If your mobile device has become sluggish, there are plenty of apps that can give it a boost. Robert Irvine picks 15 essential tools to make your phone and tablet run as quickly as when you got it
Like PCs – and people! – phones and tablets get noticeably slower over time, as they fill up with junk and start creaking under the strain of day-to-day activities. Fortunately, it’s much easier to give your mobile device a new lease of life than it is to revitalise your computer or find the fountain of youth.
Visit Google Play or Apple’s App Store and you’ll find tens of thousands of free tools that claim to speed up your phone and tablet by clearing out rubbish, boosting your battery and optimising your internet connection. The trouble is that many of them are – quite frankly – useless, despite the plethora of ‘reviews’ that try to convince you they’re anything but snake oil. Ironically, the more of these apps you download, the more cluttered and confused your device becomes, so they end up achieving the opposite effect.
Here, we’ve opted for quality over quantity, testing 1,496 apps to bring you 15 free Android and iOS apps that really will speed up your phone and tablet. From reclaiming processing power to removing duplicate videos and reducing data usage by web pages, these essential tools are guaranteed to make your device work faster and last longer.
REMOVE JUNK FROM YOUR DEVICE
Delete space-hogging junk files automatically
Regularly removing unused apps, old downloads and cached files from your phone or tablet frees up space and keeps it running smoothly, but few of us have the time to perform thorough clean-ups manually. Fortunately, help is at hand from Ashampoo’s fantastic free Droid Optimizer app (bit.ly/droid383), which keeps your Android devices in tip-top condition without you needing to lift (or tap) a finger. Among its many handy optimisation tools is an Auto Clean Up option, which you can set to run at regular intervals to automatically empty your cache – the temporary files accumulated by apps that can make them slow and unstable. Auto Clean Up also stops apps running in the background, and lets you add specific tools to a whitelist to prevent their caches from being cleared.
Additionally, Droid Optimizer offers a dedicated Junk Finder that quickly identifies the largest files on your device so you can delete them to free up space and boost speed. The Junk Finder also provides options to clear your cache and stop apps with a single tap, rather than on a schedule.
Remove unwanted apps from your device
It’s relatively easy to uninstall apps from your phone or tablet: just long-press them and drag them to Uninstall (Android) or tap the ‘X’ in the corner’ (iOS), but it’s still a bit of a hassle if you have lots of apps to get rid of. A much better option is to use the dedicated uninstaller in CCleaner for Android (bit.ly/ccleaner383), which lets you remove multiple apps in one fell swoop. To use this tool, tap the main menu in the top-left corner of the CCleaner app, choose App Manager and tap Installed Apps to see a full list of apps and details of how much room they are taking up on your device. Tap the menu in the top-right corner and choose ‘Sort by package size’ to identify the biggest space hogs, then select all the apps you no longer want and tap Uninstall.
CCleaner also lets you remove certain system apps, including live wallpaper, your camera and even your Settings app, but these will be difficult to restore if you change your mind later, so use the feature with caution.
Delete pre-installed apps without rooting
Most Android phones and tablets come with apps that have been preinstalled by Google, the manufacturer or your mobile network, some of which can’t be removed in the usual manner. There are tools available that will forcibly uninstall these unwanted apps, but they usually require you to ‘root’ your device, which will invalidate its warranty and potentially affect its stability and security.
One workaround that doesn’t involve rooting is to use Disable Bloatware – Hide Apps (bit.ly/disable383), which removes pre-installed apps from your app drawer and home screens by hiding rather than uninstalling them. Scroll through its list of ‘hide-able’ apps, select the ones you want to get rid of and choose Disable. Click OK to bypass the warning and OK again, if prompted, to replace an app with the factory version. The apps will then disappear from your screen, although you can easily restore them by tapping their name in the Hidden list and choosing Enable.
Remove duplicate photos and videos
It’s easy to end up with more than one instance of a photo, video or song on your phone or tablet, which not only takes up valuable space, but increases the time it takes to swipe to other files on your device. There are lots of free tools that remove these unnecessary duplicates, while leaving the original files intact, of which our current favourite for Android is Duplicate Media Remover (bit.ly/duplicate383). This lets you scan every folder on your device and memory card, or just selected folders, to find duplicate files and then delete them all in go by tapping the dustbin icon. The app automatically deselects original files to stop you accidental deleting them and lets you switch easily between Audio, Images (where most duplicates are likely to be located) and Videos.
To remove duplicate pictures from iOS, we’d recommend the splendid free app Duplicate Photos Fixer (bit.ly/dupphotos383), which detects and deletes both matching and very similar shots. If you want to remove copies of audio and video files, you’re best off doing so through iTunes.
