iPhone lagging? Clear your cache and RAM to speed it up
Have you ever had issues with your smartphone to the point where you considered buying a new one? You’re browsing through websites or using your everyday apps and you notice a lag, for example. This kind of slowdown can creep into your phone’s other functions as well, bringing everything to a crawl.
One main culprit when it comes to speed and performance issues is your browser’s cache. The same thing can happen on your computer. Tap or click here for ways to speed up your browser’s performance on a PC or Mac, too.
Clearing up your phone’s RAM is another method to improve performance. Whenever you clear your iPhone’s RAM, you’re basically resetting your device so you can make room for more data and processing power. We’ll show you how.
How to clear your Safari cache, history and cookies
Caches are forms of memory storage on your iPhone that make it easier for you to access information or data if you would like to come back to it later.
Safari cache is made up of files, passwords, images and more. History is simply your past browser data, while cookies are text files that are used to identify specific users or computers. Note: When you clear your cache, you may lose some info, like saved game stats or saved passwords.
To clear your Safari history and cookies on your iPhone, do the following:
- Open settings and select Safari.
- Scroll down and tap Clear History and Website Data > Clear History and Data.
To clear your cookies only but keep your history, take the following steps:
- Open settings and select Safari.
- Scroll down and tap Advanced.
- Hit Website Data > Remove All Website Data.
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How to clear your iPhone’s RAM
An iPhone’s RAM, or random-access memory, is a type of memory that is used to understand a device’s performance. It’s basically short-term memory used for data storage — and it can get full from time to time.
If your phone is freezing or just slow, clearing your RAM may speed things back up.
To clear your iPhone’s RAM for models of iPhone 7 and below, take these steps:
- Press down on the Sleep/Wake button.
- As soon as the slide to power off button shows up, release the Sleep/Wake button.
- Press and hold down on the Home button.
- If you correctly followed the steps, you’ll see the lock screen.
- Enter your passcode to unlock your phone.
For iPhone versions 8 and later, you’ll need to take a few extra septs to clear your RAM:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch.
- Toggle on AssistiveTouch. You’ll see a circular button appear on your screen.
- Press the volume up and volume down buttons then press and hold the side button in quick succession.
- Hold the side button until you get a shutdown menu without a slider to power off your phone. That’s how you know you did it right.
- Tap the AssisstiveTouch button.
- Tap and hold the Home button that appears in the popup menu.
- You should be back at your lock screen.
- Enter your passcode to unlock your phone.
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Tags: Apple, Apple AirTags, Apple iPhone, Apple iPhone 7, Apple Safari, apps, browser, Cache, cookies, history, lag, large files, lock screen, memory, performance, RAM, smartphones, speed, tracker, unlock
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