How to Speed Up a Slow Phone?

ORIGINAL POST

Many still great specce’d Android devices are running slowly, thanks to build-up of cache, background apps, etc overtime.

With these simple tips you can reclaim all that storage and RAM being used by junk to allow what you’re doing to run alot more smoothly, if you would like to know how, read on below:

Uninstall/disable (even built-in!) apps you don’t need

This is usually the biggest culprit, many apps, even if you don’t use them, are constantly running in the background, using your devices processing power, battery and sometimes even sending spam notifications, to fix this, do the following:

Open Settings
Tap Apps/Application manager (If this doesn’t show all your apps tap All apps)
Tap an app you don’t need (even bult-in ones can be removed, and anything you delete can be redownloaded from the Play Store
(For built-in apps) Tap the three dots in the corner (If they’re there) and tap Uninstall updates
Tap either uninstall or disable
Repeat from step 3 for other apps

That was it, you just removed the apps you don’t need, which will significantly help your devices performance and battery life.

Speed up animations

When you open or close an app or window, you may see it zoom, fade or slide out, these kind of animations can make your device feel slower, to set them to a faster speed, do the following:

Open Settings
Go to About phone/tablet (It may be under System or General management)
Tap build number (It may be under Software information) multipe times until it says “You are a developer” or “Developer options enabled”
Go back and tap Developer options (It may be under System or General management)
Set Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale to .5x (With a point)

There you go!, Now when you open or close and app you will see that the animations are alot quicker.

Clear cache

If your phone’s running low on storage, it is likely not because of photos or videos, but because of cache files, when you watch a video or browse social media, it stores what you watched in the cache so it loads a bit quicker later, but after a while the cache can build up, using your storage and slowing down your device to store stuff you will never look at again, to clear the cache for some apps, do the following:

Open Settings
Go to Apps/Application manager (If this doesn’t show all your apps tap All apps)
Click on a video or social media app (like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok etc)
Click Clear cache (It may be under Storage and Cache)
Press the back button and do that for other video/social media apps

Done. Your phone should now have alot more storage to spare.

12 replies

RGBchocolate · 3 years ago

in next lesson we learn how to send SMS, stay tuned

TLDR uninstall/disable useless apps, clear cache and speed up or disable animations

10 upvotes on reddit

[deleted] · 3 years ago

I understand that you know these steps, but the average person who doesn't care about technology and just wants emails and Facebook wont, and this can really save them from buying a new device when their current one is completely fine

1 upvotes on reddit

AMO124 · 3 years ago

Modern android versions negate 99% of the issues unused apps cause, the only thing you'll gain by disabling system apps is messing up your phone, and saving a few kb of space. And speeding up animations, doesn't even speed up the phone, you're only making your phone work harder, for choppy animations.

36 upvotes on reddit

Malaka__ · 3 years ago

On older Android versions with lower RAM, disabling apps that run in the background can free up memory. it's not going to make your phone faster, but can create a smoother experience.

on the other tips, I agree with you.

4 upvotes on reddit

MissionInfluence123 · 3 years ago

That's true, even for iOS.

When reddit is getting choppy, I just close one other app to free RAM and bum! The choppiness disappears.

2 upvotes on reddit

itsnevas · 3 years ago

This. I never understood what kind of benefit turning up your animation speed gives you. Your phone still has to render the exact same animation, the "snappy effect" is all in your head because things just seem to happen faster but are loaded in at the exact same speed.

21 upvotes on reddit

[deleted] · 3 years ago

If your phone doesn't have an issue loading the animation that fast.
It kinda makes it feel faster.
Some skins have slow animations which some might not like.

4 upvotes on reddit

StockAL3Xj · 3 years ago

That's assuming your phone needs the original animation time to render everything. Also, why does it being in one's head negate the benefits. If it seems faster, that should be enough.

1 upvotes on reddit

Ok-Gate6899 · 3 years ago

1x speed feels so much slow and mess how i use my phone as i have to wait for animations, i can't use that. Are those people running 1x speed the same people who can't view over 24fps or don't notice the difference between 60 and 120fps?

