Time for Spring Cleaning Your Phone
Got too many apps? The average person has 80 on their phone but use just 9–10 daily. Spring’s the perfect time to declutter, boost speed and simplify your phone.
NEW YORK – How many apps do you have on your phone? More importantly, how many do you actually use? If you’re like most smartphone users, the number of installed apps far exceeds the ones you tap on daily – or even weekly, making Spring time a great time to delete mobile apps you no longer need.
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A study from buildfire.com found that 88% of mobile time is spent on apps. While the average person has 80 apps installed on their phone, they only use about 9-10 apps daily and 30 of them monthly. That means that more than half of your apps are likely cluttering your screens and possibly slowing down your device.
Spring is the perfect time for a digital reset. Just as you’d tidy up your home or workspace, taking a few minutes to clean up your phone’s screen and free up space can make it easier to find what you need when you need it.
Here’s how to quickly delete unnecessary apps, reorganize the ones you do use, and streamline your phone for a more efficient daily experience.
Why decluttering your phone makes a difference
Beyond making your home screen look more polished, there are several essential benefits to cleaning up the apps on your phone:
- Faster performance: Some apps continue running in the background, eating up processing power and slowing your device.
- More storage space: Unused apps take up valuable storage, limiting room for important files, videos, and updates.
- Reduced distractions: An overload of apps can make it harder to focus, forcing you to scroll through multiple screens to find what you need.
- Better battery life: Many apps drain your battery even when you’re not actively using them, especially those with push notifications.
Taking 10 minutes to spring clean your phone can help you work more efficiently, communicate faster, and reduce unnecessary digital noise.
Step 1: Find out which apps you use and which you don’t
Before you start deleting, it helps to check which apps you don’t use very often. Fortunately, both iPhones and Android devices provide insights into app usage.
On iPhone
Apple makes it easy to check your app activity:
- Open Settings (gear icon).
- Tap General > iPhone Storage.
- Wait for the list of apps to load—this ranks them by how much storage they use.
Beneath each app, you’ll see the last time you used it. If you see apps that haven’t been opened in six months – or ever – those are candidates for removal.
On Android
Android users can track app usage through Digital Wellbeing & parental controls:
- Open Settings.
- Go to Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > Dashboard.
This screen shows how much time you’ve spent on each app in the past day, week, or month.
If an app has barely registered any activity, it’s probably time to delete it.
Step 2: Delete unused apps quickly
Once you’ve identified apps you don’t use, it’s time to delete them in seconds:
On iPhone: Press and hold the app icon, tap Remove app, then tap Delete App to confirm.
On Android: Press and hold the app icon, select Uninstall, and confirm.
Want to free up space without deleting the app entirely?
For iPhone users, there’s an option to offload unused apps while keeping their data:
- Go to Settings > App Store.
- Toggle on Offload Unused Apps.
This removes the app from your phone but keeps its documents and data in case you reinstall it later.
Step 3: Organize the apps you keep
Now that you’ve decluttered, it’s time to organize your home screen for faster access to the tools you use daily.
Option 1: Use multiple home screens
Instead of keeping all your apps on one screen, consider creating a structured layout:
Screen 1: Daily essentials (phone, messaging, email, calendar, camera)
Screen 2: Marketing and social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Canva)
Screen 3: Work-specific apps (MLS tools, transaction management, e-signing tools, note-taking apps, translators, AI chatbots, etc.)
Screen 4: Personal apps (banking, entertainment, shopping, travel)
By grouping apps by function, you’ll be able to navigate your phone more efficiently.
Option 2: Create folders for easier access
Grouping similar apps into folders reduces clutter while keeping everything within reach. Here are some real estate-friendly folder ideas:
Real estate tools: MLS, Showing apps, Form Simplicity, CRM tools
Marketing and social media: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Canva, video editing apps
Finance and transactions: Banking, mortgage calculators, QuickBooks, Venmo
Navigation & travel: Google Maps, Waze, Ride Share, airline apps, hotel apps
Productivity & notes: Notes, Google Keep, Microsoft Teams, Zoom
Pro tip: Place your most-used apps on the bottom row of your home screen (your dock) for quick access.
Step 4: Maintain a clutter-free, organized phone year-round
Once your phone is organized, keeping it that way takes minimal effort. Try these habits:
- Set a reminder to review your apps every new season: Delete what you no longer use.
- Limit notifications: Disable notifications from non-essential apps to reduce distractions.
- Use cloud storage: Save photos and files to Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud to avoid reduce on device storage.
- Restart your phone weekly: A quick restart helps clear temporary files and keeps it running smoothly.
Need tech support? Tech Helpline can help
If you run into any challenges with your springtime digital reset, Tech Helpline is your best resource. Tech Helpline supports more than 730,000 real estate pros across North America, offering Associations, MLSs, and brokerages unlimited tech support via chat, email, or phone. If you need help and have Tech Helpline as a member benefit, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Source: Tech HelpLine
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