Phone Declutter Checklist: 90+ Ideas You Haven't Thought Of

These 90+ phone declutter checklist ideas will help you achieve the ultimate digital reset!

Nowadays, the average person spends about 4 hours and 37 minutes per day on their phone, and yet we rarely take time to declutter it.

With this much daily use, photos, apps, and files pile up quickly without us even realizing.

Not only can this digital clutter slow down our devices, but a cluttered phone can also create stress in an already overwhelming world.

Decluttering it regularly is a simple yet powerful way to reclaim control over our phones and create a more intentional digital space for ourselves.

If you don’t know where to start, I’ve put together this practical phone declutter checklist packed with over 90 ideas you haven’t thought of!

Use it as a guide to help you simplify your digital life and make space for more meaningful things.

Why should you declutter your phone?

There are so many reasons to declutter your phone!

First, going through our phones helps free up storage space.

I’m sure you’ve already had that annoying message on your phone that says you need to delete some photos before taking any new ones.

So frustrating, isn’t it?

Decluttering also makes our devices faster and improves battery life, which in turn helps prolong the lifespan of our phones and thus saves money.

My favorite part, though, is that clearing digital clutter reduces distractions and improves focus and mental clarity.

It makes us more productive and efficient.

When our device isn’t cluttered, we can find things faster, and our phone is overall easier to use.

And finally, having a simplified phone can help reduce stress because we’re no longer bombarded with unnecessary notifications or struggling to find what we need.

In this phone declutter checklist, you'll find 90+ genius phone decluttering ideas for a complete digital reset.

How to declutter your phone? 90+ phone declutter checklist ideas for the ultimate digital reset

📱 Apps

Delete any app you haven’t opened in the last month — you can always redownload it if you ever need it again
Get rid of apps you downloaded on a whim and never actually used
Duplicate apps need to go as well — you don’t need three different weather apps
Remove shopping apps — make it harder for you to spend your hard-earned money
Delete games you haven’t played in forever
Go through your pre-installed apps and remove any you have never once opened
Check your subscriptions — stop paying for those you completely forgot about
Delete old banking apps tied to accounts you’ve already closed
Uninstall any app you downloaded for a one-time thing and kept “just in case”

🏠 Home screen

Start from scratch: remove everything from your home screen and only put back what you actually use every day
Get rid of unnecessary widgets — they create visual clutter
Move social media apps into a folder — a little friction goes a long way
Do you really need a second, or even a third, home screen page?
Update your wallpaper and delete any old ones

📸 Photos & videos

Delete all your failed photos — blurry pics, accidental shots, finger-over-the-lens, you know the ones
Remove duplicate photos — you don’t need five near-identical shots of the same moment
Clear out your screenshots — most have already served their purpose
Delete any videos that are too low quality to ever actually watch again
Get rid of photos of things you’ve already sold or donated
Empty your “recently deleted” folder — your photos aren’t actually gone until you do this
Check your WhatsApp or iMessage media, and delete old photos and videos people have sent you — they pile up faster than you’d think

👥 Contacts

Delete anyone you haven’t spoken to in years and realistically never will
Scroll through your contacts and delete anyone you genuinely don’t remember
Merge duplicate contacts
Update anyone who has a number or email you know is outdated
Check for contacts you never intentionally saved — some apps add people to your list automatically without you even knowing

💬 Messages

Go through and delete text threads from people you haven’t spoken to in a long time
Leave group chats that have been dead for months
Delete all those one-time verification codes — you’ll be shocked how many there are
Remove any GIFs or stickers you saved inside iMessage or WhatsApp that you’ve never actually sent to anyone
Delete voicemails you’ve already listened to and don’t need to hear again
Clean out old messages you received on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter/X

📧 Email

Delete and unsubscribe from spam and promotional emails
Delete any email that has already served its purpose and that you don’t need to keep anymore
Don’t forget about your sent folder — we often forget about this one, but it can contain years of old emails
Delete old email drafts you never sent and never will
Stop leaving everything in your inbox — archive what you want to keep (or organize it in different folders) and delete the rest
Delete emails with large attachments — these eat up storage fast
Remove any old email accounts that you haven’t used in years
Empty your trash and spam folder when you’re done

🔔 Notifications

Go through your notification settings and turn off anything that isn’t actually useful
Turn off the little number badges on apps like email or social media — seeing “847 unread” is genuinely stressful
Turn off lock screen previews for banking and health apps — it could show sensitive information
Turn sounds off for any app that doesn’t genuinely need your attention right now
Set up a Do Not Disturb schedule for times when you don’t want to be interrupted

