6 Ways to Free Memory and Speed Up Your iPhone

Has your iPhone seemed to be bugging out lately? Are things loading slower than normal? Sometimes this is due to your iPhone not having enough memory. While cloud-based storage is now something that’s very easy to take advantage of, many don’t have access to high-speed internet, meaning that only unused files can live in the cloud. For some of us, the idea of even trying to stream music is scary. Because of this, onboard storage is still important.

Unfortunately, 16GB can’t really hold much, especially with apps and video files becoming heavier due to an increase in quality. So how do we free up as much space as possible to make room for more important photos, fresh music, and new and exciting apps? Here are a few tips to quickly free up some space on your iPhone.

1. Clear Your RAM

Of all the storage space saving tips we overview here, this option is perhaps the easiest option of all of our solutions. If you want to free up RAM on your iPhone without completely rebooting, there is a faster way to get your iPhone up to speed again.

1. Unlock your iPhone and hold down the power button until you see “Slide to Power Off”
2. After this, instead of sliding the power off or canceling, press and hold the home button for a few seconds until you are returned to the home screen

This should flush out your memory and make it so your iPhone works faster than before. By doing this you are turning off all background app activity. This is a quick and low maintenance way to make your iPhone operate at top speeds again.

2. Clean Out Your Apps

As mentioned, apps have become better, which is great for those of us who have tons of storage, but not so great for those of us limited in our storage. Better apps generally take up more space because of the fact that there is a lot more going on when it comes to graphics and the complexity of the app itself.

Of course, not all the apps we have are needed. I’ll bet you have at least one app you can get rid of right now. Go through your app list, and when you find one you could delete, simply tap and hold its icon, then wait for the apps to start jiggling around. Then, just tap on the “x” to delete it. You could even delete a few at once, freeing up as much as a few gigabytes in a very short amount of time.

If you want to look at how much space your apps take up, you can simply head to Settings, then General, then Storage & iCloud Usage, then tap on Manage Storage. Apps will be listed in the order of how much space they take up.

3. Delete Associated Documents On Your Phone

Of course, apps aren’t the only things that you can go through on your iPhone. There is plenty of storage taken by files associated with apps, but not taken by the apps themselves. To check which apps have the most files associated with them, you can go to the same menu as before. If, for example, Pages seems to have a lot of storage taken by files associated with it, simply head into pages and delete documents you don’t need anymore, or move them into the cloud, where you can still access them but they don’t need to take up storage.

If you’re an avid reader, you might see that iBooks has taken up a lot of space. You can head into iBooks and delete books that you have already read. Of course, they will remain attached to your account, so you can always download them (for free) again, but this way they won’t be using space on your actual phone.

4. Turn Off Photo Stream And Don’t Join Any Others

Photo Stream is great, because it syncs photos from all your devices to your phone. If, however, you have a limited amount of storage, this can be really problematic, especially if you don’t particularly need to see them all. Of course, it’s important to note that these photos aren’t full resolution, but they can still take up a lot of space.

To disable Photo Stream, you can simply head to Settings, then to Photos & Camera, where you still see an option to switch off Photo Stream.

Joining photo streams from other people is also a no-no if you want to save space on your device.

Be warned that while this will free up space, it will also mean that your iPhone photos will not be uploaded to be seen on other devices, and vice versa.

5. Use iTunes Match

iTunes Match really is a great tool. What it basically allows for is for Apple to scan your music collection, and see which songs are in that library. Then, the iTunes equivalents of those songs will be added to your account, after which you can stream those songs or access them without having to store them on your actual device.

Depending on how large your library is and how willing you are to delete a large portion of that library from your device, this could free up a significant amount of storage. It is important to note that iTunes Match costs $25 per year.

6. Don’t Use Burst Mode or HDR Mode

Photos take up quite a lot of space, but when you take multiple photos at once, it takes up even more space. Burst mode essentially captures a number of photos in a quick burst, meaning that it is probably taking up much more space than you need.

There are two options here: the first is to not use Burst Mode at all, and the second is to simply go through the photos taken and delete them after you use Burst Mode. Either one will result in the same amount of space being taken, although using Burst Mode initially will take up some space before you go through and delete the ones you don’t need. The camera app makes this easy for you, allowing you to choose your one favorite photo out of the photos taken.

Learn More: 10 Tricks to Double Your iPhone’s Battery Life