- sir appleot - A passion for Apple knights for over 20 years
Chapter in this post:
- 1 No discussion of the sense and nonsense of deleting RAM
- 2 The check with the iPhone app "Usage"
- 3 The old way of using the switch-off screen and the home button
- 4 Erase RAM on iPhones and iPads without a home button
- 5 insider tip: start the camera app and "shoot" again immediately
- 6 Effect: almost 30% RAM free in 5 seconds
- 7 Maybe also interesting?
There are people (including my children) who think that you have to swipe up all the apps in the app switcher every few hours so that the iPhone uses less power. The idea prevails that the iPhone “has to keep all the apps open”, which of course drains the battery.
No discussion of the sense and nonsense of deleting RAM
I would now deliberately not collect arguments for or against this theory, but simply assume that people want to delete the RAM on their iPhone or iPad every now and then.
Therefore, the following should also be about how to do it easily and not about how useful the thing is.
With the "Usage" app, you can see at a glance how much RAM is occupied, reserved or free in the iPhone.
The check with the iPhone app "Usage"
The most important thing for me was that I had a way to check how full the memory was before and after the action. What use is the greatest trick if you haven't freed any data from RAM afterwards?
Fortunately, there is a great app for checking the RAM level that I can recommend otherwise: Usage (App store link) by Oleg Stasula. Get Tickets here! I also had a report on this before.
If you call up the app, you will find the RAM in the first “tile” and the “Free” item at the bottom of this area. That is, so to speak, the value that should increase through our action.
In the top tile you can see the value for the free memory at the bottom.
Back when iPhones and iPads still had home buttons, there was the following way to clear the RAM:
- Press and hold the standby button to go to the switch-off screen
- then press and hold the home button until the screen goes black
With this action, various buffers and the main memory were cleaned up.
- Read more: Tip for better iPhone photos: Activate the camera grid
- Read more: Repair iPhone Home Button - The Guide
- Read more: Instructions: Switch off Apple iPad, shut down and restart
Since the iPhone X, there is no longer a home button that you could use to complete the process above, which is why you have to look for a new way.
First I read that people conjure up a home button on their screen with the user guide and AssistiveTouch, but this technology does not help with clearing the working memory.
I've tried it and the Usage app unfortunately shows me no change in the amount of memory used.
With these instructions you can delete the RAM in the iPhone within a very short time.
Insider tip: start the camera app and "shoot" again immediately
I found the following trick in a YouTube video:
- you start the apple's own camera app
- Now swipe slowly upwards from the bottom of the display until the app switcher opens (in which you can see all the apps used)
- now you tap on the window of the camera app and swipe it up until it disappears
This opened the camera app and closed it again or "shot it down", as the saying goes.
The Usage app showed that almost 30% RAM was free.
Effect: almost 30% RAM free in 5 seconds
After my measurements with Usage, I was able to delete around 30% of the RAM on my iPhone 12 Pro Max each time. My iPhone model has 6 GB of RAM, but older and “smaller” iPhones often come with less memory. Unfortunately, I cannot say how many percent will be deleted here.
The fact is, however, that even by manually “shooting down” all apps, I couldn't get any more memory empty. So I would say that the camera app way is a pretty effective way to clean up memory.
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Jens has been running the blog since 2012. He appears as Sir Apfelot for his readers and helps them with problems of a technical nature. In his free time he drives electric unicycles, takes photos (preferably with his iPhone, of course), climbs around in the Hessian mountains or hikes with the family. His articles deal with Apple products, news from the world of drones or solutions for current bugs.
13 comments
Hi Jens,
I have to admit I didn't want to believe it, but it's true! Checked it out ... ;-)
I can't quite understand it, but it doesn't matter ... I don't have to understand everything ...
gruß
Pablo
Hello Pablo! I assume that the photo app first kills everything that doesn't have to run in the background so that there is enough memory for the video recordings. But that's just an idea. : D
Exactly! Free up resources! Apple…. ???? ;-)
Hi Jens,
you can also clear the RAM by restarting the iPhone. For devices without a home button, you first have to press the volume up, then the down button and then the off button until the screen first goes black and then the Apple logo appears.
Best Regards
Frank
Hello Frank! Of course ... if you turn it off completely, everything in RAM will be erased. It's just a lot more cumbersome than opening the camera app briefly and shooting it. In my opinion, this is the fastest way to clear the RAM.
Without wanting to discuss here that shooting apps down to 99%, i.e. generally, is unnecessary: I actually have * one * app that I have to do this every time. Namely eufy security for the camera. Otherwise it somehow continues to run in the background and reduces the usual battery life of iPhone and iPad to a quarter.
Hello Marcel! Yes, I am totally with you in the "sense" of the action. : D And I also use eufy Security. Do I have to see if it sucks on the battery. I hadn't noticed yet.
Hello Jens, I can reproduce that with eufy: if the app is in Live View mode, when I leave it (i.e. the device goes out or I switch to another app), the battery drains rapidly. I only noticed that because I couldn't keep up with charging the iPhone and iPad since the cam was active. The battery status in the settings showed that it was due to eufy. eufy Security came first in terms of consumption. Maybe I also generated a specific problem that not everyone has by first adding the cam to HomeKit, but then removing it from there. The problem may also go away with the next iOS or app update. Since I know the culprit, I shoot down eufy after checking that everything is OK, and since then everything has been okay again in terms of batteries. Actually iOS should prevent this, but at least the battery status indicator helps with troubleshooting.
Hello Marcel! I have to test that. If it is the same for me, I will give my contact at Anker the information. He may have a connection with the development team.
Hello.
1) "start apple's own camera app"
that means the button I press to be able to take photos etc. Right?
2) "Now slowly swipe up from the bottom of the display until the app switcher opens (in which you can see all the apps you are using)"
That happens to me... nothing at all. On SE2
Roll Eyes…
Hi Grafzahn! I think the iPhone SE still has a home button, right? If so, then in step 2 you need to double-click the home button instead of swiping. Is that okay?
Yes. It doesn't need a camera button. Just press the home button twice and then "swipe+away"
Well, you have to open the camera app beforehand, otherwise the iPhone won't clear the RAM for this app.