Which Apps Are Slowing Down My Phone

No one likes a slow phone. Whether it's your internet coverage or speed that's slowing you down, or the apps you're using, a slow phone can just be downright annoying. And yes, believe it or not, the downloaded apps on your phone can make a difference in its overall speed.

But which apps are guilty of running in the background and slowing down your phone? Let's take a look at some of the most frequently guilty culprits.

Pre-Installed Apps

When you first get a new smartphone, it usually comes with a ton of pre-installed apps. They're often referred to as bloatware because a lot of these apps don't provide much usefulness and probably won't ever be used once during the phone's lifetime.

While a few of these apps can't easily be uninstalled, a lot of them can be. Uninstalling these unnecessary apps will free up space on your device and help it run faster. Many of these apps run in the background even though you might not use them frequently or at all.

So, uninstalling the ones you can (and even researching how to remove the ones you can't easily uninstall) can improve your phone's speed immensely.

Even though social media and messaging apps might be some of our favorites, they're also the most guilty when it comes to slowing down our phones.

Snapchat might be one of the worst because it's constantly running to see where you are and updating your location within the app. Then, of course, it also has to notify you if any new snaps come through in an effort to get you to spend more time in the app.

Facebook is another app that is notorious for slowing down your phone. The app loves to run in the background, seeing what you're up to. If you have Messenger installed as well, this is one of those apps that never sleeps (along with Snapchat).

And, of course, Instagram is also owned by Facebook now and is another app interested in your location and sending you constant notifications.

Twitter doesn't appear to be nearly as intrusive or demanding on your phone as Snapchat or Messenger.

Cleaning Apps

A lot of cleaning apps advertise that they'll protect your phone from viruses and make it faster by removing unnecessary bloat. In reality, however, a lot of cleaning apps add extra bloat to your phone and end up slowing it down.

Some cleaning apps even come with malware that can severely affect your phone.

If you don't choose the right cleaning app for your phone, you'll probably be stuck with an app that runs unnecessarily in the background, constantly searching for "bloat" while also potentially searching your phone for other sensitive data.

Clean Master, one of the most notorious cleaning apps, was found in violation of Google Play's privacy and security rules. The app was stealing personal data from user's phones and using it for their own gain.

Mobile Games

Some mobile games, especially if they're small, won't affect your phone that much, if at all. Other games can demand a lot out of your phone.

For example, a game like Just Mowing is fairly small and simple and doesn't slow down the phone much at all when in use or when sleeping. Much larger games, like Call of Duty Mobile, take up a lot of space on your phone. And if you don't have enough storage on your phone, large games like these can bog down your phone's performance.

Plus, some games run in the background without you knowing. For example, Charm Farm is listed as a Sleeping App on my Samsung phone, meaning that it'll run in the background occasionally, but not all the time. Other games could be categorized as a Never Sleeping App.

How to Check Which Apps Are Slowing Your Phone Down

Even though certain apps are the most common culprits in contributing to a slow phone, it's important to know how to check your own phone. Sometimes an app you would've never thought of is the most demanding on your phone.

There are a few different places you can check your phone to get a full picture.

Check Background Apps on Samsung Phones

Samsung phones conveniently flag up apps that are always running.

First, navigate to your phone's settings and head to Battery and Device Care > Battery > Background Usage Limits. Here, you'll be able to see how many apps are classified as sleeping, deep sleeping, and never sleeping.

Sleeping: These apps run in the background only occasionally.
Deep Sleeping: These apps will never run in the background and only work when you open them.
Never Sleeping: These apps are almost always running in the background.

If you see an app installed that you don't use and is set to Never Sleeping, go ahead and uninstall it if you can.

Check Memory and Storage on all Android Devices

You can check your phone's storage and memory settings as well. To check your phone's storage, go to Battery and Device Care > Storage on Samsung phones or Settings > Storage on others. If you scroll down, your phone will often tell you which apps you're not using that are taking up the most storage on your phone.

You can select Apps from the internal storage menu to see all your apps. Then if you select an app, you can select Mobile Data to see how much background data is being used and even disable background data if you want.

You can also check your phone's memory by going to Battery and Device Care > Memory. When here, your phone should give you an option to clean up (and speed up) your phone by stopping background apps. You can deselect any apps you don't want to be stopped.

On some phones, the memory settings are hidden within the Developer Options.

Stay Aware of Why Your Phone Is Acting Slow

There are so many apps that we use daily that we probably don't even realize are slowing down our phones. We love to scroll through social media and get sucked into playing mobile games or using cleaning apps that advertise a faster phone, but all of these things, especially in conjunction with one another, can have bad effects.

It's important to realize that since not everyone uses the same apps, you must dive into your specific phone and figure out which apps are most demanding. Also know that sometimes your phone isn't acting slow because of its downloaded apps. Sometimes, your phone may be slowing down for a variety of other reasons.

5 Reasons Your Phone Slows Down Over Time

Is your smartphone suddenly slow? We've got good news: you're not going crazy. That loss of device power hits both Android and iOS users. Devices do slow down over time. Here's why.