Most of us are guilty of storing unused apps, thousands of images, emails, and texts and all this ‘junk’ results in a slower running glitchy device. A few simple housekeeping tasks can really give your smartphone a new lease of life, so we’ve put together a handy guide to help you clean up your act!

Delete Unused Apps
It's easy to forget the many apps you download to your smartphone, they just sit there in your phone, unloved and taking up valuable space. A good rule of thumb would be to delete apps you haven’t used in over a month.
It’s a great idea to organise your remaining apps into folders, making them easy to access. Put you most used apps on your homepage so they’re always right on hand. 

Have a Clearout of your Contacts
Just like when you go through your social media contacts and get rid of people you no longer connect with you should do the same with your contacts on your smartphone. Often people change phone numbers and you end up with duplicate details which makes contacting people very confusing. Go through your list carefully and delete unneeded (or unwanted) contacts.

Store and Delete Photos
All those videos and photos you take on your phone are precious memories but how often do you look at tem? Take some time to go through your photos and videos and delete anything you don’t want before storing everything else on your computer, storage device or the cloud.

Tidy up your Texts
Texts (especially ones that contain memes, pictures and videos) take up a lot of memory so it makes good sense to have a good clear out of read messages. Once you’re on top of it try to get into the habit of deleting read messages more often if you can. This includes WhatsApp, archive or delete old groups.

Location Tracking = Battery Draining
Apps that track your location will drain your phone’s battery so ensure only  necessary apps have location tracking authorised. You can check this in your settings.

Clear the Cache
The amount of time we spend on the internet on our smartphones is ever increasing which means the cache is increasing as well. This can cause your phone to run slower so it’s good practice to periodically empty the cache. Check your specific device for information on how to clear the cache and get your phone up to full speed again.

Check for Updates
Make sure your phone is running the latest version of software to ensure you have the latest security and any new features available. Keeping your phone updated will ensure it’s running at its best and give it a new lease of life!
 
Final tip- make sure you regularly clean your phone (especially the screen). A lint free cloth and lens cleaning solution will have your phone looking pristine in no time!
 
If your smartphone is in need of more technical help or you are you would like further help and advice contact us here.

These days, we take lots of photographs on our phones, or tablets. It’s great to sit and flick through them, or show them to family and friends BUT what happens when you have so many pictures, the memory is full. You don’t want to lose them, so the best thing to do is to transfer those photos to your computer which is likely to have more storage, or to the cloud. Your precious images will then be in a good place for editing, sharing, and saving.

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There are lots of combinations of devices, so this blog will point you to some excellent resources on YouTube – videos to show you how to transfer pictures to your computer or the cloud, step by step.
 
There are three types of phone on the UK market at the moment: Android, Windows and iPhone. Each have their own operating system, and will work in a particular fashion. Most Windows phones are Nokia branded. iPhones all use iOS software. Android phones are sold by many brands, e.g. Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, Nokia, Motorola… and several others. They all work in a very similar way.
 
Android, Windows and iPhone phones
Transferring to a Windows 10 computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsYelI4cevk
 
Iphones
Transferring to a Windows computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBgkiszP88Y
 
Transferring to a Mac computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7nFgWC-MmI
 
Windows Phone
Transferring to a Mac computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14NXr_Q2yXo 
(You might want to skip to 2mins 50 secs through this video, where the real info begins.)
 
Once you have transferred to your computer, don’t forget to back up the computer too. You can find some ideas about backing up here:

The data we keep on our computers is precious. Things like photographs, videos, letters and other documents are sitting on our hard drives, so they’re safe – aren’t they?

​Well yes, but what if your hard drive develops a fault, or you drop your laptop in the bath? Often that means waving goodbye to all that important stuff but these days there are several ways to
improve the odds by saving your data in another place. 

1. CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs
2. USB Sticks or Flash Drives
3. External Hard Drives
4. Cloud Storage
5. Social Media

 
It’s a good idea to use a combination of methods – belt and braces, so that if one fails you have another copy too. Each have their pros and cons but all of these are better than losing your files forever.
 
CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
These are useful for backing up documents. Of the three, only a Blu-ray disc can hold a larger number of photos. These can be easily stored or sent through the post – for instance a wedding album is easy to share in this way. Beware though, these discs don’t last for ever and you should think about something else for long term storage.
 
USB Stick/Flash Drive
These have the advantage of being small and easy to use on the go. They come in a wide variety of capacities from 1GB up to a max of around 256GB. If you need to transfer files from one computer to another – these are the tool for the job. One note of caution is that being so small, they are also easy to lose. I keep mine on a lanyard around my neck if I’m travelling.
 
External Hard Drive
Desktop versions are the size of a hefty hardback book, whilst portable versions are no bigger than your mobile phone. They also have a wide variety of capacities, from around 500GB up to 8TB or maybe more. As time goes by, larger and larger drives are on the market. A reasonable portable drive will cost around £50-£80 and will last you for a long time. You can back up your entire computer to it, or just the files you choose.
 
Social Media
Did you know that you can request an archive of all your Facebook activity – posts, photos, everything? Just go to Settings> General Account Settings> Download a copy of your Facebook data. You will be asked to confirm your password and then a file will be sent to the email address you have registered with. Instagram and Twitter have similar features too.
 
Cloud Storage
Most of us have access to some cloud storage though you might not necessarily know it.

• If your broadband is through BT, you have up to 100GB of free cloud storage which you can set up and access though your BT account online.
• If you are an Office 365 subscriber, you have 1TB of free OneDrive storage per user.
• If you have a Google account – gmail or an android phone, you have 15GB of free Google cloud storage.
• If you are an Amazon Prime customer, you have unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud, plus 5GB for other data.
• If you have an iPhone or other Apple product, you have 5GB of free iCloud storage.

Then there are the cloud services you can find online. One of the most popular is Dropbox which gives you 2-16GB of free storage. Others are Mega.com which gives 50GB free and Box, giving 10GB free of charge. All of these also have paid-for upgrades of space available.
 
These services are straightforward to access – most can be connected to straight from your phone as well as your computer. Using cloud storage combined with at least one of the other methods in this blog post, will help you to keep your data safe for years to come.

'Five Ways to Store Your Files and Photos' - written for File Genie by Freelance Writer Ruth Raymer @WritingWalking