Tech

Spring Is Here! It’s Time to Tidy up That iPhone!

Spring cleaning isn’t solely reserved for your junk-filled basement or overstuffed closet. You can spend time giving your tech some TLC after you’ve done your dusting, sweeping and reorganizing around the house. Start with the device that you use every single day: your iPhone.

Wipe Away the Mess

The most obvious mess will be on the outside. Fingerprint smudges all over the screen. Smears from being pressed against a sweaty cheek. Scuff marks from being stuffed into a pocket full of keys and loose change. Needless to say, your iPhone has seen better days.

The best way to clean your iPhone screen properly is to use a microfiber cloth and rub it in circular motions to remove fingerprints. For smudges and smears, lightly moisten the microfiber cloth with water and then repeat the same circular technique. It’s important to turn off the device before you do any cleaning.

If you want to get rid of phone scratches and scuff marks you can dab a little bit of toothpaste onto the affected area and rub it with a cotton swab in circular motions. When the mark disappears, remove the toothpaste with a slightly damp microfiber cloth.

Cover It Up

Once you’ve managed to clean up the screen, you should give it some coverage. You don’t want to put in all that effort, only for it to get smeared and scuffed up by the end of the week. Save yourself the grief by getting a trusty screen protector.

You can also order a high-quality skin to cover the back neatly. It will guard the surface against scrapes, scratches and irritations.

If you have irreparable cosmetic damage that can’t be fixed by a bit of scrubbing, you can always use the skin to hide the problem area. The small change could make the entire smartphone look brand new — just check out these options to see what kind of skins suit your personal style. Pick from designs like an intense black camo, a classic white marble or a bold red carbon fiber.

Get Rid of the Clutter

It’s hard to admit that you’re a hoarder. You may not have boxes of junk covering your floors at home, but your iPhone is jam-packed with things you haven’t opened in ages. Why are you keeping that exercise app that you used once and then ignored completely? Why haven’t you gotten rid of those accidental photos you snapped of the insides of your coat pocket? It’s time to let go of all of this digital mess.

If you don’t know where to start, think of the motto of cleaning-expert Marie Kondo from The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up and the Netflix show Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. She tells clients to ask themselves whether an object “sparks joy” or not. If it doesn’t, it’s time to thank the specific object and then let it go. It will take time, but you will feel much better when you have an organized display and freed up storage space.

The approach might be too slow-going for someone like you. If you can’t trust yourself to go through the clean-up patiently, you can use an app like Remove Master to help you pare down an overfilled camera roll. The app lets you browse through the camera roll, giving you the option to swipe left to trash it or right to keep it. It’s like Tinder, but for your photos!

Another app that can help you whittle down your overstuffed camera roll is Gemini Photos developed by the experts at MacPaw. The app uses an algorithm to find photos that you will probably want to toss like duplicates, blurry images and screenshots.

Remember that your pics won’t be completely wiped off of the phone when you hit delete. They will go to the “Recently Deleted” folder. To immediately get rid of the photos and get that sweet storage space, go to the recently deleted folder and click “Delete all.”

You can spend more time cleaning if you want. Delete old text messages. Clear out phone numbers that you don’t need to have sitting in your contacts, like the ex you don’t want to talk to anymore. Run updates that you’ve ignored for weeks. With enough patience, you could have a completely different iPhone by the end of the day.

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