Is Your Phone Running Slow? Organize Your Phone - Ways to Make Your Android Phone Faster including a Secret Method!

Is your phone running slow?

This week I was trying to pay for a coffee at a cafe using Google Pay on my phone.

My phone was taking ages to open up my Wallet app. It was frustrating for the cafe worker and the person behind me in the queue waiting for me to pay...not to mention myself.

My phone had been running slower than normal.

With a bit of research, I figured out some easy ways to speed it up.

Having a fast phone makes such a difference. Taking photos, opening the Auckland Transport App to check when the bus is coming, paying for something through Google Pay...

I did research and followed these steps to clean up my phone. Now my phone is running much faster.

Ways To Make Your Phone Faster:

1. Delete Photos and Videos

Videos take up heaps of space.

Go through your Gallery and delete the ones you don't want.

The 'recycle bin' function may be turned on. I recommend searching for 'Recycle bin' and turning off the recycle bin function so that it changes from 'blue' to 'grey' colour. This way photos and videos will be deleted from the phone and not take up any more space.

Often our phones duplicate images when we post something on social media, such as Instagram. Your Gallery could be filled with duplicate images - no need for those!

Just by deleting photos and videos, your phone should start running quicker.

Happy man playing on phone after clearing old files

2. Remove Unused Apps

Scroll through your phone and find apps you don't use. There are a few ways to remove them.

1. Press down on the app. 'Uninstall' will come up. Click 'Uninstall'. The app will be removed.
   

2. Another way is to go into 'Settings', and then 'Apps'. Click the app you don't want and click 'Uninstall' at the bottom of the screen. Click 'OK'. Removed!

This YouTube Video shows you how to uninstall an app.

3. Secret Method - Change Window Animation Scale

Now this is the gold mine! I just came across this one and wanted to share with you:

1. Open 'Settings' - you can find 'Settings' by searching
   

2. Scroll to the bottom of screen and click 'About Phone'.
   

3. Click 'Software information'
   

4. Tap 'Build number' 7 times.
   

5. After tapping 7 times you will enter Developer Mode!
   

6. Go back to 'Settings'
   

7. Scroll to bottom. 'Developer Options' will appear.
   

8. Click on 'Developer Options'.
   

9. Scroll all the way down to 'Window animation scale' and click it.
   

10. Click 'Animation scale .5x' - this will change it from 'Animation scale 1x'.

Watch this YouTube video for instructions.

Apps will now open in half the time! This will make your phone faster.

NOTE: This will use more battery on your phone. You can easily change the setting back to 'Animation scale 1x' by following the above steps if you find it using too much battery.

4. Reset Phone - 1 hour process

This will reset your phone to its original settings - like when you first got it.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

All of your photos, videos, saved passwords and downloaded apps will be deleted!

Back up your data first! - This way you will keep your important photos/videos, etc.

An easy way to back up your data is to save it to 'Temporary cloud backup'

How to do a phone reset including backup explained above:

1. Go to 'Settings'

2. Click 'General Management'

3. Click 'Reset'

4. Click 'Temporary cloud backup'

5. Click 'Update backup'

6. Once backed up, then go back to 'Reset'

7. Click 'Factory Data Reset'

8. Click 'Reset'

9. Once reset is done, you will need to sign in again to your Google account - like starting your phone for the first time.

10. You will need to restore your backed-up data to get your photos, videos back.

11. Go into 'Settings', 'General Management', 'Reset', and click 'Temporary cloud backup'. Click 'Restore data'.

12. This will take about 20-30 minutes to restore everything to your phone.

NOTE: This process may take up to 1 hour - but it's worth it because your phone will be faster!

Conclusion

Try at least one of the above methods to speed up your phone. Out of all the ways, I found Option 3 - Changing window optimization scale to be a real find!

I have only covered a few ways. I found a helpful article that has 10 tips to improve phone performance - click here to read the article.

Organizing your phone and keeping it clean improves its life.

If anyone has questions feel free to ask via comments below!

Happy phone cleaning!