We’ve been talking about spring cleaning lately and today we are tackling our phones. A lot of this is probably intuitive but that doesn’t mean that you actually remember to do it. Think of this as your spring cleaning reminder.

 

Clean Your Phone…Literally

 

The first place to start is to actually physically clean your phone. Don’t stop with just the screen. Clean the entire case. If you’ve seen the statistics you’ll know that your phone can have as many germs as a restroom floor. You take them everywhere and they collect a lot of germs. Even though you can’t see them you can bet they’re there. A great tool to use for this is Phone Soap. Phone Soap is a small box with a UV light on the inside. Simply place your phone inside and let the light kill the germs. In about 10 minutes your phone will be good to go. This is a great option because you don’t have to get your phone wet, which could ruin the equipment. We suggest doing this monthly. 

 

Update Your Software

 

 Your phone was built to receive updates and these updates allow it to do more and work more effectively. Many people put this off but it’s really helpful to go ahead and do it. After you update, go ahead and turn your phone off for a minute. Let your phone catch up and close any processes you don’t realize are open. 

 

Remove Old or Useless Photos

Have you ever accidentally taken a picture of your screensaver or the floor? You don’t need to hang on to those. If you have tons of photos you’d like to keep but want to free up space on your phone, upload them to your computer or a portable hard drive to save them. Then you will be free to delete them from your phone without fear of losing them. 

 

Remove Apps You Don’t Use

 

If you have any apps that are no longer supported by your software, get rid of them. Don’t waste precious space on your phone. If you have downloaded an app but decided you didn’t really like it, dump it. The fewer apps you have, the better your phone will operate. 

 

Remove Old Text Threads

You would be amazed at how much space is taken up by text threads. If pictures or videos are shared in the threads it takes up even more. Deleting old text threads will free up that space so your phone can operate optimally. 

 

Reorganize Your Apps

 

The apps on your homepage need to be the ones you live and breathe. That’s where you store the apps you use daily. Folders can be very helpful in reorganizing your apps. You can create a folder for social media apps, a folder for photo apps, and folder for fitness apps, and so on. This will make your life so much easier, except for the first 2 days where you keep going back to the old location looking for your apps. You will get used to it and it will serve you much better. 

 

Review Your Subscriptions

 

How many apps are you paying for that you aren’t using or that you don’t need anymore? That $4.99 each month can really add up. Could you be paying double for any apps? The only way to know is to review your subscriptions. 

 

Back-Up Your Phone to the Cloud

 

A great way to remember this one is to set your phone to auto back-up. This way your phone will stay backed up without you having to do anything. If you buy a new phone and need your old phone backed up but you’ve never done it, it can take hours. Also if you lose your phone, you lose your information unless it’s on the cloud. One of the reasons we love Google Drive so much is because if there was a disaster, like a fire, and all of our computers were destroyed we could still go to any computer elsewhere and log in to Google Drive and have all of our files. 

 

Check and Deny Unneccesary Location Tracking

There are several apps that will track your location that have no reason to do so. Why would your photo editing app need to know where you are? It doesn’t. Yelp might need to know where you are if you are looking for a restaurant nearby but if any apps wouldn’t make sense to track you, don’t let them. It’s used as marketing data for them and you get no benefit from it.

 

Manage Your App Permissions

 

Go into your settings and see which apps have your camera on and which apps have your mic on. Not so long ago people were genuinely shocked that Instagram was monitoring everything they did because they had access to your camera and microphone all the time. If the product is free it means you are the product. It’s free because they can map your facial expressions when you look at ads and determine how to market to you. It’s priceless to them but unnecessary for you. If you are going to record, yes the app needs your permission to use the camera and mic, but if it isn’t a platform like that why would it need those permissions? It doesn’t.  

 

Get Your Charging Port Cleaned Professionally

 

This isn’t something you have to do often but once a year would be a good start. It’s not a super expensive process and there are people who do it locally. It really protects and lengthens the life of your phone. 

Protect Your Phone with a Durable Case

We like Otterbox because they are high quality and have a guarantee that is unmatched. They truly stand behind their products. Phones are expensive so why wouldn’t you protect your equipment? 

 

Ready, Set, Go

 

That’s it for our steps to spring cleaning your phone. I hope you found these helpful. Remember, if you have any questions about anything we’ve shared, we are here to help.