- To fix an iPhone that’s slow after iOS 18 update, restart your device and update your apps first.
- You can also try to remove unused apps and unnecessary files.
- If nothing works, restore your iPhone to factory settings.
There could be many reasons why your iPhone is slow after iOS 18 update. From frozen apps to low storage space, it’s, unfortunately, one of those annoying issues that most iPhone users want to avoid.
Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to troubleshoot. I’ve put together thirteen easy-to-follow troubleshooting tips in this article that will get your iPhone back up to speed.
Is your iPhone slow after iOS 18 update?
After installing the latest iOS 18 upgrade, the last thing you expect is a slow iPhone, but surprisingly, it’s a frequent complaint.
When a new update is released, many applications haven’t been fully optimized for it yet, so this can cause problems for our iPhones.
Here’s a quick look at some of the most commonly reported issues:
- Apps become slow and freeze or frequently crash.
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The iPhone is overheating
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The browser becomes very slow to load pages.
So, if your iPhone is slow after iOS 18 update, let’s take a look at how to increase its performance.
13 tips to fix your slow iPhone after the iOS 18 update
Work your way through these tips one by one and let’s get your iPhone back into shape.
1. Allow the Software Update to Settle Down Peacefully
After the software update, it takes a while for the iPhone (or for that matter any device) to settle down. During this period, you may notice issues like overheating, battery drain, sluggishness, and even overheating. Since it’s normal behavior, there is no need to panic. Just give enough time (a couple of days) to the iPhone to make a peace with the latest software update with all-new features.
2. Remove all apps from the App Switcher
Your iPhone adds every app you open to the App Switcher, the iPhone task manager, so that you can quickly switch between apps while multitasking. After a while, the number of apps in the App Switcher can add up. Many of these apps are in a suspended mode or running in the background. Removing apps from the App Switcher frees up memory and can speed up your iOS 18 device.
On iPhone with Face ID: Swipe up from the Home bar and then hold along the middle of the screen. Then, swipe up the app card to kill the app.
On iPhone with Touch ID: Double press the Home button to bring up the app switcher. After that swipe up on the app card to kill the app.
3. Force Restart Your iPhone
Whenever your iPhone is just running really slow — force restart it. It may sound obvious or dull, but it’s the same approach as restarting a computer that’s acting up, and oftentimes, it cures whatever ails your iPhone.
To force restart your iPhone, you’ll need to press the following buttons in this order: press and release volume up, press and release volume down and then press and hold the side button for roughly 10 seconds, after which you should see the Apple logo.
While doing this, it’s important you don’t let go of the button(s) until you see the Apple logo appear on your phone’s screen.
Once your phone comes back to life, unlock it using your passcode and it should, hopefully, be free of any performance issues.
4. Update Your iPhone Apps
After a major iOS update, developers don’t just update apps to give them new features and fix bugs. They also do it to improve their performance, which is why you must always update them after installing an iOS update.
Go to the App Store and tap on your profile at the top right corner of the screen. Scroll down to find the list of apps that need to be updated.
Next, you can choose to update all apps at once or do it one by one.
5. Update Your iPhone’s Operating System
It’s important to keep the operating system up to date. Doing so ensures that you have the most recent performance updates as well as the latest security fixes. Check for and install any pending iOS 18 updates in Settings -> General -> Software update.
6. Turn OFF Location Services
“Location Services” is a huge power-hungry feature that needs smart management. Else, it will turn out to be the wrecker-in-chief for draining the battery. That’s not all, the continuous location tracking can also cause your iPhone to overheat and even feel sluggish.
Go to the Settings app -> Privacy & Security -> Location Services and then turn it off.
If you don’t want to completely disable this feature, allow only a handful of apps to access your location data.
7. Turn off Background App Refresh
We don’t recommend doing this unless your iPhone is extremely slow after iOS 18 update. But the fact is you can make your iPhone faster by turning off a few automatic background processes.
Launch the Settings app on your iPhone -> General -> Background App Refresh.
Now, either completely turn it off or allow only specific apps to refresh in the background.
8. Disable Automatic Software Update
Apple allows you to automatically download and install iOS updates. While this is a great feature if you always want to be on the bleeding edge of technology, it gobbles up a ton of battery but also tends to slow down your device. Thus, turn it off.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone -> General -> Software Update -> Automatic Updates.