1 upvotes on reddit

frogsandstuff · 3 years ago

I've had all animations turned off for ages. Recently got a new phone and it felt super sluggish waiting for the animations until I turned them off. The speed may just be in my head, but I'd rather have one screen snap directly to another.

3 upvotes on reddit

nus321 · 3 years ago

I install a custom ROM on a slow aging Android device which helps.

With the minimal Gapps of course

3 upvotes on reddit

ZulkarnaenRafif · 3 years ago

Galaxy Tab 2 with RR + Noob Kernel works well enough. But the performance increase is somewhat minimal. After all, the tablet was almost a decade old.

1 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/techsupport • [2]

Summarize

Can i make my phone faster?

Posted by N0obMasTer69__ · in r/techsupport · 8 months ago

So i have samsung galaxy A15 5g that is about 1.5 years old and it is really slow, like i need to press something 3 times to load, then after i press it it takes a lot until it loads and it is overall just slow, is there a way i can make it faster, without necessarily factory resetting my phone. I also had this problem with all of my phones in the past, they were all android and didnt cost more than 200e. Does the same problem happen with more pricier phones, like flagships or just cheap ones. I was thinking of buying iphone as my next phone.

2 upvotes on reddit

5 replies

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5 replies

slapjimmy · 8 months ago

Uninstall any apps you never use.
Go to Settings then search for Device Care and run it for storage and memory etc.
Copy any pictures or downloads to your computer then remove them off the phone.

1 upvotes on reddit

HaveLaserWillTravel · 8 months ago

Are you side loading any apps or is everything from the official App Store? Have you updated to the latest version of Android supported by your phone? Check out this article to detect and remove any potential malware on your phone https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-figure-out-if-your-phone-has-malware

1 upvotes on reddit

YT_Brian · 8 months ago

Weird, my new phone is very fast and only cost $170 before tax. It also has the option to 'double' RAM by using drive space.

Android with solid cameras. I'll be using it hopefully for the next decade as yes if needed in 5-7 years I will change the battery in it. I don't play games with it, just music, business, family and quick search stuff up.

Use a tablet for mobile gaming, far better all around.

Anyway, check to see if your phone space is filled, if so time for a cleaning and removing apps. Also check if you have the option to use disk space as 'additional' RAM. Not as fast but still helps if really needed.

You could also make a backup of everything and then factory reset. That can help a lot st times.

1 upvotes on reddit

MiquelVz · 8 months ago

extra ram is such a scam lol i don't know why you'd look forward for that feature

1 upvotes on reddit

YT_Brian · 8 months ago

It is why I did the ' ' lol if you have nothing else though why not? Slower but it technically works.

1 upvotes on reddit

See 5 replies

r/PhonesAreBad • [3]

Summarize

how to make phone slow

Posted by TanishqSonar · in r/PhonesAreBad · 3 years ago

Is there any way that I can slow my friends phone, which will decrease its animation and everything. I know abt developer options I am looking that will do this in an app. Plz find an app or other thing instead abt developer options. Thx

05 replies

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5 replies

cybeaux · 3 years ago

Install as many apps as possible.

5 upvotes on reddit

parasitebuddy · 3 years ago

Just put in it the microwave for a minute or two. Hope this helps!

15 upvotes on reddit

7aco · 3 years ago

This is a good post.

8 upvotes on reddit

Sevenvoiddrills · 3 years ago

Wrong sub mate

5 upvotes on reddit

I-Am-Not-Aplharius · 3 years ago

If you can find a really powerful magnet at an auto parts store or somewhere similar, take it and run it across the screen three or four times. That’ll slow it right down

6 upvotes on reddit

See 5 replies

r/iphonehelp • [4]

Summarize

How do I speed up my phone

Posted by Regky · in r/iphonehelp · 4 months ago

(For context I drop my phone in the toilet a week and just got it fixed) When I have my Wi-Fi on, my phone works fine, but today I just got my phone back after taking it get fix’s I noticed that when I’m out and I turn the Wi-Fi off it becomes very slow, and usually it works fine for when I don’t have internet. So is there anything I can do on my phone to help my speed it up thxs

2 upvotes on reddit

3 replies

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3 replies

JediMeister · 4 months ago

You usually can’t pay for faster cellular data, and the transfer rate is dependent on the signal strength which will vary according to the number of and proximity to nearby cell towers.

