Forget the closets for a minute. The best spring cleaning you can do this year starts with the device in your pocket. No heavy lifting, no dust, and you can do it from the couch.
Spend an intentional 30 minutes and run through my list of what to clean up on your phone. You’ll be rewarded with more storage space, less digital clutter, and maybe even a faster phone.
Let’s Start with Your Photos
Take a moment to review the shots from a recent event and pick your best ones. Now delete the duplicates and blurry shots. Maybe even create an album to add these to so you can find them faster when you want to show one to a friend.
You might be able to use a built-in tool to help you find the duplicate photos. iPhone automatically groups duplicate photos into a dedicated folder called “Duplicates”. It will show you the duplicates with the date taken. Tap ‘merge’ to combine identical shots, keeping the highest quality version while moving extras to “Recently Deleted”.
Android phones use the Files by Google app to manage duplicate photos. The app scans for identical files and allows you to delete them to save space, often labeling the original. Samsung devices use a similar native feature in the “My Files” app under “Analyze Storage”.
Review Your Screenshots
If you are anything like me, these pile up quickly. But, usually, I don’t need to keep any of them long term. Look for a filter that will show you all your screenshots so you can easily review them.
Next, Look at Your Apps
Go to settingsàstorage (works on both iPhone and Android) to see which apps are taking up the most space. A good rule of thumb – if you haven’t opened an app in six months, it’s probably safe to delete it. Of course, you can always reinstall an app easily if you find you do need it down the road.
While we are thinking about our apps, now is a good time to review apps that have access to your location, camera, microphone, or contacts. This matters for both privacy and battery life.
Think of your phone as a filing cabinet that holds all your important records – photos, contacts, banking info, notes, location history.
Each time you install an app, it’s like hiring a contractor to help with a specific task. App permissions are the drawers you unlock for them.
If you hire someone to organize recipes, they only need access to the “Recipes” folder. They don’t need your tax returns, medical records, or family photos. If you unlock every drawer just because they asked, you’ve given away far more than necessary.
The process is simple: open only the drawer required for the job. Close it again when the job is done.
Most people hand over the whole cabinet out of convenience. You don’t have to.
App permissions affect your battery life because they determine how frequently apps are allowed to run in the background – activating sensors, connecting to networks, and pulling data even when you’re not actively using them.
Both iPhone and Android offer control over these settings in their respective “Settings” menus. Android uses a centralized “Permission Manager” and the iPhone settings can be found under the “Privacy & Security” sections.
Clean Up Your Inbox
If you did any online shopping for the holidays, you may have a buildup of emails from the sites you purchased from. Now is a good time to unsubscribe from the ones you are not reading. To clean up further, scan your inbox, find one, and then do a search so all the emails from that sender come up. You can select all of them and delete them.
System Updates
Do you keep up with your phone operating system updates? Usually these are installed automatically, but if yours have not, you should update them now. These updates patch important security holes and are necessary to keep everything running smoothly.
If you pick just one or two of these tasks and do them tonight instead of scrolling on your phone, you’ll feel accomplished and have a cleaner, lighter phone. And you didn’t have to get out a mop and a bucket!
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Have you developed the habit to regularly clean up your phone? Which of the above do you do once a month?
