If you’ve had an Android phone for any length of time, it’s easy to get used to living with chaos. If you’re like me, you’re constantly adding new apps, deciding they’re good but not great, adding another one, etc. Then, a few months later, you’d be surprised to find a few apps that you’ve forgotten and maybe don’t even remember what they’re used for as you scroll through your app drawer.

It can get messy in a very short time. And if you’re really an app geek, it might start to take up more space than you can spare.

There are basically two steps to making sense of all these Android apps: find a way to organize them (and there are several ways depending on what you’re comfortable with) and regularly uninstall all the extra apps. It has accumulated and I no longer use it. Here are a few tips to help you do both. If you’re new to Android, this can help you stay organized from day one; If you are an experienced user, you can get a few tips.

As you review these recommendations, keep in mind that not all Android skins are the same. This how-to was built using a Pixel 3 XL running Android 12 beta; so your interface may be slightly different depending on your phone model and the version of Android you are running.

Get organized

At its most basic (and anyone with an Android phone for more than a week or two can jump down a bit), you can swipe up from the bottom of the phone or use the app drawer (if you have one). You kept the navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen by pressing the apps icon in the bottom center of your screen). Place your most used apps on one or more of your home screens by long pressing and dragging them out of the app drawer.

The app drawer is (luckily) arranged in alphabetical order, with your most recently used apps at the top. Swipe up to navigate between apps or type the name of the app in the search bar at the top.

However, once you start accumulating apps, you may want to save some time by creating a more structured system.

Fill the Favorites tray

You can quickly access your most-used apps by placing them in the Favorites Tray, the bottom line of always-available apps, just above the search field no matter which home screen you’ve swiped.

Is the tray already full of apps? No problem.

• Long press an app that you no longer need to keep in the favorites tray. Move it to another location on the homepage or move it up until you see the Remove and Remove options at the top of the screen. Choose one and move the app there.
• Long press an app from the home screen or app drawer and move it to the tray.

Create folders on your home screen

A good way to organize your apps is to use folders. For example, you can put all your music and podcast apps in a folder named “Listen” or all your social media apps in a folder called “Social”. Creating a folder is simple.

• Put the first two apps you want to add on your home screen.
• Long press one and move it over the other. This will create a new folder.
• Give the folder a name: tap the folder, tap the name just below the apps (if Android didn’t provide a name, it will probably say “Edit Name”) and type your new name.
• You can add more apps to the folder by long pressing other apps and moving them to the folder.
• Uninstall an app from a folder by reversing this process: long press the app and move it from the folder to the homepage. If you only have two apps in the folder, the folder will disappear.

Get rid of unused apps

Sometimes when I install a new app, I quickly realize it’s not for me and I immediately remove it from there. More often, unfortunately, I will try an app, decide what I might want to use in the future, and leave it there. Where does he live? For months. Or years.

Once you start hoarding apps, it’s incredibly easy to forget about the ones you no longer need. But letting old apps stay on your phone may not be as harmless as it seems. Not only do they take up useful storage space, they may also be collecting data unnecessarily (assuming you allow them). And if they are running in the background they may be draining your battery.

All in all, it doesn’t hurt to check for apps you haven’t used recently and remove them from your phone. There are several ways to do this.

Use the app drawer

Yes, that’s the obvious one, but it needs to be said. Take some time to clean up your app drawer: open it and see what’s inside. You may be surprised at what you forgot and what you no longer need. Swipe up to remove anything you don’t need.

Visit Play Store

It’s not as simple as going to your App Drawer or as efficient as Google Files, but if you’re on the Play Store and want to get rid of a few unnecessary apps to install new ones, there is a way.

• Once in the Play Store, tap your personal icon in the upper right corner and select “Manage apps and devices”.
• If you want to see which apps need updating, look for “Updates available” and tap “See details”. You can also tap on the “Update all” option if that is what you want to do.
• Otherwise, tap the “Manage” tab at the top of the screen.
• You will see a list of your installed apps. You can click on the list to see what the latest update did, or if you want to remove any of them, you can tap the checkbox to the right of each entry and then the trash icon that appears at the top.
• If you want to see a list of your uninstalled apps, tap the “Installed” label at the top of the screen and select “Not installed”. This can come in handy if you accidentally delete an app and later think “I shouldn’t have done this” or suddenly remember an app you want to use again. Use the checkbox to the right of each entry to reinstall any application. (If the app has been removed from the Play Store, it will not be in this list.)

• Tap the parallel lines on the right and you can sort by island, most used, least used, recently updated, or size. This can come in very handy if you’re running out of space and want to know which apps you need to get rid of.
• Other tabs in the “Manage” section include “Updates available” and “Games”.

Try Files From Google

Google Files is a surprisingly useful app that helps you get rid of, among other things, junk files that take up space. This is how you can use it to get rid of unused apps if you decide to install the files.

• Tap the “Clean” icon at the bottom of the screen if it’s not already selected.
• Scroll down until you find the section labeled “Delete unused apps”. Tap on “Choose apps”.
• You can see how much space each app is taking up and when it was last used. By tapping the parallel lines at the top right, you can sort the list by oldest > newest, newest > oldest, largest > smallest, smallest > largest or alphabetically.
• Tap the circle to the right of each app to select any you want to remove, and then tap the “Uninstall” button at the bottom.

Use another app

There are several Android apps on the Play Store that can help, as well as Files by Google. To begin with, there are other file managers that can make it easier to monitor and manage the contents of your phone, for example: File Manager Plus and File Manager: free and easy. (Actually, there are several apps in the Play Store called “File Manager”.)

Some create overlays to help you organize your home screen. Jinfor example, it lets you create a sidebar that juts out from the edge of your screen and gives you a compact list view of all your apps. taskbar puts a configurable Windows-like start menu on your screen.

If you want even more control over your Android environment, there are launchers such as: Nova This allows you to more extensively customize your app drawer and home screen with icons, animations and different layouts.

Update August 25, 2021 at 4:35 PM ET: This article was originally published on March 6, 2019 and has been updated to reflect changes in Android and its apps.