How to reorganize those smartphone apps: Talking Tech podcast

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Hey there, listeners. It's Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech. My co-host, Mike Snider, is off today. Tell me if this situation sounds familiar. I obviously have my smartphone. A lot of us, likely, love our smartphone, and we put a lot of apps on there. Obviously, I've downloaded lots of apps. But it's gotten to the point where I have a hard time keeping track of what apps I have, where they are. They're in a hodgepodge all over the place across various screens. It just feels like a complete mess. A lot of this has to do with the fact that our smartphones have got more storage. They can accommodate more space, which means we can add way more apps without a problem. Although companies like Apple and Samsung have given us all these tools, like folders and other stuff, to help us keep track, it can still feel crazy.

I write about this for tech.usatoday.com. I offer some tips on how to reorganize your phone, so that it feels a little tidier, and you're not scrambling around trying to figure out what apps are on there and how to figure out what. The first thing you got to do, obviously, before you even get to the organizing part, is really go through and, maybe, clean house a little bit. Figure out the apps that you either don't want, or you like them, you use them on certain occasions, but you don't really need them in front of you on a screen. This is what you want to do. Obviously, on whatever phone you're on, you know the process for deleting an app. You press and hold on the icon. You'll see a pop-up. It gives you multiple options. You can delete the app, if you know for sure you don't need it anymore, just delete it, or you can edit the home screen.

What that does is that allows you to move the app around. You can do what you want with it. In some of those cases, what you can do is, on iPhone, you can send it to your app library. This is just a hub where all your apps live. You still have your app on your phone, but it's not taking up any real estate on your screen. The other thing you can do too, that makes this a lot faster if you're on an iPhone is, there are four dots along the bottom of the screen, while you're still in this edit home screen mode, and you can delete whole home screens. If you have a screen that's full of apps that either, you don't need or want, or you want to move them to the app library, just get rid of the screen completely and it saves you a lot of time. Again, Android phones, like Samsung Galaxy, the process is very similar, tap and hold on the app, and you get rid of the shortcut, or you can get rid of the app entirely.

Now, lets get to the next step, which is figuring out how you want to organize it. This is what it's going to boil down to. There's a couple different ways you can organize your apps. It really depends on how you want to do it. You can create folders. The process for that, again, is straightforward. You tap and hold onto an app, until you're able to move it around on your screen. And then what you can do is move it on top of another app, and that will automatically create a folder. You can then name the folder, organize it how you want. You can have a folder for social media apps. If you want a folder for just your games. You can organize it in whatever categories you choose. And that's great too, if say, you don't want a ton of home screens to cycle through, you want just one front screen and all your apps are there, the ones that you need the most. You can put all those folders on that one screen and have access to everything you need right away.

The other option you have for all these phones, whether it's Android or iPhone, is widgets. I like these a lot, because it allows you to get information from apps, where you're just popping in to check something. An example that comes up to me right away is the weather. Sometimes I want a quick hit of what the temperature is outside. I don't need to dive into my weather app, and click on it, and wait for that process. I can have a widget that just tells me the weather right away. I can see it at a glance and I can pop right out. I find it very useful also for other apps, like the calendar, or for notes and reminders, if I just want a really quick glance of something I meant to do today and I forgot about. I just can pop in super quick in the reminder widget, see what it is, and then move on.

Along with widgets, this is where it can get fun. You can create themed home screens. If you want to create a screen specific to work, and have all your work apps there, maybe, a widget for your calendar, and other things like that. You can have it that way. If you want more of a fun type screen, where it's like you've got TikTok, or you've got a couple games, and then you have some other stuff. You can do that too. When you combine that, then you can really organize it how you want, and it makes it easier to find the apps you need. And it really helps you focus on just the experiences you want on your phone. And you can really make it whatever you want it to be.

If you want some more tips on this, be sure to read my story on tech.usatoday.com. Listeners, lets hear it from you. If you have any comments, questions or show ideas, any tech problems you want us to try to address, you can find me on Twitter @brettmolina23. Please don't forget to subscribe and rate us, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. And don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter. It comes out once a week, Talking Tech, be sure to find it on usatoday.com for more. You've been listening to Talking Tech. We'll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.