Clean up your smartphone or tablet
Uninstall superfluous (system) apps
Both iOS and Android install a lot of superfluous system apps in addition to the ones which you’ve installed yourself. You may not use them and they take up a lot of space.
To uninstall apps in iOS, tap and hold an app until the icons start “wobbling”. Now tap on the “x” at the top right of each app you wish to uninstall. Since iOS 10, you can uninstall pre-installed apps, such as FaceTime, Home, Reminders, Stocks, etc. Tip. To find out which apps gobble up most space, go to Settings ; General ; Storage& iCloud Usage and Select Manage Storage . The apps occupying most storage space will be listed at the top.
If you use Android, go to Settings ; Apps to open a list of all the installed apps. Tap on the name of an app to obtain more details or to uninstall it. Tip. If you find you can’t uninstall an app, go to Security ; Device Administrators , untick the box next to the app and repeat the steps described above.
In Settings ; Storage you can check how much storage space an app uses. Within each app, you can delete the content (partially) without uninstalling the app itself. However, this generally implies that you will have to log in again in the app.
CCleaner. For smartphones
You’re undoubtedly familiar with CCleaner ( http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner ) as an efficient clean-up tool for your computer. There’s also a CCleaner for Android ( http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner-android ). The app shows the used storage space and the RAM of your Android device. The Analyse button opens an overview of the content you can safely delete. This includes not only sent messages, but also logs, cache files and other data you don’t need. Tip. CCleaner lets you uninstall apps immediately in its App Manager. You can even select and uninstall multiple apps.
An alternative tool for Android is Clean Master ( http://www.cmcm.com/en-us/clean-master ). This app enables you to stop active processes and apps which use memory in the background and hence slow down your device. Clean Master comes with an antivirus program. You can make background processes hibernate so they remain active but occupy less space.
Tip. Use Powerful Uninstall to remove almost all junk files from your smartphone - but remember to tick the box next to the files you wish to keep!
Note. iOS doesn’t have comparable cleaning apps, as Apple forbids the use of such third-party apps.
Clean up your browser
It’s a good idea to clean up your mobile browser in both iOS and Android. In iOS, go to Settings ; Safari and click on Clear History and Website Data . All cookies, temporary data and cache files will be cleared and you will be able to surf faster. If you use Chrome on iOS, go to Settings ; Privacy and select the data you wish to clear (history, cookies, etc.).
If you use Chrome on Android, go to Settings ; Privacy and at the bottom select Clear Browser Data . Tip. In Android you can select the type of data you wish to clear, for instance, only the data for the past hour or day or of the last week.
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