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As someone who covers consumer tech for a living, I get a chance to use a few dozen smartphones every year. While I almost always recommend finding the best new smartphone, most consumers don’t upgrade every year. I have friends and family who tell me they don’t want to upgrade and ask, “How can I make my current phone faster?” Finally I have the answer.
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I don’t get a chance to use the review devices for a long time, but I have picked up tips and tricks from years of experience that can help you speed up your older Android phone. Before you ask, this does not involve rooting your device. These tips are easy to implement for both tech-savvy consumers and the average Joe.
If your Android phone is starting to seem slow, the first thing you should look into is freeing up its storage. If you’re unsure where to start, here are some steps you can take to make your old Android phone run faster.
1. Delete unused apps
Over time, phones can collect a lot of unused apps and leave you with cluttered space. You might have used a QR scanner app from a restaurant or a photo editing app from your trip years ago that is no longer in use. It is best to uninstall such apps to free up space on your Android phone.
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Decluttering your Android phone can make it faster as it won’t need to allocate resources to apps that are no longer in use. Uninstalling such APKs will result in better resource management and thus, a faster phone. You can go to Settings > Storage > Apps to view a list of installed apps and uninstall the ones you no longer need. On the Apps screen, you can also long press on forgotten apps and go to App Info > Uninstall.
2. Clear excess storage
Old Android phones tend to accumulate a lot of junk, whether it’s files or long-forgotten photos of school notes. After deleting unused apps, aim to free up space by reviewing the files and photos on your Android phone.
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You can go to your phone’s Files app to check what’s saved. The Downloads folder often contains the most junk of long-forgotten PDF files, photos, etc. There are two more places you should check to free up storage.
- Upload photos from your phone and save them to an external drive or cloud. It helps you create a backup of your memories and free up space on your old Android phone.
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Clear app cache. For those unaware, cache is a piece of data that an app saves so that it can work more quickly the next time you open it. I recommend clearing the cache for low-use apps with no saved login information. To save more space you can go to Settings > Storage > Apps > Clear Cache.
3. Check for Updates
Make sure your Android phone is up to date on the OS front. Keeping it up to date will make it faster and have the latest security protocols installed. You can go to Settings > General > System Update to check and install the latest available software version.
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Once you delete the uninstalled apps and update your old Android phone to the latest OS version, you should go to the Google Play Store and update the remaining apps. It is important to use the latest available versions of these apps to get access to the latest features, better performance, and better security.
4. Bonus: Adjust Animation Speed
You can enable or disable certain settings to make your phone faster, including developer options to change the animation speed. This is a little more complicated than the rest of the settings mentioned above, but it can make your phone significantly faster.
You need to enable developer options by tapping on Settings > About phone > Software information and then tapping on your build number seven times. This should enable developer options, so you can now access various animation scale settings.
Now, go to the Drawing section within Developer Options and scroll down until you find Window Animation Scale. Tap on it and set the animation to 0.5x, so that apps and window pop-ups run faster.
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You can also adjust the transition animation scale to reduce the speed of moving between home screen panels and apps. Also, reduce the scale of the animator duration to make opening and closing apps, unlocking the phone, and other common UI animations faster.
Changing these settings will give new life to your old Android phone. Once adjusted, it should feel faster with added zip in day-to-day tasks. If you want to refresh it, I recommend messing with your home screen, changing the wallpaper and adjusting more settings to help it last longer.
