💬 Phone settings I ignored for 3 years

Last month my phone kept saying storage full, so I finally sat down and went through every setting. Took 40 minutes on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea going cold next to me. I found things I had ignored for 3 years. A torch app had permission to my contacts and location. Why does a torch need my contacts? I turned off everything that made no sense and deleted 11 apps. The storage cleanup was the easy part. Old WhatsApp videos from family groups were eating almost 9 GB. My phone feels quicker now, or maybe I just want it to. The keyboard stopped lagging, that I'm sure about. I also set Do Not Disturb from 11 at night to 6 in the morning. Calls from my mother still ring through. Nobody important has complained so far. The group chat that pings 200 times a day is finally silent after midnight. The screen time report was the rude one. It said 5 hours a day, mostly videos I don't even remember watching. My auto driver in Banjara Hills laughed when I told him. He says his phone sits on the dashboard all day. I set a limit of 2 hours for the video app. It lasted 3 days before I tapped ignore limit. Still, I've started noticing when I pick the phone up for no reason, which is a start I suppose. Updates were the last thing. I had been tapping remind me later on one for something like 6 months. It installed in 10 minutes and nothing broke. I don't know why I was so scared of it. Also I started backing up photos before the phone dies, because my cousin lost 4 years of pictures last year. If you have a settings habit that saved you, post it. I'm sure there's more I'm missing.

I tried the screen time limit too and I'd say skip it. I ignore it every single time it pops up. What worked for me was moving the video app off the home screen into a folder on the last page. I open it way less now because I have to swipe 3 times to reach it. Lazy trick, but it beats a limit I keep dismissing.

The permissions screen is where I got a shock too. A calculator app on my phone wanted my microphone. I denied it and the app still works fine, which tells you how much it needed it. One thing I'd add is clearing the downloads folder. Mine had 3 GB of forwarded PDFs and old wedding photos. It took 5 minutes and the phone stopped complaining about space.

Ha, a torch app wanting your contacts is exactly what I found on my brother's phone last year. I went through mine tonight after reading this. 14 apps had location access and I could only explain 3. The screen time number hurt too. Mine says 6 hours, which can't be right, but the phone doesn't lie.