How to speed up the Samsung Galaxy S3

Your phone may have started to feel a little slow over the years, particularly if you compare it to the latest and greatest handsets. But before you rush out to the shop to upgrade, you might want to try some of these tricks to help boost the speed performance of your Galaxy S3.

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Clear out the clutter

If you've had your phone for a couple of years, it's probably full to bursting. Your phone's performance will suffer if it's nearly full, so it's worth having a clear-out to accelerate things. While there's nothing to stop you from manually remove apps and files, it makes sense to get a little help from a dedicated app to make it easier.

CCleaner is an app that may be familiar to Windows users, but it is also available for Android. Fire up the app, and you can opt to uninstall multiple apps in one fell swoop rather than having to work through them one by one.

Tap the menu button to the upper left of the screen and select the App Manager option before ticking the boxes next to any apps you want to remove.

You can then tap the Uninstall button at the bottom of the screen.

This is not all CCleaner is capable of; it can also be used to help free up more space by deleting file. Select the Cleaner option from the menu and tap the Analyse button at the bottom of the screen. CCleaner will spend a moment determining how your storage is being used. You can work through the list, selecting types of files you would like to remove (such as cache files and things stored on the clipboard) and then hit the Clean button to free up all of this space.

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Disable special effects

The animations that accompany certain actions – such as opening an app or moving between screens – may look nice, but they are also something of a waste of time and resources. If you'd like to make things a little snappier you can disable animation effects entirely, but you will need to ensure that you have enabled Developer options first.

Head to Settings, tap Developer options in the Security manager section, and flip the setting to On before tapping OK. Scroll down to the Drawing section and tap the Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale settings in turn. In each case, select the Animation off setting and you should notice an improvement in overall responsiveness.  

Kill S Voice

Many people are fans of voice-activated controls, but if you do not fall into that category, you probably find that S Voice is just an annoyance. But more than being an irritant, Samsung's alternative to Google Now slows down your device unnecessarily. If you are tired of accidentally initiating the feature and wasting time, it can be easily disabled.

Double tap the home key to call up S Voice (for one last time!). Tap the menu button and then tap Settings. Untick the option labelled Open via the home key and then back out to save the new setting. You'll never be bothered by S Voice again unless, of course, you decide to manually launch it on purpose.

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Grab a custom launcher

One of the culprits that may be slowing down your Galaxy S3 is the built in launcher. There are plenty of lighter weight alternatives to choose from in Google Play, so you might want to take a browse through what's available and choose something that's a bit snappier.

Nova Launcher is a neat, fast option but there are numerous others that you may prefer. Take a look at our top 10 Android launchers article for some more ideas.

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Remove system apps

If you want a greater degree of control over what is happening on your Galaxy S3, you might want to think about rooting it. This opens up a wealth of new options including the ability to remove system apps.

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Once you are rooted, grab yourself a copy of System app remover from Google Play.

There are a number of built-in tools you might want to consider removing, but prime candidates include Knox and help files. Try not to go over the top as you could end up causing problems, but you will find that System app remover highlights those components that are safe to remove.

Are there any other favorite tricks that you like to use to speed things up on your Galaxy S3? Have you gone as far as rooting your device so you can install additional software and make it faster?