There’s no doubt we’re living through a strange time, and hopefully it’s a once in a lifetime event for all of us. We at deTeched have all of the sick in our prayers and are stuck at home just like most of you. For those of you who are healthy, thank goodness for your health.
With that, many of you have quite a bit of downtime right now. So take a break from Netflix, and take the time to finally clean up some of that digital clutter on your phone, tablet, and even on your nightstands or drawers.
Delete unused apps
The most useful act you can do is to delete unused apps on your smartphones or tablets. Unused apps not only take up usable storage space on your devices, but they also can consume power and data depending on their settings. They also regularly update themselves if you have your phone set to auto update when you are charging your devices overnight. Most people only use 25 apps per month, according to buildfire, and among those, the vast majority of time is spent on 10 apps. Cleaning up your digital space is completely free to do, it saves data and power, and should only take a few minutes of your time.
Simply press and hold an app (different devices may vary), and either hit the X to delete, or hit delete on the pop up box if you’re using iOS.
Back up your photos to google photos or icloud
Photos are precious memories that you cherish. A simple act of backing up videos and pictures to the cloud can save you quite a bit of heartache if you ever lose or break your phone. Google photos and Apple iCloud are free to use with certain limitations. I prefer Google Photos since it is easy to access across any device using my Google/Gmail account and it also allows for unlimited uploads as long as the file sizes are set to High Quality instead of original.
High quality may not be as good as the original quality taken by your phone, but it’s perfect if you only plan on storing your files digitally. If you prefer to store your files in the original quality, you’ll most likely run out of the free space that Google or Apple is offering. In that case, expect to spend about two dollars a month for a cloud subscription for additional data.
Expect this task to take about 10 minutes to perform.
Clean up your email folders
How many of you have sent an email to a friend or family member, only to have them say, “I never got it” or “I didn’t see it amongst the junk in my email folder.” “Just text it to me instead”. Or are you this person?
It’s become incredibly annoying that every company you buy something from has to send you what seems like a billion emails. I bought some clothes and shoes from Nordstrom and Reebok during recent sales, and now I get bombarded with junk email every single day. Multiply this junk by 200 and that’s probably your inbox. This is bad because it turns your email address into junk. It’s a good way to have important messages lost that are sent to you.
What I have done, is use my Gmail block and unsubscribe feature for all emails I did not want. To do this, simply open an email that you don’t want, find the three dots at the top right, click it and then simply say send to SPAM or block. Any future emails you get from this address will go directly to your SPAM folder. It leaves your primary inbox cleaner so you can actually make your email address useful once again. This process is done much more quickly from a computer, but it can be done from your phone or tablet. I highly recommend you do this task.
Delete Photos and videos
If you’re like me, a complete amateur photographer, you probably take more pictures than you need in hopes of getting the “perfect” shot. If that’s the case for you, then you’ve probably got a bunch of blurry and unsightly pictures and videos that you don’t need to store. Not only does deleting these photos save space, but it also cleans up your photo and video library.
By having a clean and organized photo library, you will be able to enjoy browsing through your memories that much more. It will also help Google’s and Apple’s algorithm’s for creating you memory photo books that stitch together videos and photos into sort of a collage of a specific time frame from your album.
This task can take quite a bit of time depending on the size of your photo library.
clean up those SPAGHETTI wires
Okay, this task is not digital per se, but it is related to your digital devices. Now that smartphones have a major foothold in our lives, there’s a very high chance that your charging stations look quite messy.
Let’s start with cleaning the wires. If you have a big power strip and many plugs for your devices, you can replace it with a USB wall charger from Anker. I use Anker for most of my charging needs since it is one of the most trusted third-party device manufacturers. Its products have never failed me and they come at a significant discount over OEM products. The USB charging dock has four full USB A charging ports, and one high-powered USB C charging port for all of the new devices that are moving away from micro USB and Lightning charging. Even if you don’t have a USB C device yet, it would be prudent of you to pick up this charger as your next mobile device will almost certainly have it.
Sell or recycle those unused devices in a junk drawer
It’s almost a guarantee that you have old and unused devices in some junk drawer in your dwelling. It’s time to sell or recycle them.
If you have any devices that are less than three years old and are in decent shape, you can try selling them on a trusted website like Swappa.com. Selling your device usually nets you the most money, but it also is the most work. Swappa has various ways to verify the seller and buyer to ensure you’re not going to get taken advantage of and left to hang dry. It’s an easy process. Take a few high-resolution images of your phone or tablet with a code that Swappa sends you, list it, sell it, and then ship it. The longer you wait to sell your device, the less it is worth over time. So get on it.
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of selling your phone, you could easily send it in for a fixed amount on Gazelle.com. All you have to do is follow a prompt screen to identify your device type and quality, and then you’re quoted a buy price. If you agree to it, then send in your device and money shows up in your account in a few days. It doesn’t get any easier than this, but it doesn’t always net you what you would hope for.
If your devices are old and aren’t worth anything to you, then recycle them. Our planet is slowly running out of rare metals, and your old devices can be recycled to be used in future devices. Best Buy is one of my favorite ways to recycle old electronics since every store takes them. However, with stores closed during the pandemic, you can’t walk into a store and recycle your junk. So you can put your junk in boxes to bring later, and keep in mind, they even take old charging plugs, batteries, and wires. Do not throw those in the trash. They can be toxic to groundwater supplies and will most certainly defeat the point of recycling.
If you’re impatient, and want to get of them right now, you can always send in your old cell phones and the like at Big Sky Recycling. Big Sky Recycling is a non-profit where the proceeds from your devices goes to soldiers, veterans, and their families. Not only will you clean your old junk drawers, but you’ll also help the heroes of our great country.