⚙️ Settings & permissions

Review which apps have access to your location and revoke any that don’t need it
Check your microphone permissions — you might be surprised how many apps have access
Do the same with camera permissions
Remove contacts access from apps that have nothing to do with your contacts
Go into your Bluetooth settings and remove any devices you no longer use
Delete saved Wi-Fi networks for places you’ll never go back to
Clear the cache on apps that tend to hoard data, like Chrome and social media apps
Delete any alarms you haven’t used in months

📲 Social media

Unfollow anyone who consistently makes you feel bad
Go through your saved posts on Instagram and TikTok, and while you’re at it, tackle that YouTube Watch Later list that’s been growing for years
Check your Pinterest boards and remove pins that no longer inspire you
Delete any drafts from months or even years ago that you’ll never post
Clear your search history on every platform
Leave Facebook groups you don’t actively participate in
Delete old Twitter/X lists you created and completely forgot about
Check which third-party apps are connected to your social accounts and revoke anything you no longer use
Delete old posts that don’t represent who you are anymore

🎵 Music & podcasts

Delete any songs or playlists you haven't listened to in forever.

Delete any songs you downloaded but haven’t listened to in months
Go through your Spotify playlists — remove anything you skip every time it comes on
Check your podcast queue and remove episodes that have been sitting there unplayed for months
Clear any videos you downloaded for offline viewing on Netflix or YouTube
Delete audiobooks you’ve either finished or quietly given up on
Remove old playlists that no longer fit your taste or mood

🔐 Accounts & shopping

Delete saved passwords for apps and websites you no longer use
Remove any expired or cancelled credit cards saved inside payment apps
Update old autofill info that’s no longer accurate — think old addresses or phone numbers
Delete accounts for websites and apps you no longer use — or at the very least log out of them
Clear out your shopping carts — if it’s been sitting there for months, you’re not buying it
Delete old wishlists on Amazon or any other shopping app that you created and forgot about

🗒️ Notes & reminders

Open your notes app and delete anything irrelevant and that you don’t need anymore
Delete old grocery lists, random numbers you saved with no context, and things that made sense at the time but mean nothing now
Delete old or completed to-do lists
If you have duplicate notes of the same thing, consolidate them
Open your reminders app and delete anything that’s already done, no longer relevant, or that you’ve been ignoring for too long

🌐 Browser

Close every browser tab you’re not actively using — yes, all of them!
Clear your browsing history if you haven’t done it in a while
Remove browser extensions you no longer use
Go through your bookmarks and delete any that you no longer need

🗂️ Files & downloads

This phone declutter checklist gives you great ideas about which files and documents you should delete.

Open your downloads folder and actually look at what’s in there — it’s probably a mess
Delete any documents or files that were sent to you that you no longer need
Declutter old voice memos you recorded and never listened back to
Remove any zip or compressed files you’ve already extracted — you don’t need both the zip and the contents
Don’t forget to check your screen recordings folder — it fills up faster than you’d think

☁️ Cloud storage

Declutter your Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, or Dropbox accounts and delete anything you no longer need
Go through any shared documents from old projects that are long finished, and remove yourself from them
Empty your Google Drive trash — most people forget this exists
Delete old backups you no longer need — these can take up gigabytes of storage space
Remove any files you saved for offline access in Google Drive or Notion that you no longer need

How often should you declutter your phone?

If you’ve never decluttered your device before, spend a few hours over the weekend to go through everything.

Or if you prefer, break it into smaller chunks and commit to decluttering for 15 minutes every day for a week.

Tackle every single thing on this list to make sure you’ve cleared everything weighing you and your phone down.

But once it’s done, don’t stop here and never declutter again.

Decluttering is an ongoing project we should keep up with regularly.

Because inevitably, clutter will build up again.

I highly recommend you make decluttering your phone a habit.

For instance, once a month, or maybe once per season, go through this list again and clear out what’s built up.

I promise that if you do this regularly, each declutter will feel easy and quick to complete.

Final thoughts on these phone declutter checklist ideas

I hope you’ve found this phone declutter checklist helpful and that you were able to make your device lighter and less overwhelming.

Your phone should now be faster, easier to use, and most of all, a lot less stressful!

If you haven’t started yet, remember that the best time to do this was six months ago.

The second best time is right now.

Also, make sure to save this checklist so you can find it again for your next declutter.

Looking for more digital declutter inspiration?

You’ll love these articles too:

I’m curious: how many items did you find to delete?

Please tell me in the comments below!

Don’t forget to share this phone declutter checklist with your friends and family so they can simplify their digital space too.

THE ULTIMATE PHONE DECLUTTER CHECKLIST: 90+ PHONE DECLUTTERING IDEAS YOU HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF

Why should you declutter your phone?