How To Declutter Your Phone: Top Tips

The Best Ways to Declutter Your Phone

What’s the one thing you will always have with you? Your phone.

Even if you were at a nude beach without clothes, you’d still have your phone. Our phones have become so much a part of our daily lives that the mere thought of being without it is enough to drive most people crazy.

We all use our phones for everything. It truly is integral for our daily (and nightly) lives. But how can you declutter your phone? Is it nice and neat and easy to find what you need? Or is it just a straight up mess?

Below are some of the easiest ways you can declutter your phone right now.

Delete All Those Unused Apps

I bet if you looked through your phone right now you would find at least a few apps you either have never used, or used once.

There are people who have hundreds of apps on their phones but still stick to the same ten apps. MADNESS.

Do you know how many paint by number games I had on my phone? Apparently I had planned on getting really high and painting a lot of pictures on my phone. Let me tell you, 4 of the 5 apps I had downloaded had never been used. 
I hadn’t even made an account or synced it to my Facebook. This is what I’m talking about!

Just like with our homes, when there is too much clutter we simply throw out the trash – so why aren’t we doing it with our phones?

Deleting and uninstalling those apps you never used is a good place to start when organizing your phone. Chances are, you won’t miss them at all!

But here’s the good news, if you do end up needing the app again? Just simply redownload it!

Go Through Your Photos

I already have this whole conspiracy story where we take photos on our phones and never go back and look at them, but that’s another post for another day.

There was some statistic that says we take more pictures in two minutes than the entire world took in the 1800’s. Whether or not that’s true I’m not sure… but I do know that we take a LOT of pictures.

Picture memory can be a big clutter source on your phone.

I’m not telling you to delete the baby’s first steps pictures or the ones from that concert you enjoyed so much. I’m telling you to go through and delete the duplicate and accidental photos.

You can’t tell me I’m the only one who uses their phone as a flashlight when walking out to their car and suddenly I have 14 pictures of my driveway.

Delete the driveway pictures!

One thing I do is back all of the photos on my phone to Google Photos and then once I have confirmation that they are backed up, I simply delete them off my phone. It’s a simple but very crucial part when you set out to declutter your phone.

Why don’t I use Apple’s storage system? Because 1. I ran out of storage with my phone’s photo app approximately two weeks into having my phone and 2. You have to buy additional storage with Apple. Google Photos is free and unlimited!

I will say that I did notice a difference in the speed and performance of my phone. At one point I had over a thousand images on my phone (that I never looked at). Once I sat down and filed through each individual picture and deleted hundreds, my phone was working better than ever!

Delete Downloads

Did you even know that your downloads folder on your phone can take up so much space? Each time you download an attachment from an email or a file from the internet, it saves it in your downloads folder.

Never know you could do this? Me either! I’ve looked up the ways to delete these downloads on both Apple and Android phones:

Android Phones:

Launch the files app and select “phone files”
Once you scroll through the list of folders, find and select your “download” folder
(this is where all the files you’ve downloaded on your phone will be)
Long press with your finger, and simply delete

Apple Phones:

Go into your phone’s Settings and then click on general
Scroll until you see “choose storage & icloud usage”
Tap on the Manage Storage option and find the app that includes the downloaded files you want to delete.
Then simply, delete.

Have you ever tried this method when you go to declutter your phone? I never had even heard of it until I was bored and messing around on my phone. If you come across any more space savers, send me an email!

Organize & Declutter Your Bookmarks

I cannot tell you all of the things I have bookmarked on my phone, because I do it all the time. I honestly can’t think of more than a few very particular instances where I actually went back to my bookmarked pages.

See we tend to save these things with the full intention of going back and looking at them, except we almost never do.

If you want to keep your bookmarks, try organizing them by files. That way you can have particular places where you go to look at things you have bookmarked!

You can also utilize apps for your bookmarks and not rely on your phone’s memory. I am trying to move all my bookmarks over to my Pinterest because I use it so often, but it’s a work in progress! Look into apps like this or Pocket to start saving your bookmarks in a more convenient way!

Finally Unsubscribe From Email Lists That You Don’t Use

How many times have you checked your email just to see three new subscriber emails? I typically delete them with a fit of rage, until I finally just started unsubscribing.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes getting emails sends my nervous system into shut down mode. It’s like my own body doesn’t want to adult!

But then when I realize that notification is just some junk post email, I’m almost mad at myself that I haven’t unsubscribed from them yet!

Pro Tip: Each time you get or sign up for a company’s newsletter go in and adjust your preferences. Sometimes you may sign up just for the coupon, so utilize the coupon and unsubscribe.

Get Rid of the Rest of the Junk!

You know that call log that is full of your missed calls and outgoing FaceTimes? Delete them.

All of the voicemails you didn’t want to listen to in the first place but seem to still have? Delete Them.

Those text message logs from late 2018 that you keep for some reason? DELETE THEM.

There is so much unnecessary clutter on your phone that you will probably never access again. Those are the things you should delete! You can even delete those old contacts you never talk to.

Like I had three different numbers saved for my pain clinic… that I don’t go to anymore… that’s on the other side of the country. I deleted all three!

If You Are Brave Enough… Factory Reset

I preface this option with the ‘brave’ comment because I have done everything on my list, except a complete factory reset.

I know everything on my phone is backed up and safe, and I probably could benefit from completely starting over… but I just can’t!

However, if you aren’t scared like me or are a fire sign, resetting your phone to factory settings can be a great way to completely eliminate clutter. This will ensure when you redownload things you are only downloading what you want and need on a daily basis, and nothing else.

Keep your eyes open for the next post in my phone series on How To Organize your newly decluttered phone!