1 upvotes on reddit

AutoModerator · 4 months ago

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1 upvotes on reddit

D3-Doom · 4 months ago

Assuming the problem isn’t physical and the radio antenna wasn’t disturbed, a VPN or even a DNS change would probably visibly make your phone faster. Refusing the myriad of connections that are telemetry, analytics, and advert CDNs would make way for your actual traffic.

I’d also additionally recommend enabling L4S via plugging your phone into Xcode. That has more to do with caching than actually improving latency, but in terms of experience it feels faster

1 upvotes on reddit

See 3 replies

r/Android • [5]

Summarize

Tip: Make your slow Android phone GREAT AGAIN

Posted by xmenyoyo · in r/Android · 3 years ago

This small tip will help make your low-end/mid-range smartphone smooth and actually usable again.

First of all, enable Developer options in settings. Settings -> About phone -> Tap 7 times on Build number.

Now go to developer options in settings.

Scroll all the way down to an option called "Background process limit" and set it to "At most 4 processes".

For anyone curious, I have read online that the standard option sets it to 20 processes.

Now, about my own experience, my Nokia 5.3 has become smooth almost all the time and I no longer need to restart it every day or so. In brief, it's usable again :D Battery life is also better especially when idle. So, it's a win-win situation.

The best thing about Developer options is that if you disable it (from the toggle at the top of its page), all of its settings revert back to default, so nothing to worry about here.

Important note: This setting is reverted to standard after every restart of the device. So, every time you restart your phone for an update or something, you need to set its limit to 4 again. That's the only downside. Developer options page in settings remains activated after restart though.

134 upvotes on reddit

12 replies

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12 replies

OCDaquarian · 3 years ago

I used to do this when I was using a Nokia 5.1 Plus 32/3 GB (Nokia X) variant.

I rocked that phone for over 2 years, from 2018 to 2020.

God I miss that form factor!

4 upvotes on reddit

JustLookWhoItIs · 3 years ago

Hell, I do it on every new phone I get. Did it on my S20+. I know the phone itself isn't running faster, it's just animating faster, but it tricks my brain into feeling like everything works snappier and that's good enough for me.

2 upvotes on reddit

SaltGrilledSalmon · 3 years ago

Still have it as a secondary phone 😁 Android 10 is kinda slow on this phone... I loved it during the Android 9 days.

3 upvotes on reddit

JustLookWhoItIs · 3 years ago

Your phone puts an animation between opening apps and switching and such to make things look smoother, but it often loads things faster than it shows them to you because of the animation playing out.

Changing those makes the animation happen faster.

If you set it to 0 it will load as soon as your phone has the ability to, but I like to keep a small animation.

10 upvotes on reddit

Madnessx9 · 3 years ago

I have a relatively good phone and setting this option, pretty sure apps are launching faster than before. Will deffo try it on older devices.

7 upvotes on reddit

xmenyoyo · OP · 3 years ago

Bonus tip.

Developer options has 2 sections to help you diagnose what apps and services are consuming your resources and slowing down your device.

Memory: it shows you what apps have been using your memory over the last 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours, how often and by how much.
Running services: it shows you what apps are running at the moment and how much resources they consume.

These 2 sections are extremely useful. They helped me figure out that face unlock was a problem. First of all, it is slow and not that reliable. But the biggest issue for me was that it consumes a lot of the phone resources (especially RAM ~1GB) and slows down the phone significantly.

They also showed me that the app called SHAREit was consuming almost 200MB of RAM all the time even when closed. I uninstalled it and now use Near share which is built into Android. It uses much less resources and does everything that SHAREit can do except for sending apps which you can do through the Play store anyways.

So, that's it, I hope my tips will help you guys to get the best performance out of your device and to love your phone again :)

48 upvotes on reddit

Die4Ever · 3 years ago

I know it helps on my dad's super slow Android TV (it's a Sony)

29 upvotes on reddit

xmenyoyo · OP · 3 years ago

Niceeeee 😃. Maybe I should have mentioned in the title that it's useful for all Android devices, not just phones.

