anyone living in today’s society.

Smartphone apps are great, but they can actually slow your phone down. Luckily, it’s not hard to counteract that, if you know what to do.

Remember, apps have one goal in mind: they want to make everyday tasks that much easier for users. And a way for them to do this is to store useful information that can make the experience on that app more enjoyable.

Sometimes, however, this information can slow our device down, or cause a certain app to not work well. So if you’re noticing that your phone struggles when trying to run certain apps, clear your app cache to see if that speeds things up. You can also delete and re-install an app, which might do the trick if all else fails.

Be warned, though. Doing this can delete things like saved passwords, credit card information, and things like that. So if you’re going to clear an app’s cache, be sure you have this kind of information on hand, so you’re not locked out of your favorite apps.

 

Animations, while fun, aren’t absolutely necessary to enjoy the Android experience. You can still have an awesome Android smartphone without animations, which is why disabling them to speed up your device is very much worth trying.

Disabling animations isn’t as easy as some of the other items on this list, but it can still be done if you know how to navigate the settings section on your phone. Doing so is a bit tricky, but can greatly improve the performance of some apps, so it’s worth trying out.

If you do decide to disable animations, remember to leave “Developer Options” turned on afterward. Failure to do so will lead to animations being re-enabled, and thus, your phone could experience issues again.

 

It’s probably safe to say that you have a few apps on your phone that you haven’t used in months. Whether it’s old games that you no longer play or an app that had to do with a specific event that has come and gone, odds are you have a few apps you can delete from your phone completely.

A good rule of thumb is this: if you haven’t opened up an app in 6 months or more, delete it. Remember, you can always re-download any apps you delete, including paid ones, so there’s no real risk involved here.

Keeping only the most-used, must-have apps on your phone frees up a ton of space, gives your phone less stuff to load after waking up from sleep, and can speed up your device greatly.

 

This is pretty much step #7 on repeat. But it works just as well with widgets and isn’t difficult to do, so it’s worth trying out if you’re looking to boost your phone’s performance.

Remember, deleting any old apps or widgets every few months can improve the way your device runs and give you a much more enjoyable and seamless Android experience. And again, anything you delete can be downloaded again in seconds whenever you need it.

Taking the time to maintain your phone by deleting apps and widgets, turning it off, and staying up to date with the latest updates doesn’t cost any money.

Just take a few minutes a week to make sure your phone is neat and organized, and you’ll notice that it runs faster and smoother as a result.

 

If all else fails, and your device is still running slow, a factory reset is indeed an option. Again, this should be your last step, as it will completely wipe your phone clean and reset it back to the way it was when you first got it.

But it does work most of the time, and will indeed get your running as fast as it did the day you first took it out of the box. And if your Android phone has any malware issues, a factory reset will more than likely take care of them.

If you’re going to do a factory reset on your Android phone, there are a few things you should do beforehand. First, be sure to back up any important photos, videos, or other information found on the device that may be of value to you. Again, all of that stuff will be gone once the factory reset is complete.

Second, don’t forget about app passwords or credit card information. Confirm you know all of the passwords needed to access your apps before resetting your phone. Once you have those two things taken care of, resetting your phone is actually quite easy, and again, does work most of the time.

 

Well, there you have it! These nine tips and tricks should help you speed up Android phones. So if your phone isn’t working as well as it used to, give a few of these a try and see if that helps!

And next time you go to show your friend from work that funny video or try to use an app to order food, you won’t have to deal with your phone lagging so bad that it’s impossible to use!

Remember, keep your phone neat and organized. Don’t load too many apps on the home screen, and delete any old apps that you don’t use anymore.

Also, stay up to date with the latest updates, and restart your phone every few days, so that it can reboot. If all else fells, a factory reset should do the trick. But just be sure to back up all your valuable information beforehand.

Be sure to check out our blog, where you’ll find more tech tips and tricks that are worth trying out!