Delete duplicate contacts from your phone
Although contacts take up very little space on your phone, they’re now drawn from so many sources (Google, iCloud, Facebook, SIM card, internal storage) that it’s easy to accumulate a long list of repeated names and numbers. You can save yourself the time and hassle of swiping through multiple entries for one person by using Contacts Optimizer (bit.ly/contacts383) to delete and clean up duplicate contacts. This Android and iOS app not only finds and deletes entries that are exactly alike (name, number and/or email address), but also similar contacts that “could be duplicates”. It also lets you merge contacts into one entry, fill in missing information and optimise multiple accounts on your phone. Some of its features require you to upgrade to the Pro version for £1.54, but you can try them first for free in its Toolbox section.
Recover deleted files in a single tap
Most of us have experienced that heartrending moment when we’ve accidentally deleted a cherished video, photo or audio file from our phone or tablet. Keeping files backed up to the cloud reduces the chance of this disaster, but an even better and faster way to safeguard against accidental deletions is to install Dumpster for Android (bit.ly/dumpster383).
This excellent free app works in the same way as the Recycle Bin in Windows, allowing you to ‘undelete’ lost files of virtually any type without needing to root your device. Simply browse Dumpster’s list of deleted content to find the missing item and tap Restore to get it back. Usefully, you can preview media files before you restore them; set up a PIN code so that no-one else can undelete sensitive files; and sort deleted items by date, size, type and name. Anything you delete from your phone or tablet will automatically appear in Dumpster, but this process will only begin once you’ve installed the app and can’t recover anything you deleted before.
STOP OTHER PEOPLE SLOWING YOUR DEVICE
Although you can lock the screen of your Android phone or tablet when you’re not using it, this only offers limited protection from nosy parkers, pranksters and thieves, who can change the settings, download large files and install unwanted apps, which will make your device much slower. A more effective way to safeguard against unauthorised fiddling is to lock specific apps such as messaging tools, photo galleries, social networks, browsers and app stores using CM Security Antivirus AppLock (bit.ly/applock383). This locks your apps, so that no-one can open them without entering a password, and even lets you catch prying eyes in the act by taking a photo of them when they enter the wrong password twice.
To lock apps on an iPhone or iPad, you can install the free tool iAppLock (bit.ly/iapplock383), but this requires your device to be jailbroken. Alternatively, you can restrict access to your iOS device using a built-in feature called Guided Access, which limits other people to using only apps you’ve specifically approved. Go to Settings, General, turn on the Guided Access feature and select the option Accessibility Shortcut – this will allow you to enter Guided Access mode by tapping your Home button three times. Enter a password to log you into and out of Guided Access, then tap Start at the top of the screen and select the app that you want to allow guests to use.
STOP SNEAKY APPS SLOWING YOU DOWN
Prevent apps from running when your device boots
Some apps start automatically when you boot your device, but you might not want to remove them for good in case they come in useful one day. Ashampoo Droid Optimizer (see first tip) offers a powerful start-up manager that prevents specific apps from running automatically when your phone or tablet boots. Just go to Clean Up, Utilities, Auto Start Manager and select the apps you want to disable next time you restart your phone or tablet. For optimum speed, choose ‘Stop everything’ at the top of the screen to prevent all auto-starting apps from running until you launch them manually from your app drawer. It’s best not to use the ‘Show all apps (expert only)’ option unless you know what you’re doing, or you could mess up your device.
Stop greedy background apps draining your battery
Poor battery life is a perennial problem with smartphones and tablets, which means they generally need to be charged at least once a day. If your device runs low on power when you’re unable to recharge it, the brilliant Battery Doctor (bit.ly/battery383) for Android and iOS will help you squeeze every last drop of juice from the battery. When you run the app, it displays your remaining battery and usage time, and tells you how different actions can affect this estimate, for example, playing music and making phone calls over 3G.
Tap the Optimise button and Battery Doctor will scan your phone’s current settings and running processes, then let you quickly turn off apps that are guzzling battery power in the background (Facebook is a notorious offender). It also temporarily disables built-in features that drain battery, such as Wi-Fi, Vibration, GPS and screenbrightness settings. Battery Doctor claims it will double your battery life – “seriously!” – although you do need to put up with ads as a tradeoff for all its useful free functions. The app was recently updated to make charging your device 20% faster when you finally manage to find a plug socket.
Discover which apps drain the most power
The size of an app isn’t necessarily proportionate to the amount of processor power it consumes – sometimes big apps use very little, while tiny ones can be much more demanding. You can find out which apps place the most strain on your processor and battery using Trepn Profiler (bit.ly/trepn383), which lets you run six performance tests on your Android device to get a better understanding of what’s going on in the background. These include a CPU Usage Monitor test that ranks apps based on the percentage of processor power they use – you can view this as a current figure or as an average. On our Moto G, Trepn found that Google+ (which we barely use) was placing excess strain on our CPU, so we disabled it immediately.
Trepn Profiler is a brilliant, lightweight tool, which we named our ‘App of the Fortnight’ in Issue 370 (bit.ly/webuser370) and it’s since been updated to make it even more thorough and accurate.
