Technologies

iPhone slowing down? How to speed it up by clearing ‘Other’ storage

It’s probably a good idea to develop the habit of clearing out Other storage since it can help your iPhone run much more smoothly and free up precious space.

If you’re running out of storage space on your iPhone, that doesn’t mean you have to rush out to upgrade to the iPhone 13. In fact, please don’t if that’s the only reason (unless your phone is on its deathbed). That’s because there are tons of easy tricks that could help.

One major memory hog can be the iPhone’s mysterious «Other» storage section. If you’ve run out of storage before and attempted to manually free up space, you may already be familiar with Other storage. If not, let’s run what that is before we dive into how to shrink this pesky category.

The Other section is a catch-all corner of your iPhone’s storage. Think of it as a place where things like system files and Siri voices can be stored. But the main reason it can be a memory hog is due to cache: Your cache stores elements of apps or websites so they load faster when next you use them. Cache collects as you browse the web, stream videos or movies and when you send text messages with pictures or video. In apps like Google Maps and Chrome, cached data can soon start to eat away at your available storage on the device.

So, is Other storage taking up too much precious space on your iPhone? To check, you’ll need to go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. After a moment’s calculation, you’ll see a bar graph of the categories taking up your iPhone’s storage. The other storage section is usually the gray portion on the far right of the graph. (For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume your Other section is taking up more space than it should.)

Let’s get this out of the way early: A surefire way to dump a lot of the junk contained in Other storage is resetting your iPhone, though in my experience you can’t fully empty it. If backing up, wiping and restoring your iPhone sounds intimidating for now, here are a few alternatives for you to try.

Offload apps

Not to be confused with deleting an app, offloading an app means the app is removed from your device, but all data is retained, for when you decide to reinstall it. Take advantage of this trick, especially if you have apps like Google Maps, for instance, that use a lot of space but don’t store much data. To offload an app, go back to iPhone Storage in Settings > General, tap on the app that you want to offload and then Offload App.

Here’s a tip: In the iPhone Storage section, there’s a list of apps with a number next to each name indicating the storage it uses. You can immediately get an overview of which apps are hogging memory or taking up just a little. This will help you decide which to offload.

Clear out Safari cache and close tabs

If you use Safari often, your iPhone may be storing web history and data that you simply do not need. To clear Safari’s browser cache, go to Settings > Safari and Clear History and Website Data. And if you’re a Chrome user, here’s how to clear out cache on Google’s browser.

Closing out tabs also helps free up storage and keeps your device running smoothly. You can manage how frequently Safari will close open tabs by going to Settings > Safari > Close Tabs. You can keep closing tabs manually, or let Safari close out tabs that haven’t been viewed for a day, a week or a month.

Stop storing texts forever

By default, your iPhone stores all of the text messages you send and receive… forever. This is convenient if you need to look up a 15-month-old conversation, but not so convenient if you need that storage space back. To stop your phone from saving texts forever, open up Settings and tap Messages. Scroll down until you find Message History and tap Keep Messages. Change Forever to 30 Days or 1 Year. A pop-up will ask you if you want to delete older messages; tap Delete to proceed.

Technologies

Harvard Business Review Study Finds ‘AI Brain Fry’ Is Leaving Workers Mentally Fatigued

Study participants reported increased mental fatigue while using AI tools, but less burnout overall.

Workers who excessively use AI agents and tools at work are at increased risk of mental fatigue, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study. In certain industries, more than 25% of hired professionals report increased mental strain due to their role in AI oversight — though these professionals also generally experienced less burnout than peers who aren’t using AI.

This phenomenon — which the researchers refer to as «AI brain fry» — is described as a «‘buzzing’ feeling or a mental fog» that caused study participants to develop headaches and difficulty focusing and making decisions. Individuals pointed to being overwhelmed by large amounts of information and to frequent task switching as the reasons for these feelings.

Studied individuals experienced more brain fry when they utilized AI agents to manage a workload beyond their own cognitive capacity. When participants used AI to replace mundane, repetitive tasks, managing the growing number of tools led to increased mental fatigue.

Crucially, the study found that fewer individuals who used these AI agents reported workplace burnout.

The researchers predict that this is because burnout testing assesses emotional and physical distress. In contrast, they report, acute mental fatigue «is caused by marshalling attention, working memory and executive control beyond the limited capacity of these systems.»

These are the processes that are taxed when study participants use multiple AI tools in their workflow, according to the researchers.

The Harvard study identifies several business costs incurred by workers suffering from AI brain fry. The foremost consequence is that these individuals may end up making lower-quality decisions. «Workers in [the] study who endorsed AI brain fry experience 33% more decision fatigue than those who did not,» the study reports. Workers who report AI brain fry were also more likely to self-report making both minor and major errors at their jobs.

Another recent Harvard Business Review study similarly found that employees who use AI tools «worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks and extended work into more hours of the day,» but warned that «workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout and weakened decision-making.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 11, #1004

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 11, No. 1,004.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Once I spotted «ice cream» and «traffic» in today’s NYT Connections puzzle, I had the blue category all but filled in. But that purple category was even more bizarre than usual. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Bring that back!

Green group hint: Fancy ____.

Blue group hint: Think of a certain shape.

Purple group hint: Sounds like…

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Steal.

Green group: Make nicer, with «up.»

Blue group: Kinds of cones.

Purple group: Pronoun homophones.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is steal. The four answers are lift, palm, pinch and pocket.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is make nicer, with «up.» The four answers are dress, jazz, spiff and spruce.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is kinds of cones. The four answers are ice cream, pine, snow and traffic.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is pronoun homophones. The four answers are hee, mi, oui and yew.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 11, #534

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 534 for Wednesday, March 11.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a real mix of categories, but the yellow one came easily to this Seahawks fan. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Super Bowl champs’ division.

Green group hint: Baseball stats.

Blue group hint: Stars on ice.

Purple group hint: You wear it around your waist.