2 Common Storage Mistakes That Lead To A Slower Phone

Are you constantly getting pop-ups on your phone that alert you to the fact that you’re running out of storage? Few things can be more frustrating, especially if you’re having trouble pinpointing what it is, exactly, that is creating a lack of space to begin with. Maybe you’ve already run through your device and have deleted a number of photos and videos. Perhaps you’ve cleaned up your iMessages as much as you possibly can — only to find neither of these actions has helped. 

Don’t give up. There are steps you’re probably not taking that can make a big difference in your phone’s storage capacity. Stavros Zavrakas, founder of Orthogonality, outlines two common storage mistakes (and a bonus tip as well) that lead to a slower phone. These mistakes are simple to correct — so you can start gaining back storage right away. 

The iPhone Photo Stream consumes so much of the valuable space without reason by duplicating the ones you already have, according to Zavrakas. You may not even realizing you have this setting on — and the only action you have to take to gain back storage is deactivating it. 

“You can stop Photo Stream’s redundancy by going to Settings > Photos & Camera > turn off My Photo Stream,” Zavrakas says. “This would instantly delete any Photo Stream images from your iPhone, releasing a whole lot of space while remaining an available option on a linked device where it shall remain active.”

There’s probably a very good reason why you don’t clear our your old text messages as often as you should: who has time to go through each one and hit “delete?” Good news: there’s a much easier, less painstaking way to get rid of them. 

“Instead of deleting individual messages or text threads, tweak settings to get your phone to clean itself up,” Zavrakas says. “Go to Settings > Messages > Message History > Keep Messages. The default program is to keep them forever, but you can choose to clear out old texts after a year or a month.”

“Clearing out web browser data in most cases has always boosted my phone’s speed and performance,” Zavrakas says. But are you remembering to do it on occasion? It might be a good idea to actually set a reminder for yourself in your phone to clear it out once or month or so to improve your phone’s performance and speed? 

“Open Settings > Safari > tap Clear History and Website Data,” Zavrakas says. “Apart from this, clearing cache data from applications like Twitter and Snapchat has released approximately 1GB of space because that’s how much space these apps often consume on your device to improve UX and quick loading.”

Taking steps to improve your storage situation doesn’t require tons of time and tech know-how. Try these easy tips to make a big difference in how your phone operates.