Free up memory to speed up games
Mobile games have become incredibly sophisticated in the last few years, with stunning graphics, highquality soundtracks and endless levels to play. The downside to this is that they also consume an increasingly large amount of your phone or tablet’s resources, which can affect the performance of your other apps and that of the device itself (if you’ve ever had an incoming notification crash your game of Candy Crush Saga, you’ll know what we mean).
Luckily, help is at hand from the marvellous Clean Master for Android (bit.ly/clean383), which has far too many useful features to mention here, so we’ll just focus on its Game Boost option. This optimises your settings to solve memory problems, shuts down inessential essential apps and claims to boost gaming performance by up to 30%. It’s also available as a standalone app called CM GameBooster (bit.ly/gamebooster383), if you’d prefer to stick with your current optimisation tool, such as CCleaner.
CHOOSE A PHONE WITH BETTER BATTERY LIFE
If your phone or tablet loses power very quickly, you may be considering a switch to a device with more endurance. PCMark for Android (bit.ly/pcmark383) helps you decide which one to buy by ‘benchmarking’ the performance and battery life of your current phone or tablet, and comparing its scores with those achieved by the latest models on the market. This gives you a fair representation of how different devices perform in the same, real-world conditions, instead of taking a phone manufacturer’s word at face value. Although the app is only 30MB in size, you need to download a 400MB ‘Work’ benchmark file, containing results of recent tests, when you first install the app, so make sure you do this when you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network. You can delete this file later to free up space, without losing access to your saved scores and the app’s Best Devices list.
SPEED UP YOUR MOBILE BROWSING
Make web pages and videos load twice as fast
When you’re browsing a web page or watching a video on the small screen of a phone or tablet, the time the content takes to load is usually more important than how sharp it looks, especially because better quality invariably means higher data usage. Acknowledging this need for speed, Opera recently launched the Opera Max Data Management tool for Android (bit.ly/opera383), which compresses the data of web pages, photos and videos without any noticeable drop in quality. It works by routing your internet traffic through its own servers, whether you’re using 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi, to reduce the amount of data used by up to 50%. Theoretically, this means that web pages and videos should load up to twice as fast, and it will make your monthly data limit stretch much further.
We particularly like that you don’t need to use Opera’s own mobile browser (good though it is) to enjoy the increased speed and decreased data. Instead, Opera Max works with many of your favourite apps including Chrome, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram and eBay, although it’s not as effective with those that encrypt your data. On the upside, because it routes traffic through its own server, it can also be used as a VPN to access sites and services that are blocked in the UK. Also, if you find that Opera Max is adversely affecting your browsing, you can instantly turn its “savings” off.
Test the speed of your mobile connection
If browsing the web on your phone is painfully slow, or you’re sceptical that you’re getting the 4G speeds you’re paying for, you can use Ookla Speedtest.net (www.speedtest.net/mobile) to get the facts about your connection. Available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone, it’s the perfect tool for measuring the speed of your mobile connection, performing its upload and download tests in less than 30 seconds and producing reliable and precise results. Speedtest.net works over Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G and has an attractive speedometer interface with a large, one-tap button that makes it extremely easy to use. The only catch is that you need to pay 61p to remove the ads.
Alternatively, you could try GWS Speed App for Android (bit.ly/gwsandroid383) and iOS (bit.ly/gwsspeed383), which has the advantage of being ad-free, and offers an extra tool that measures how quickly your browser loads web pages. This helps you to determine whether to blame your Wi-Fi or mobile connection, or your default browser (meaning Safari in iOS) for sluggish internet speeds.
Block EU cookie banners on websites
Since the EU introduced its e-Privacy Directive in 2012, we’ve all got used to tedious warnings on websites about how they use cookies. On smaller screens, these alerts are particularly annoying and obstructive. If these cookie banners are significantly slowing down your mobile browsing experience, you can block them using the new iOS app Mr Crumble (bit.ly/mrcrumble383). This works in the background to automatically hide cookie notices, although you’ll need to be using Safari and iOS 9. To activate the app, go to Settings, Safari, Content Blockers and enable Mr Crumble.
Operate your phone faster using one hand
It’s a blight of modern life that when someone calls, texts or emails you while you’re in the middle of something, you need to stop whatever you’re doing – washing the dishes, playing the piano, juggling with flaming chainsaws – to free up both hands to answer them. The amazing Android app Omni Swipe (bit.ly/omni383) provides a nifty solution to this first-world problem by letting you operate your phone effortlessly using only one hand.
Once installed, it automatically detects your most recently and frequently used apps and places them in a simple menu that appears when you swipe from one of the bottom corners of your screen. This means you can view notifications and launch apps including Facebook, Email, WhatsApp, Messaging and Phone using the same finger or thumb, thus leaving your other hand free. Omni Swipe also has a handy (pardon the pun) Toolbox shortcut that gives you instant access to device settings including volume, brightness and Wi-Fi. It’s a smarter, speedier way to use your phone, which is ideal for people with accessibility problems.