It is not just our homes and offices which accumulate plenty of clutter, but our devices, too. And such clutter not only takes up a lot of your device memory and affect its performance, but also involves risks. By just following a few simple tips, you can tidy up all your digital facilities and devices.
How to declutter your digital life:
- Clean up your device by getting rid of digital clutter: Delete any apps and data you no longer need, and use software updates to bring your system, software and apps up to date.
- Increase your digital security: Use secure passwords and protect your access points and devices against unauthorised access by strangers.
- Check that your accounts and privacy settings are secure.
Clean up your devices
Over time, a great number of apps, documents, photos etc. accumulates on our devices such as PCs, smartphones and tablets, but also in digital repositories (for instance cloud storage locations like Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive or Google Drive). Such digital clutter doesn’t just take up plenty of disk space on our devices, but also makes it more difficult to find things. It also leaves our devices open to attack, so it is well worth having a regular tidy-up.
How to declutter your devices:
- Delete apps and uninstall software you no longer use. While you’re at it, make sure to also check your app access permissions, and limit them as much as possible.
- Delete old photos, files and other data you no longer need.
- Ensure all your devices are up-to-date, and run all potential software updates.
- Run a back-up for all your data, for instance using an external hard drive for this purpose.
- Delete your browser history in all browsers you use. Delete any bookmarks you no longer need.
- Declutter your digital repositories: Arrange all your documents in a suitable file structure, and tidy up your desktop.
- Clear out your e-mail inbox: Delete any e-mails you have read, and unsubscribe from any newsletters you no longer want or need.
- Delete user accounts and profiles you no longer use.
Increase your security
Protect your online access points and your devices against unauthorised third-party access. Use secure, complex passwords to do so, and use different passwords in each case. You can use a password manager to securely store all your passwords.
- Check your passwords: Are they secure (at least 12 characters long, consisting of numbers, upper and lower case letters as well as special characters)? If not, set new, strong passwords for all your access points.
- Are you using a different password for all your online services? A password manager can be helpful to manage your passwords.
- Are your devices protected against unauthorised access? Make sure all your devices are protected via a password, code or face/fingerprint recognition against third-party access.
- Also check that your accounts are secure while doing so: Use the latest log-in procedures, setting up two-factor authentification where possible.
- Check your privacy settings in all your social media apps. Our instructions for Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn will help you with this process.
- Check whether your online data have been affected by a data leak: Have I BeenPwned.