10 Ways to Speed Up a Slow iPhone and Reduce Lag

If you are one of those iPhone users who are looking for ways to speed up their slow devices and reduce lag, then we are here for you.

There are different issues that can cause an iPhone to perform slowly or lag. The most common one is aging, and this doesn't affect only iPhones. Just like many other smartphones today, the iPhone comes with more cores, better GPUs, and more RAM, which greatly improves performance compared to older hardware.

Although these hardware components can cause your phone to slowdown, in this modern time, performance problems may be due to software problems. These problems include bugs in iOS, which is the iPhone’s operating system.

It is important to note that Apple generally supports iPhones for a period of seven years from when the device was first manufactured. This support will cover software updates and also service for items like batteries or replacement displays.

10 Ways to Speed Up Your Slow iPhone

Follow any of the steps below to fix the problem of a slow or laggy iPhone.

1. Disable Low Power Mode

Just like other mobile devices, the iPhone comes with a Low Power Mode (LPM) that helps preserve battery life. In most cases, this mode can affect the performance of your iPhone.

You can benchmark your device with LPM enabled and without to see the difference. Follow the steps below to disable LPM on your device.

1. First, go to Settings > Battery.
2. Then disable Low Power Mode. (You can also disable it by automating it as a shortcut or from the Control Center.)

2. Replace the Battery

Your battery health can determine the performance of your iPhone, and batteries only last a few years under regular use. This means you always need to keep a close eye on how you use your battery.

To check the current health of your battery, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. You should check the "Performance Capability" area to see if it is at "Peak Performance Capability." If not, then your iPhone might be encountering slowdown related to the battery.

3. Free Up Some Space

Smartphones tend to perform better when there is enough space for some major applications to function. Although Apple doesn’t specify a minimum amount of spare space that you should have available on your device, you should always have enough free space in order to avoid the error "Your iPhone ran out of space."

You can monitor your storage by going to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. You can also free up some space by deleting your internet cache from Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data.

4. Disable Transparency and Motion Effects

If you are operating an older iPhone that lags, then you will need to use transparency because such devices have less powerful graphics capabilities. You can do this from Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and enable "Reduce Transparency."

Another aspect is the motion effects, which include the cool looking animations that play when you access the home screen. You can disable this under Settings > Accessibility > Motion by enabling the “Reduce Motion” toggle.

5. Remove Your Widgets

You can try removing your widgets like weather forecast or stock information, especially custom widgets that pull data from different sources and the use of custom icons that slow down performance on your iPhone.

6. Erase Your Device

You can consider erasing your iPhone if the lag is too much. This will delete everything on your iPhone, but you can always restore it from an iCloud or iTunes backup. You can do this from Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone.

Then you can go ahead and choose “Erase All Content and Settings” if you have made up your mind to lose some of your files.

I won't recommend this method, but if you suspect a software issue, then this is one of the best ways to resolve it.

7. Do A Hard Reboot

A hard reboot might also help reduce lag if the standard method of properly restarting your iPhone doesn't work. Some users claim that they have seen performance gains after having to “hard” reboot their devices.

Before trying this out, keep in mind that this could lead to data loss in some apps. To be on the safe side, you can backup your iPhone to iCloud to avoid worrying about any loss. 

To force restart a newer model iPhone with no home button, press and release volume up, press and release volume down, press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo.

For the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, press and hold the volume down and side button until you see the Apple logo.

For an iPhone 6s or older, press and hold the power and home buttons until you see the Apple logo.

8. Update Your iPhone

You can choose to update your phone to fix bugs that cause performance issues, but you need to understand that, in most cases, upgrading your device can come with some problems, especially on older devices.

For example, if you are going from iOS 14 to iOS 15, you might experience some issues until Apple rolls out the inevitable stability fixes.

To update your iPhone, head to Settings > General > Software Update and install any outstanding patches.

9. Rescan Your Face or Fingerprint

If your issue has to do with lag when unlocking your device, then this can mean that your iPhone is already aging. You can re-scan your fingerprints or face to see if this problem is solved.

To re-scan your Face ID, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode.

To re-scan your fingerprint, go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode.

10. Take Your iPhone to Apple

You can choose to take your iPhone to Apple for them to run diagnostics on your device to catch any obvious issues. You don't need to worry about being charged unless you agree to have work done on your device.

That's all. You should be able to speed up your iPhone with one or more of the methods listed above.

To avoid fake parts that can damage your device, we recommend taking your device to Apple for any replacement, such as a battery.

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