Make your iPhone lightning fast again with this clever trick

When your iPhone has been around for a while, it may work a bit slower than you used to. It may help to clean up the RAM. OMT editor Sabine explains what you need to do to get your device working at lightning speed again.

Your iPhone may slow down when its RAM (Random Access Memory) is full. Here, the processor temporarily stores data, which makes your apps work. The amount of RAM on your iPhone is limited. For example, the iPhone 14 has 6GB of RAM. This is often lower with older devices. When the RAM is full, the system will no longer run at full speed.

Clean up RAM on your iPhone

Is your iPhone slower than usual? Then try to clean up your RAM. First you need to enable AssistiveTouch (unless you have a device with a physical home button). Open the settings and press Accessibility. Go to Touch and switch Assistive Touch in. Press the round ball that appears on the screen. The bottom option is the home button. You’ll need those later.

Unlock your iPhone and press the following buttons in quick succession: first the top volume button, then the bottom volume button, then press and hold the power button. It’s not rocket science, but it has to be done right.

Just a few more steps

When successful, you will only see a slider to turn off the device. If you try to switch off the device in a normal way, there is also an SOS button. It is now missing. Then long press the home button (on newer iPhones via AssistiveTouch).

Then enter your access code to unlock your iPhone again. At this moment the RAM of your device has been cleaned up. To check whether it really worked, swipe up from the bottom. Normally you can then switch between apps that run in the background. These should now be cleared (and hopefully you’ll notice the difference already).