Our phones are no longer just a means of making a call or sending a text, they connect us to the world. And when they slow down, it can really throw a wrench into your day. A slow phone may be a result of malware. Try Clario to check your Android for viruses. Several issues can cause slow performance for your device. The good news is, there’s likely a simple solution that can help you speed up your Android phone.
If your phone is running slowly, try out these tips to optimize your Android’s performance speed and get your phone running like normal.
A good first step when your phone is not performing at optimal speeds is to restart your device. Sometimes, all it needs is a simple restart to run fast again. Think about how many apps are open, slowly eating memory and battery power on the phone, and think about all those times you've thought that your phone drained entirely too fast that day. Restarting your phone clears open apps and memory leaks, and gets rid of anything draining your battery.
Here’s a quick way to restart your Android phone — hold the power button down for 5-10 seconds and select Restart from the menu that opens.
Some devices from different brands may have alternative ways to restart the phone, but this method should work across most smart Android phones.
A common best practice is to restart your phone at least once a week. This can help with performance issues by preventing crashes, prolonging battery life, and retaining memory.
Restarting your phone can help clear caches and quit or close apps that are draining your battery and keeping the performance low. Give it a try now to see if that helps make your Android phone work faster.
Another common problem when Android devices slow down is that they need a software update. When was the last time you updated your phone?
To check for software updates on your Android phone, follow these quick instructions:
1. Go to your Settings
2. Scroll down to System and tap it
3. Go to System update
4. Tap Check for update in the bottom right corner of your screen
If you have any available updates, run those to optimize your Android system. Software updates are created to fix bugs and performance issues that developers found in the previous version of the software. So, updating your device on a regular basis is an important step to keep it running well.
Limited storage space can cause your Android phone to run slower. Most newer devices will prompt users to free up storage space and provide a variety of options for how you can do this.
To free up storage space on your Android, follow these simple steps:
Android devices are smart and can give you direction to free up storage if you’re not quite sure where to start. Freeing up storage on your phone is helpful too because it enhances the performance of your device as well as clears space for you to take more photos and videos and download more content.
Do you browse the internet on your phone? Maybe you look up recipes or answers to quick questions while you’re out and about. Those searches start to take up memory on your device if you don’t clear them on a semi-regular basis. Clearing your cache can help free up memory and allow your Android phone to run faster.
Follow these easy instructions for clearing your browser cache on your Android phone:
Google Chrome
1. Open your browser
2. Tap the menu icon in the top right corner of your screen
3. Go to Settings
4. Go to Privacy and security
5. Go to Clear browsing data. Here you’ll have several options from Basic and Advanced.
6. Click Clear data in the bottom right corner of your screen.
There are a lot of options for cleaning and speeding up your Android phone, so we recommend starting with the basic settings and setting the time range to All time.
Mozilla Firefox
When you go through the free up space function on your Android device, it may prompt you to delete any apps that you no longer use. If it didn’t, now’s the time to give that a try. Find any apps on your phone that you’re not using any more and uninstall them.
Uninstalling apps from your Android is pretty simple – just tap and hold the app icon that you wish to delete, go to App info, and tap Uninstall. Do this for any apps that are taking up space that you no longer wish to use.
If you have a lot of apps that you’d like to delete at once, a quick and easy way to delete unused apps from your phone is to go to your app library on the Google Play Store. Follow these steps:
We recommend selecting all of the apps you haven’t used for at least six months and deleting those.
Animations on your Android device are visual cues that take place when you interact with your device. For example, apps might shrink in the background when you close them. These animations provide that high-end experience that Android wants its users to have, but sometimes they can impact the performance of your device.
To speed up your Android phone by turning off animations, follow these quick steps:
1. Go to Settings
2. Scroll down to Accessibility and go into that
3. Go to Text and display
4. Toggle the Remove animations option to off
Most popular phone apps have a Lite edition that is basically a stripped down version of the app that takes up less space and memory and runs faster. Some of these apps include Facebook, Messenger, Skype, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Spotify.
Search for lite versions of your favorite apps to optimize the speed of your device.
Are you using widgets on your phone? Widgets are fun, little add-ons on your home screen that can provide more information from particular apps or add personality to your phone. These might include a clock, weather information, news, pictures, your calendar, and so much more.
Enhance your phone’s speed by removing any widgets that you don’t need or use. To remove widgets from your Android’s home screen, just touch and hold the widget that you want to remove, and then tap Remove from home or drag it to the Remove option at the top of your screen.
