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Is There Any Benefit To Restarting Your Phone Regularly?
Engadget • • technology
Key Points:
- Many smartphone myths persist in 2026, including outdated beliefs like avoiding charging while plugged in and false claims such as using rice to fix water damage.
- Regularly rebooting smartphones can help resolve minor performance issues and occasionally improve security, but there is generally no need for fixed-schedule reboots due to modern OS designs supporting long uptimes.
- Android phones may benefit more from reboots than iPhones because of differences in cache management and OS fragmentation, but both platforms handle memory caching to optimize app performance during extended use.
- Rebooting offers limited protection against sophisticated attacks like spear phishing and zero-click malware, though restarting before unlocking your device enhances security by placing it in a "Before First Unlock" state that complicates forensic data extraction.
- Most users only need to reboot their phones when experiencing issues or about once a week; some devices offer automatic reboot settings to maintain performance and security with minimal user intervention.