8 upvotes on reddit

RunnerLuke357 · 3 years ago

You make them take longer??? I have always found the animations to be too slow even on newer phones.

2 upvotes on reddit

barnesk9 · 3 years ago

This is the first thing I do on any android phone I have or set up for a relative

3 upvotes on reddit

exSD · 3 years ago

This is incorrect.

This process limit function only applies to cached process limit and does not affect services. Your gmail and messages will still be running their normal services.

Applications that are cached are limited to 4 - when you load a new app that isn't now stored in memory, it will be loaded from your storage.

This setting has been around for a long time in Android. More recently, Android's ability to suspend state applications should be doing a good job that you don't need to limit cached processes. I'd be curious if it genuinely helps you out to a degree worth using. If you only use a few apps, it won't help I would guess.

49 upvotes on reddit

xmenyoyo · OP · 3 years ago

Yeah, it helped indeed. My Nokia 5.3 has been extremely laggy while doing light work (Browsing the web, messaging, etc) especially after the Android 11 update which, let's say, wasn't the best update performance-wise.

So, as stated in the post, my phone actually feels smooth and usable now with this setting set to a limit of 4.

Yeah, background apps may tend to close more often, but it doesn't bother me at all and is honestly hard to notice.

1 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/iphonehelp • [6]

Summarize

How to make my iPhone faster

Posted by Tristo- · in r/iphonehelp · 5 months ago

Hey, so I have an iPhone 12 and just wondering what settings I can have on to make the phone smoother? It just isn’t as smooth as it once was, looking for an easy help/fix. Thanks.

2 upvotes on reddit

5 replies

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5 replies

R1yoo · 5 months ago

Iphone 12 its already fast but let me guess u updated ur phone to ios 18 right?

0 upvotes on reddit

Tristo- · OP · 5 months ago

Yes

1 upvotes on reddit

R1yoo · 5 months ago

Well i see thats why its slower i got a lot of members of my family that have iphone when they updated to 12 it became more laggy so i suggest u to trade ur phone for lower like iPhone11 or for another iphone 12 with lower ios at least 17 and u will be good

1 upvotes on reddit

IrixionOne · 5 months ago

Have free storage and a restore to factory can also help.

1 upvotes on reddit

AutoModerator · 5 months ago

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1 upvotes on reddit

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r/iPhone13Mini • [7]

Summarize

How can I make my slow iPhone faster?

Posted by Basketball45445 · in r/iPhone13Mini · 3 months ago

My phone has been very slow lately. My battery is 100% capacity (recently replaced) but downloading apps and their functionality has been really slow. What can I do?

8 upvotes on reddit

7 replies

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https://imgur.com/a/kfQbfD4

7 replies

truckfan_888 · 3 months ago

First capture a full backup of your phone with Apple Devices app (on Windows PC), then factory reset your phone, and then restore the full backup. If that doesn’t help, do another factory reset of the phone without restoring the previous full backup after. Then just use the phone for a while as if it was just purchased new and test its operation and performance. If it operates better, then just add App Store phone apps back in one by one without restoring previous full backup.

3 upvotes on reddit

Cydiapixel4u · 3 months ago

What iOS are you ruining?

1 upvotes on reddit

Confidentium · 3 months ago

Not much you can do. Apples updates are not well optimized for their older iPhone models. We can hope that Apple gives us an optimized update in the future, to make things more speedy. But it’s highly unlikely that they will!

1 upvotes on reddit

Infinite-Draft1618 · 3 months ago

My XS works perfectly fine on 18.5 (as well as with previous updates) and BH is below 80. “Not well optimized” ?

1 upvotes on reddit

Confidentium · 3 months ago

I see stutter and bugs on every iOS 18 device I look at. Including my family’s iPhone 16 Pros.

1 upvotes on reddit

TroubledGeorge · 3 months ago

Disable background app refresh

5 upvotes on reddit

Expensive_Net278 · 3 months ago

Add more dedotated wam

2 upvotes on reddit

See 7 replies

r/AndroidQuestions • [8]

Summarize

Old phone very slow - How to make it faster?

