Slow or buggy iPhone or Android? Do this one simple thing every week

Getty Images/Tim Robberts

As an avid tech user, I typically juggle multiple iPhones and multiple Android smartphones at the same time. Despite handling so many devices, I find them highly reliable. The stability of PCs, laptops, smartphones, and tablets today is significantly better than it was a decade ago. In fact, I can’t remember the last time one of my devices failed.

Also: The 7 best phones of the moment

However, this does not mean that everything runs smoothly all the time. After days and weeks of use, my smartphones become sluggish, apps slow down, and battery life starts to wane. Fortunately, there is a simple solution: restart your smartphones.

Benefits of restarting your smartphone

Restarting offers several benefits, such as:

improved performance: Rebooting your smartphone clears temporary files, cached data, and removes memory leaks, helping to improve overall performance.
Solve minor problems: Many minor software glitches or bugs can be fixed by rebooting, avoiding the need for more advanced troubleshooting.
Update system processes: Rebooting the device can help refresh system processes and services, ensuring that everything works properly.
Improve battery life: A restart is the best way to fix battery drain issues caused by misbehaving apps or processes not shutting down properly.
Better RAM management: Rebooting can clear RAM, which in turn improves the speed and overall performance of your device, especially if it has been running for a long time without a reboot.
Driving safety: The National Security Agency recommends regular reboots as a precaution against hacking, as they disable any potential rootkit malware.
Improved application performance: Some applications may not work as expected due to memory leaks or other issues. Restarting can help resolve these issues and restore app performance.

While you don’t need to restart your device every day, doing it once a week can help maintain its performance and stability.

Also: 8 Cool Ways to Use LiDAR on Your iPhone and iPad

My routine is to do a reset of my active devices every Saturday morning.

How to restart your devices

Rebooting is quick, easy, and painless, and shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.

Restart iPhone X, 11, 12, 13 and 14

Press and hold one of the volume buttons (either one) and the side button until the power off slider appears.
Drag the onscreen slider to the right.
Wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off.
To restart the iPhone, press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears.

Restart an old iPhone

Press and hold the side button until the power off slider appears.
Drag the onscreen slider to the right.
Wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off.
To restart the iPhone, press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears.