December is coming to an end and 2023 will be here in just a few weeks. With the holidays fast approaching, the end of the month is a great time to sit down and do some maintenance on your iPhone to get ready for the new year.
If you’re like many of us here mike rumorsyou’ve got a lot of photos to clean up, old apps to delete, contacts to purge, and more, so we thought we’d round up some helpful tips for organizing and optimizing your iPhone to save space and make your device feel less confusion.
clear old photos
I bought a house this year and I have about a thousand photos of peeling paint on the ceiling, marks on the floor, fallen trees, weathering of the crawl space, overflowing rain gutters, and dozens of other small homes in one shot question. If you’re in the same situation, now is a good time to organize those images into albums, pull them from your iPhone into a dedicated album on your Mac or other device, or delete them.
On an iPhone, just open the Photos app, select anything you don’t want, and use the share sheet to add it to your camera roll or delete it. You can also move it to an app like the Files app to keep a copy that doesn’t mess up your Photos app, which is what I do.
iOS 16 adds a handy feature for merging contacts when you have duplicate contacts. Just open the Contacts app and it will let you know at the top if there are any duplicates and merge them with a tap.
If you have old contacts you no longer talk to, this is also a good time to review and delete anything not relevant to cleaning out your contact list.
remove unused apps
Apple gives you a number of ways to get rid of apps you no longer use, but perhaps the most effective is to simply open the Settings app, go to General, and select iPhone storage. From there, you can see what’s taking up a lot of space, and you can get rid of things you no longer use to save home screen space and storage space on your iPhone.
delete old messages
Old iMessages, especially those with lots of images, can take up a lot of space. As you delete apps, check Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Info to see which apps are taking up the most space. From there, tap a category like Photos or Videos to delete old content.
Note that photos and videos may take some time to load.
Clean up old reminders and notes
While browsing photos, messages, and unused apps, it might also be a good idea to clear old notes and reminders from those apps separately.
I’m especially bad at mastering Notes, which can get cluttered with content I no longer need. Not a big deal, but it’s nice to clear out every now and then. Deleting a note is as easy as opening the Notes app and swiping left, and the same goes for Reminders.
Check your notification settings
During the year, it’s easy to download apps, forget about them, and clear the unwanted notifications you start getting that you don’t really need. Deleting apps can do the trick, but you may want to keep apps that don’t require notifications.
In Settings > Notifications, you can manage all apps and decide which ones can send notifications and which ones can’t. Clearing notifications can be less distracting, and it’s also useful to add apps to the app feed so you only hear from them once a day.
Check battery usage
It’s a good idea to check your battery usage from time to time so you can see which apps are draining your battery life and where you’re spending your time to see if there’s anything you can change.
Under Settings > Battery, you can see your app usage for the past 24 hours and the past 10 days, as well as a breakdown of which apps are using the most battery life. It will let you know if your battery is draining from active use or background activity, which can be helpful if you’re looking to get the most out of your battery.
If you have apps like Photos or Weather updating in the background when you don’t need them, you can turn off background updates. Go to General > Background App Refresh to turn on Background Refresh on a per-app basis.
more tips
You can delve into more admin categories, with some organization and update suggestions below.
- Browse files in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Box, or any other cloud service you use.
- Clean out your email inbox, delete old emails to save space and get inbox zero.
- Check 1Password or your password management app to update any old passwords, close old accounts, or delete data you no longer need.
- Rearrange apps into folders for a more organized “Home Screen”.
- Go through your Home screen and Lock screen widgets to make sure everything is still relevant and there is nothing unused.
- Update your location in the weather app to clear out old resorts or other weather information you don’t need.
- Update your favorites in the map.
- Update your Apple Music playlists.
- Update all applications and ensure software updates are installed on all devices.
- Install the HomeKit firmware update on any devices that need an update.
Any suggestions?
What’s on your year-end iPhone maintenance and update checklist? Let us know in the comments below.
