JUNE 2020 PCWorld 107on how long it’s been, you might have
several updates waiting, so double-check
after it’s installed.
- DELETE UNUSED APPS
ON YOUR ANDROID PHONE
With most apps hidden from our daily view,
it’s easy to let dozens of unused games and
utilities collect digital dust in our app
drawers. That’s fine if your phone has 128GB
of storage, but if you’ve got 32GB or less,
your free space can fill up fast. And just like
your PC, if you’re bumping up against your
limit, important system functions might not
work as well as they should. So take a look at
the apps on your phone and get rid of any
you haven’t used in a while. - MOVE LARGE FILES TO AN
SD CARD OR GOOGLE DRIVE
Even if your app drawer is lean, you can still
have files on your phone that are taking up
precious space and slowing things down—
namely music, videos, and photos. If you
don’t want to straight-up delete them, you
can still safely store them outside your phone
in your Google Drive, or a micro SD card if
you phone has a slot built into the SIM tray
(Pixels don’t, but most others do). That way
you’ll still be able to access them on your
phone but they won’t eat up free space. Just
head over to the Files app (or My Files on
Samsung phones) to find your biggest files
and send them to their new home.
5. RE-CUSTOMIZE THE
DISPLAY
You probably set up your display just the way
you wanted it way back when you bought your
phone, but it might be worth a second look.
With a few tweaks, you can extend your phone’s
battery life and speed up performance, and
your eyes will never know the difference:
Turn on dark mode: If your Android
phone has an OLED screen, using dark
mode will actually extend the battery life
because it’s using less power to light the
display. Unlike LCD screens, OLED displays
turn off the pixels to achieve blackness, so
using fewer pixels is more efficient.
Lower the screen resolution: Like PC
Moving
large
files to
Google
Drive
can help
speed
up your
phone.