21:43 06-12-2025

How to speed up a slow iPhone: practical fixes that work

Is your iPhone slow? Speed it up with simple fixes: update iOS, free storage, clear Safari, limit background tasks, tweak visuals, check battery, reset safely.

Sometimes an iPhone behaves as if it’s stuck in an endless Monday: apps hesitate to open, Safari takes its time before loading pages, and animations seem to soften into slow motion. It’s easy to think the device is on its last legs. More often, the reason is far prosaic—tight storage, restless background activity, an outdated system, or simple overload. The upside, as PEPELAC.NEWS notes, is that speeding things up is usually realistic and doesn’t require a trip to a repair shop or any arcane rituals.

Update

Start with your iOS version. After long pauses between updates, the phone can feel sluggish; small security patches and bug fixes often smooth out minor hiccups along the way. Check via Settings → General → Software Update. The current release is iOS 26, and point updates like 26.0.1 or 26.1 typically help. Major annual upgrades deserve caution: they’re tuned for newer hardware, can run heavier on older models, and take up more space. A pragmatic approach is to install fresh minor patches promptly and weigh the big releases against the age of your device.

Memory refresh

The common habit of swiping away apps has long been deemed unhelpful and even counterproductive. Rebooting is far more effective. On newer models, press volume up, then volume down, then hold the side button until the power slider appears. After shutting down and turning the phone back on, it often feels zippier: RAM gets cleared and stuck processes are terminated. In everyday use, this simple restart outperforms endless app closing.

Low Data Mode

Low Data Mode brings an extra bonus: it reins in background activity, reduces silent downloads, and saves battery. Turn it on via Settings → Cellular → Data Options. A similar option exists for Wi‑Fi: tap the “i” next to the network and enable the toggle. It’s a quiet way to keep apps from overworking your phone when you’re not looking.

Visual effects

iPhone’s interface is easy on the eyes, but those effects cost resources. To lighten the load, reduce motion in Settings → Accessibility → Motion, and lower transparency in Accessibility → Display & Text Size. On iOS 26 and later, the Liquid Glass setting in Display & Brightness can be switched from Clear to Tinted, which eases the strain on the system without making the interface feel bare.

Safari

Over time, the browser piles up cache, cookies, and history—and that buildup can slow things down. Clear it via Settings → Apps → Safari → Clear History and Website Data. Wiping the entire history has the strongest effect, though at first many sites will look “fresh,” without your saved preferences. It’s a small inconvenience for a cleaner, faster browser.

Freeing space

The biggest speed killer is a packed storage. iPhone runs more consistently when there’s at least around 10 GB free, or roughly 10% of total capacity. Check usage in Settings → General → iPhone Storage to see which apps hog the most space. Deleting or offloading apps helps: deletion frees everything, while offloading keeps documents and data without the app itself. In practice, a few decisive cleanups here make a bigger difference than any tweak elsewhere.

Messages

iMessage can quietly balloon in size, especially if photos and videos fly through your chats. iCloud sync in your Apple ID settings can ease the load, though it depends on available cloud space. Another route is to remove large threads or trim unnecessary media inside conversations via the Photos section in the contact’s profile. It also pays to shorten the lifespan of voice messages—set them to delete after 2 minutes in Messages for a steady trickle of reclaimed space.

Music and photos

Even in the streaming era, many devices carry a stash of downloaded tracks. Remove them in Settings → Music → Downloaded Music. Photos are easiest to keep in iCloud Photos, but that too needs room in the cloud. The classic method remains reliable: connect iPhone to a Mac, import your pictures, then delete them from the device. Don’t forget Recently Deleted—only emptying that folder frees the space for real. It’s also worth pruning screenshots and burst series, which quietly eat up storage.

Battery

Sometimes slowdowns stem from throttling due to an aging battery. In earlier iOS versions, this was visible under Battery Health. In iOS 26, the mechanism is called Adaptive Power and can be turned off in Settings → Battery → Power Mode. Disabling it can speed things up at the expense of stability, so it’s sensible to check your battery’s condition and replace it if needed.

Full reset

If nothing helps, there’s a radical option—a full reset. Go to Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone to erase content and restore factory settings, then recover from a backup. This often brings relief, but if the issue lives inside your data or apps, it may return with the restore. In that case, the cleanest route is to set up the phone as new.

Last resort

When you’ve tried it all and the iPhone still misbehaves, it’s time for Apple diagnostics—there may be a hardware cause that can be fixed. And if repair isn’t worth it, the conclusion is straightforward: it might be time to consider a new device.