Posted by DonaldYaYa · in r/AndroidQuestions · 2 years ago

Hello,

I have an android phone. A Nokia 8 running Android 9.

It's really slow in response, some days I have to wait 5 minutes before it does what I request it to.

When I use my phone on Android Auto in my car, the phone decides to restart itself which makes me lose GPS. Because we're not allowed to touch our devices while driving, I get lost, literally.

How can I make this phone faster?

I don't really want a total wipe of my phone because it means I'll have to reinstall all of my 99 apps.

It never use to be this slow and unresponsive, only for the past 6 months or so. I've put up with it, but now I'm at my wit's end.

I want to make my phone run faster.

Thanks

2 upvotes on reddit

9 replies

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https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidQuestions/comments/1aqnnhy/comment/kqg8l4d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

9 replies

appltechie · 6 months ago

Sounds super frustrating! You could try a few things to speed it up without wiping it. First, clear the cache for apps (Settings > Storage > Cached data). Also, check if you have any apps running in the background that you don’t need and close them. Try disabling or uninstalling apps you don’t use anymore, checking for updates. Also, I used the Clario AntiSpy app to check my device for any issues that might be slowing it down. Hopefully that helps you:)

1 upvotes on reddit

Sassquatch0 · 2 years ago

Uninstall apps. 99 is a *@$#-load!

Make sure the internal storage isn't more than 80% full.

That's about it. Any apps claiming to speed up your device are just snake oil.

Chances are it's just getting to the point that apps are demanding more system resources than your device can provide.

3 upvotes on reddit

appltechie · 6 months ago

Definitely clear out what you don’t need. If it’s getting older, apps might just be too much for the device to handle. Maybe time to think about upgrading if it keeps slowing down.

1 upvotes on reddit

No-Pay-1897 · 3 months ago

A tad bit late

1 upvotes on reddit

DonaldYaYa · OP · 2 years ago

My internal storage is at 94%

2 upvotes on reddit

chanchan05 · 2 years ago

There's your answer as to why it's slow. Delete stuff to bring it below 80%

2 upvotes on reddit

Arshit_Vaghasiya · 2 years ago

Uninstall unnecessary apps.
Go to app settings and Disable which you don't use.
Use Greenify to put the app to sleep.
Go to Developer Setting > Running Services, to see which app keeps running in the background. Stop or Disable that app so it won't drain your battery and use your resources.

2 upvotes on reddit

Apart-Influence-2827 · 8 months ago

1 upvotes on reddit

Apart-Influence-2827 · 8 months ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u2zrrk/tip_make_your_slow_android_phone_great_again/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

1 upvotes on reddit

See 9 replies

r/AndroidQuestions • [9]

Summarize

Trying to speed up old phone

Posted by Elarionus · in r/AndroidQuestions · 7 years ago

I am to have completely blown out my old S7. Even after a clean factory reset, there's a solid half second delay when I tap the screen for just about anything. I was wondering if there are other steps u should be taking. Is there something that a factory reset doesn't do that would help? I can't root it, unfortunately. It's a snap processor.

1 upvotes on reddit

3 replies

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3 replies

cas-v86 · 7 years ago

tap the build number (in settings - software-info or something) 7 times to unlock developer options -> now, in dev options, change all three animation speeds from 1.0 to 0.0
Also on a Samsung, open the S-voice app - or whatever its called now - and turn off the 'double tap to open S-voice' because your phone will always be waiting for that second press and thus delay your experience.
Also, run Rootless Launcher (play store) instead of Samsungs stock launcher
In Settings - apps - all apps - disable all Google and Samsung crap you dont use (Books, Movies, all apps you dont use)

1 upvotes on reddit

Elarionus · OP · 7 years ago

For your first suggestion...that's not the problem. There's still a huge delay before it actually opens. With them set to 1, there's just a delay before the animation starts.

I've taken all of those steps, unfortunately. I guess the phone is just dead. :/

1 upvotes on reddit

cas-v86 · 7 years ago

Get a oneplus 6 and be amazed

1 upvotes on reddit

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