Top 11 Best Customization Tips to Boost Your iPhone's Performance

If your iPhone's storage is nearly full—like the image below showing almost no free space—removing apps you no longer use can significantly improve performance in certain areas and speed up your older iPhone.

Additionally, many apps run in the background, consuming precious resources, such as background app refresh. Uninstalling unused apps can be an effective solution to increase battery life and make your device smoother.

Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Here, you'll find a list of all apps and the space they occupy, sorted from largest to smallest.

For most apps, simply tap on the app and select 'Delete App' to uninstall it. You can also do this directly from the home screen, but this view helps you see how much storage you're freeing up. Some apps, like Podcasts, offer the option to delete the data stored within them.

The "Background App Refresh" feature can drain valuable resources on your device. Fortunately, you can turn it off. Disabling it means the apps won’t update their data in the background unless you open them manually.

Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Here, you have two options: disable it for individual apps or turn it off entirely. Try disabling it for each app to see how it impacts your device’s performance. If it doesn't help, consider turning it off for all apps at once.

While the message section itself doesn't slow down your mobile device, many users have found that storing hundreds or thousands of text messages can cause the messaging app to lag. After all, that's a lot of data to index. So, if the app starts feeling sluggish, it's often better to clear out some messages.

To delete a single message, swipe left to reveal the Delete button, or delete multiple messages by tapping the Edit button in the corner and selecting the messages you want to remove.

However, you might prefer to limit your message history by deleting messages after a certain time period. Open the Settings app on your iPhone, scroll down and tap Messages, then tap Keep Messages to limit your message history to either one year or 30 days.

Spotlight Search is a lightweight utility that uses minimal device resources. Disabling Siri suggestions that appear while searching can help improve your device’s speed.

Open the Settings app and tap Siri & Search to find these settings. Scroll down to the Siri Suggestions section to access these options. Similar to background app refresh, you can choose to disable suggestions for individual apps or turn them off all at once.

Adjusting these settings is up to you—if you find this feature useful, you can keep it. But if you don’t need the suggestions, you can turn them off.

Background apps are one of the biggest culprits when it comes to slowing down your device. This means you should make a habit of closing apps after use by double-clicking the Home button and swiping up on the apps you're no longer using to completely shut them down.

Running outdated software on your iPhone can slow down the device significantly. The latest updates are designed to enhance processing speed. Therefore, whenever you receive a notification about a new update, make sure to install it immediately.

Give your iPhone a break by restarting it after a few days of use, or even turn it off completely to let it rest. Additionally, you can help restore the battery by charging it to 100%, using it until it hits 0%, and then charging it back to 100% once more.

Resetting the settings on your device is another option worth considering. In the Settings app, you can reset your iPhone's settings by selecting Reset in the General section and clicking Reset All Settings. This will restore your iPhone to its factory settings without losing any data.

If none of the above methods work, you may need to erase all content and settings on your iPhone to start fresh. Go to Settings > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Keep in mind that this will erase all of your data, so be sure to back it up before proceeding.

Have you tried turning your device off and on again? It might sound simple, but we all know that restarting a device is often the best way to resolve issues. To do this, press and hold the power button until the “Slide to power off” slider appears, turn off the device, and then restart it.

Graphics can drain your device's performance. On newer iPhones and iPads, everything seems smooth and fast, but over time, you may notice lag or stuttering. To improve this, go to Settings and then navigate to General > Accessibility.

Here, you'll find two options that can help boost your iPhone's performance: Increase Contrast and Reduce Motion. Enabling these will minimize unnecessary animations, such as the parallax effect on the home screen.

While Apple doesn't allow you to completely disable all effects on your iPad or iPhone, you can reduce them to make the device run more smoothly.

Start by enabling Increase Contrast, then turn on Reduce Transparency. This will remove the transparent effects in the UI (user interface), such as the Control Center. Reducing transparency eases the load on your device, helping it perform better by using fewer resources.