How to speed up Android

Newly purchased tech works brilliantly straight out of the box. However, as time goes by, your once-speedy Android phone or tablet might start to feel sluggish.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to restore its performance and keep things running smoothly. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you speed up your Android device.

Why is my phone slow?

There are quite a few factors that can have a debilitating effect on the performance of your device.

Having too many apps installed can be an issue, especially when these apps run background processes. This can lead to significant consumption of system resources, such as memory and processing power, which can ultimately slow down your device.

Widgets, although very useful for quick access to information and various functionalities, also can consume considerable processing power.

Apps that run in the background are another source of high RAM usage. Even when you are not actively using these apps, they can continue to consume memory resources, which in turn can slow down your device’s overall speed and responsiveness.

Using older version of the system than Android 14 can also contribute to a slower device. These older versions may not be optimised to handle newer apps efficiently.

Finally, a lack of available storage can have a significant impact on system performance and the functioning of apps. When storage space is low, your device may struggle to perform optimally. Photos, videos and music files can accumulate over time and take up substantial storage space, so it’s worth systematically going through and clearing out any unwanted files.

However, if you’re not sure what’s causing the problem, there are a few apps available on Google Play Store which allow you to see real-time CPU and GPU usage on your device.

This will give you an idea on what exactly is slowing you phone down and make cleaning it up as efficient as possible. This also gives you access to RAM usage, network traffic and temperature.

All this data will be invaluable when determining where the resources need to go.

To work through each of these potential problems, follow the steps outlined below.

How to fix a slow phone

Delete unused apps

One of the most common reasons for a slow Android phone or tablet is the accumulation of unused apps.

To declutter it, go through your installed apps and identify the ones you don’t use.

Just be sure to fully uninstall these apps instead of just removing their icons from the home screen. This frees up storage and reduces background processes.

Get rid of media

Media files can quickly consume your device’s storage. To create more space and speed up your device, go through your photos, videos and music files, and delete anything unnecessary.

You might also want to link your gallery with a cloud storage service like Google Photos. This allows you to remove local copies without losing your files.

Follow our guide on how to back up your data for free, to save some space and not lose your files.

Remove widgets

Widgets are useful but can slow down your device. To optimise its performance, review the widgets you have across your home screens.

Keep only the essential widgets and remove the rest to lighten the processing load.

Clear your RAM with app manager

Managing your device’s RAM can also significantly improve performance. To do so, open recent apps and swipe away those you’re not using.

Additionally, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Apps’ > ‘Running’ (or ‘Device care’ on Samsung devices) to see which apps are consuming memory. From there, you can stop or clear the memory of apps using significant resources.

You can also use third-party apps from the Google Play Store. Try searching for ‘cleaner’ or ‘memory manager’ apps and you should find quite a few to choose between.

Update Android

It could be that there’s a bug in the version of Android you’re using, which has subsequently been fixed in a patched version. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep your phone on the latest iteration of the operating system. You can follow our how to update Android to make sure you’re running the latest and greatest on your device.

Reboot

A simple reboot can often resolve performance issues, but only temporarily.

To reboot your device, turn it off and then power it back up. This can clear temporary files and free up resources.

Factory reset

If all else fails, a factory reset can give your device a fresh start. Firstly, however, ensure you backup important data like photos and contacts.

You can follow our guide on how to factory reset an Android phone or tablet. This will wipe your device clean, so only use this as a last resort.

However, if you are tired of your current phone, be sure to check out our lists of best Android phones, best phones and best Android tablets to see the models we currently recommend.