Androids are programmed to sync background data so that you receiving instant notifications from your apps. If you disable this feature, you won’t receive notifications from your apps unless you open them. This can save battery life and help your device perform quicker.
If you want to turn off the background sync, you’ll need to do this individually on each app. To do this, follow these quick instructions:
If you’ve tried all of the previous steps and your phone is still not performing quickly, then malware could be a possibility. To detect and look for malware on your phone, follow these steps:
1. Go to the Google Play Store app
2. Tap your profile or menu icon in the top right corner of your screen
3. Go to Play Protect
4. Click Scan
5. If your device detects any harmful apps, it will provide options to remove them
More info
Learn more in our article How to Find and Remove Malware on Your Android Device.
There are also several apps for Androids that you can get to detect malware and help speed up your device. Clario provides malware detection for Android devices, including daily malware scans and scanning new apps for viruses.
Performing a factory reset on your device is often a last-case scenario, so we recommend trying the other tips in this article before jumping to this solution. A factory reset will set your phone back to the original settings that it had when you purchased the device. This will erase all new apps, photos, messages, contacts, etc.
If you’ve tried everything else and still don’t know why your phone is performing slowly, try a factory reset to give your phone a performance boost.
To factory reset your Android phone, follow these steps:
Be sure your device has enough battery or is charging when you perform a factory reset because this can take some time to complete.
Our phones help perform daily tasks and are often a lifeline as we go about each day. You don’t need to let a slow device derail your day or even become a minor inconvenience. Follow the steps that we’ve laid out above to help optimize your Android’s speed so you can continue to benefit from a top-performing device.
Read more:
You're determined to ace your exams and ready to take amazing notes. But your Android™ tablet is running slow, then suddenly freezes in the middle of class. It's nearly impossible to get anything done. What should you do?
We can help. From tackling common problems with Samsung Galaxy® tablets to identifying the must-have smart gadgets for the college student in your life—our tech experts at uBreakiFix® by Asurion have you covered. Here’s how to fix an Android tablet that keeps freezing or that’s running slower than usual.
When your tablet starts running slow or freezing, there are a few things that could be causing these issues:
It can be frustrating when your device slows to a crawl. Try out these troubleshooting steps to speed up your Android tablet.
First, you’ll want to determine if your slow tablet is simply due to a poor Wi-Fi connection. You can turn your Wi-Fi off and then back on to see if that speeds up your device.
If your tablet is connected to cellular service, try turning off the Wi-Fi and testing it before turning the Wi-Fi back on.
Want to learn more? Check out our tips for speeding up your Wi-Fi.
Keep your tablet working the way it should
Our experts can help. Schedule a repair or visit your nearest store today.
Schedule a repair
One of the easiest and fastest ways to improve how your tablet is working is restarting it. This will close any programs that are running and help clear out any glitches or cached data that could be slowing down your device. Follow these steps to restart your tablet:
If these steps don't work, press and hold the Power button for 1–2 minutes until the screen goes dark, then turn your tablet back on.
Your Android tablet uses software updates to correct problems with your device. If your tablet is running older software, it might be working harder than it should. Here’s how you can get your tablet up-to-date.
While you’re at it, W make sure your apps are updated too. Outdated apps can also slow down your tablet.
When your tablet keeps an app open, it’s using energy, which can slow down the web browser or the video game you’re playing. You can either close apps when you’re no longer using them or delete them if you don’t need the app anymore.
Also, take a look at your app’s settings. A single app can easily take over your tablet. Open up the app and see if it has a settings menu. From there, you can adjust the settings to be exactly what your tablet needs—without using too much power.
If you encounter endless buffering when streaming a video or playing games, and it’s not related to your internet connection, try lowering the video resolution. Running an app at its maximum resolution can deliver great visuals, but it can also slow down your tablet.
Having the option to download an app must mean your tablet can handle it, right? Not always.
You might be able to download it, but that doesn’t mean your tablet meets the requirements the app needs to run efficiently. If you notice lagging while you’re using an app—or after downloading it—check out its specifications and requirements in the app store.
Having all of your apps scattered on different Home Screen pages means your tablet has to use more power when you scroll between them. Move your tablet’s apps to a single screen—or two—to lessen the chances of your device being slowed down.
Your device’s media files take up a lot of energy—not to mention storage space—so you might notice a lag if your tablet is video and photo-heavy.
Back up your tablet to a cloud service, like Google Photos™, so you can access those memories without having to delete them forever.
If you've tried these steps and still need a little help, we're right around the corner. Schedule a repair at the nearest uBreakiFix® by Asurion store and our certified experts can get your device back up and running as soon as the same day.