How to Make Your iPhone Run Faster (iOS 17)

iPhones are designed to be fast and efficient, but daily use can wear them down. Lags, glitches, or app crashes can all start with a slow iPhone.

There are numerous actions that iPhone users have tried over the years to improve iPhone performance. Some are simple, and some require more tweaks. But which of them has the best chance to make an iPhone work faster?

Is It Possible to Make Any iPhone Work Faster?

One thing you should note before trying out any of our tips to make your iPhone run faster: The suitable methods to solve your problem will depend on your iPhone model (and age).

Newer iPhone models, such as the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 series, are equipped with the latest hardware and software configurations, requiring different upkeep.

For older models down to iPhone 5 or 6s, things like the storage space matter more to optimize the device’s performance and make it more responsive. In worse cases, the performance of much older iPhones might be more difficult to improve.

For a deeper understanding, take a look at this table with some of the most common factors affecting iPhone performance:

How to Make Any iPhone Work Faster

First, we picked the methods that will improve the performance and speed of any iPhone, regardless of model and age. Make it a habit to do these processes to keep your iPhone optimized.

Method 1: Close Resource-Heavy Apps

Background apps and processes use a significant part of your iPhone’s memory. If you have many apps open in the background, they will weigh down your device and eat up your memory.

Even newer models with significant memory can still be slowed down by uncontrolled background apps. Your iPhone will also send out a notification if you can no longer open another app because of low memory. The simple solution is to close resource-heavy apps, if not all apps, running in the background.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your screen to open the App Switcher.
   
2. For older models with a Home button, double-click the Home button to open the App Switcher.
3. Swipe up on the apps you want to close.
   

Note that while closing apps will free up device resources to make your iPhone load faster, it will take longer to load your app once you open it again.

Method 2: Restart Your iPhone

Restarting your iPhone is an easy and foolproof way to make iPhone run faster. Rebooting your device helps reset system processes, getting rid of minor lags or glitches. It also essentially closes all background apps and processes that may be causing your iPhone to slow down.

Follow these steps to restart your iPhone:

1. Press and hold the power button (and the volume button on models older than iPhone X and iPhones with FaceID) until the option to power off appears. Then, slide your finger through the power off option.
2. Once your device powers off, press and hold the power button again until it turns on.

Method 3: Perform Factory Reset

If your iPhone is still laggy after trying the previous methods, it might be time to consider factory resetting your phone.

A factory reset returns your device to its default software settings as if it were newly bought. However, this process also erases all the data from your phone. Because of this, we recommend proceeding with this method only after backing up your data.

Here’s how to perform a factory reset on your iPhone:

1. Go to your iPhone’s Settings
2. Tap General, then scroll down and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone (or “Reset” for iOS 14 and below).
   
3. Enter your passcode or Apple ID password if prompted.
4. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.
   

If you have a backup, you can also set up your iPhone from that backup after booting up.

How to Make iPhone Faster on Older Models

The following methods are better suited to make iPhone run smoother for older models. We focused on optimizing battery health and maintaining storage, as these are some of the more common issues with older models.

Method 1: Manage Battery Health

As your iPhone’s battery chemically ages, its battery health also decreases. The maximum battery life also affects your phone’s maximum available performance.

Here’s how to make iPhone faster by managing your battery life:

• Check your battery health: Regularly checking your battery health will inform you of charging and device use habits you can improve for better battery longevity. Simply go to Settings > Battery > Battery health & Charging. Apple will also notify you if it’s time to replace your battery.
• Use an Apple-approved charger: Using an Apple-approved charger ensures that your device is charged with proper wattage, thus helping keep your battery healthy.
• Avoid overheating your phone: Power-hungry processes can cause your iPhone to increase in temperature. Make sure to check your open apps to prevent overheating.
• Avoid fully charging or draining your phone: A good practice for maintaining your battery health is not charging it to 100% or letting it get to 0%. This way, you slow down battery degradation over time.

Note that the better battery health your iPhone has, the better its performance.

Method 2: Free Up Space to Improve System Performance

Your iPhone’s remaining free storage also impacts how efficiently your iPhone operates. If your storage space is almost full, cache and other temporary files and processes do not have enough storage, slowing down your device.

Here are several ways to free up space on your iPhone, which will help improve system performance:

• Clear app cache: Some iPhone apps have options in their settings to clear the cache (e.g., Facebook, Messenger). Navigate these apps manually to clear their cache.
• Clear browser cache: For browsers like Safari, you can clear the cache by going to Settings > Clear History and Website Data > Clear History.
• Offload or delete unused or unnecessary apps: Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. This option displays all your apps and the storage they take up. Select which ones to delete to free up space.
• Optimize storage: Optimizing iPhone storage in Photos allows your phone to save full-resolution photos and videos in your iCloud while keeping smaller versions on your device to save space.
• Delete downloaded content: Delete piled-up files in your Downloads by navigating to your Files app.
• Clean up old messages: Make it a habit to delete old messages, as they can occupy significant device storage over time.

How to Get New iPhones to Run Faster

Even the latest iPhone models can suffer from slow performance. If your new iPhone is experiencing this, we have some tips you can use in this section. While we tested it for newer models, these methods and practices can also work well on different iPhone models.

Method 1: Update iOS

To maintain optimal performance, iPhones are continuously improved with bug and security fixes through iOS updates. An example of this is Apple rolling down 14 iOS 17 updates for bug fixes and security updates. Not only that, software updates also push out new functionalities that may improve overall performance and optimize memory use.

Here are some best practices for keeping your iPhone up-to-date:

• Regularly check for software updates: To check if your iPhone has pending iOS updates to install, go to Settings > General > Software Update. Then, proceed to install any pending updates.
• Enable Automatic Updates: If you don’t want to check on iOS updates every time, you can also enable automatic updates to allow your iPhone to update your phone when you are not using it.

Method 2: Reduce Motion and Visual Effects

Newer iPhones are equipped with sleek animations that make way for smoother device navigation. However, these effects also consume your iPhone’s memory. Luckily, Apple allows you to reduce these effects to improve your device’s performance.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion.
   a. Reduce motion: Select Reduce Motion in the Motion menu. This reduces animations in the user interface, including parallax effects, among others.
   b. Reduce visual effects: in Accessibility > Motion, you can also toggle off settings like auto-play message effects, auto-play animated images, auto-play video previews, and even limit frame rate.

You can also toggle off other visual effects in Accessibility > Display & Text Size to improve your iPhone performance.

Method 3: Utilize Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode is a system option that extends your battery life by reducing background activity and user interface animations. Your iPhone will prompt you to enable Low Power Mode when your battery level drops to 20%, and it will automatically turn off once your iPhone is charged to 80% or higher.

Note that some tasks, such as alarm sounds, among others, might not work if this option is enabled. User interface animations such as perspective zoom of wallpapers will also be disabled in Low Power mode.

Use Low Power Mode to get your iPhone to run faster by doing the following:

1. Go to Settings > Battery.
2. Toggle the switch next to Low Power Mode to turn it on. The battery icon in the status bar will turn green, indicating that Low Power Mode is active.
   

You can also activate Low Power Mode using the Control Center. To do so, follow these steps:

1. On iPhone models with Face ID, swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen.
2. On iPhone models with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap the Low Power Mode icon (a battery icon) if it’s available. If you don’t see it, you can add it to the Control Center by going to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls and tapping the green plus icon next to Low Power Mode.
   

With limited functions, your device will use fewer system resources, boosting overall performance. You can always turn this option off in the same settings or include it in your shortcuts to access it more easily.