Now, turn off the toggles for downloading and installing iOS updates.
9. Delete iPhone apps you no longer use
Apps can slow down your iPhone in two different ways. Firstly, if you’re running low on storage, that can slow down your phone. Secondly, rarely used apps running in the background can gum up your phone as well.
That’s why you should look at the apps you have installed on your phone and uninstall any that you rarely (or never) use.
To see which apps use the most space on your iPhone, select Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Here, you can view all the apps installed on the iPhone, when you last used each one, and how much room each takes up. Delete the apps you don’t use by tapping the app, then selecting Delete App.
You can also set iOS to remove seldom-used apps automatically to free up space (while maintaining your files and data for those apps). To do so, select Settings > General > iPhone Storage, then select Enable next to Offload Unused Apps.
10. Dial down the graphics
Your iPhone can run a little faster if you reduce the work the CPU puts into displaying fancy graphics. Unlike a desktop computer, there are relatively few graphic settings on an iPhone.
Here’s what you can do:
Open the Settings app and then tap Accessibility -> Display & Text Size. Tap the toggle for Reduce Transparency to turn the option on.
Tap Back and then tap Motion. Tap the toggle for Reduce Motion to turn the option on.
11. Check Out the Battery Health
iPhones offer a pretty straightforward way to check the battery health of the iPhone to find out the exact condition of the battery. Hence, I would recommend you find out if the battery is still capable of delivering peak performance.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone -> Battery -> Battery Health & Charging. Now, look at the Maximum Capacity of your battery. Basically, the lower the capacity, the fewer hours you’ll get from your phone.
When the maximum capacity goes below 80 percent, the battery is unable to deliver sufficient power to maintain the top-tier performance which often leads to random rebooting. To prevent the iPhone from restarting repeatedly, Apple intentionally slows down the device.
You should also look at the Peak Performance Capability, which gives you an assessment of the battery’s overall health. If it says that the phone is "currently supporting normal peak performance," you’re good to go.
But if you see a message that your battery’s health is "significantly degraded," you should consider contacting Apple support to replace the battery.
12. Declutter Your iPhone
You can keep a number of issues like overheating and sluggishness at a fair distance by cleaning up the storage. That’s why it’s always recommended to declutter apps and remove storage-hogging files from time to time to ensure they do not clog up. If your device has not seen a cleanup for a while, the devil could be nowhere else but inside the cluttered storage.
If you are not sure where to get started, go to the Settings app on your iPhone -> General -> iPhone Storage to have a look at the total available and consumed storage. Besides, you can also check out how much space each app has taken up on your iOS device.
After a careful inspection of the storage consumption, kickstart the cleanup drive to wipe out everything that’s not needed. Make sure to get rid of the piles of useless screenshots and large file attachments that you have shared via Messages. And if the need demands, delete all the redundant apps as well to recover a lot of precious space.
13. Restore Your iPhone
Times, when you are dealing with a persistent issue that continues to raise its head even after you have tried all the ways and means to fix it, restoring the iPhone comes in handy. Capable of resolving complex issues, it’s widely termed the nuclear solution. So, we will try it out as well. As it erases your entire device, be sure to back it up without fail.
Restore Your iPhone Without Computer
Head over to the Settings app on your iPhone -> Apple account -> iCloud -> iCloud Backup and then back up your device to iCloud.
Once the backup is done, navigate to the Settings app -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone -> Erase All Content and Settings.
After the device has been erased, follow the setup assistant to set up your iPhone from the scratch. During the process, you will get the option to restore the device via iCloud backup.
Restore Your iPhone with Computer
Connect your iPhone to Mac or PC using a USB cable. After that, launch Finder/iTunes and then select your device.
Then after, back up your iPhone. Once you have successfully created a local backup, click on Restore iPhone to restore the device.
Fixed Slow iPhone after iOS 18 update
There you go! So, these are all the ways and means to troubleshoot an iPhone that is slow after iOS 18 update. I guess the above-explained tips have helped you overcome the issue. Would you like to let us know the solutions that come to your rescue? If something else not discussed in this guide has helped you fix iPhone slow after iOS 18 update issue, make sure to mention that as well.