Your phone slows down. Not in a dramatic way, but enough that you notice the pause when you open an app. The keyboard takes a second too long to appear. You tap something and wait. It’s not broken, just sluggish.
There’s a simple reason this happens, and it has nothing to do with your phone getting old or needing an upgrade.
1. Why phones start feeling slow
Every time you open an app, your phone keeps it running in the background. The idea makes sense: if you switch back to that app, it loads instantly because it never really closed. But here’s what actually happens: your phone juggles dozens of these apps simultaneously, even ones you haven’t touched in hours.
Think about your typical morning. You check email, scroll social media, look at the weather, open a message, maybe start a game while waiting for coffee. By 9 AM, you have seven apps running. By noon, it’s fifteen. Your phone treats all of them like they might be needed any second, which means it’s constantly working to keep them ready.
This background juggling eats up the working memory your phone uses to function smoothly. When you try to open something new, your phone has to shuffle everything around to make room. That’s the lag you feel.
2. The change that fixes it
Close your apps. Actually close them, not just swipe away from them.
On an iPhone, swipe up from the bottom and hold briefly until you see all your open apps as cards. Swipe them up to close them. On Android, tap the square or three-line button (depending on your phone) and swipe away the apps you see.
The difference isn’t subtle. Your phone suddenly has breathing room. Apps open faster because your phone isn’t struggling to maintain a dozen others in memory. The keyboard appears when you tap a text field. Switching between apps feels smooth again.
3. What this actually does
When you close apps properly, you free up RAM, which is the temporary workspace your phone uses for active tasks. Imagine trying to cook in a kitchen where every counter is covered with half-finished projects. You can still cook, but you spend most of your time moving things around just to find space.
Your phone works the same way. Those background apps occupy mental space even when idle. Some of them refresh in the background, checking for new content. Others maintain active connections. A few might be running processes you started and forgot about. All of this creates overhead.
Clearing them out doesn’t delete anything or lose your data. It just tells your phone to stop maintaining those apps in active memory. When you open them again, they’ll start fresh, which takes an extra second or two but means your phone isn’t constantly managing them.
4. When to do this
You don’t need to close apps obsessively. Doing it once a day makes a noticeable difference, especially if you use your phone heavily. Some people do it every morning, others every night before charging. Find a rhythm that works.
Pay attention to when your phone feels sluggish. If you notice lag when typing or switching apps, that’s usually the moment to clear everything out. After a busy day of using navigation, streaming, messaging, and browsing, your phone accumulates significant overhead.
Certain apps are heavier than others. Social media apps, streaming services, and games tend to use more resources. If you’ve been using these intensively, closing them afterward helps more than closing lightweight apps like your calculator or notes.
5. Battery life improves too
Here’s an unexpected benefit: your battery lasts longer. Apps running in the background drain power, even when you’re not actively using them. Some check for updates constantly. Others maintain network connections or track your location.
When you close these apps, your phone stops spending energy on background processes. The effect varies depending on which apps you use, but people often notice their phone making it through the day with more charge remaining.
This isn’t a massive battery saving technique, but it’s noticeable enough to matter during long days when you’re away from a charger.
6. The apps that make the biggest difference
Navigation apps like Google Maps or Waze keep running in the background after you finish driving. They maintain GPS connections and process location data, which creates significant load on your system. Close these immediately when done.
Music and podcast apps sometimes continue background processes even after you stop playback. Video streaming apps can be similarly persistent. Games, especially online ones, often maintain connections to servers.
Social media apps refresh constantly, checking for new posts and notifications. Even when you’re not looking at them, they’re working. Email apps sync in the background, downloading new messages and attachments.
7. Your phone isn’t designed to close apps automatically
Phone manufacturers could build systems that aggressively close unused apps, but they don’t because the user experience would suffer. People expect apps to be right where they left them when they return. The compromise is letting apps stay open until resources run low, then closing older ones automatically.
The problem is this automatic management isn’t aggressive enough for heavy usage patterns. Your phone tries to be helpful by keeping everything ready, but it creates the sluggishness you’re trying to avoid. Taking manual control gives you the performance benefits without waiting for your phone to decide it needs to free up resources.
