After a year mostly airing Marie Kondo at home, I’m sure you’re like me, and every drawer, closet, and room is organized. Now, tackle your digital life.
Start with Google search results. Take a look for yourself, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of results you’ll want to delete. Tap or click for inside tricks to banish embarrassing, outdated, or personal information (including your home’s Google Street View) from the Internet.
When you’re done cleaning things up, tell your digital assistants — looking at you, Siri and Alexa — to butt out. Tap or click to stop smart speakers, social media sites, and even your computer from hearing your every word.
Here are seven more ways to get your digital life in ship shape.
1. Clear Your Browser
Your browser doesn’t just store your passwords and favorite sites. Browser cookies are also trackers that follow you on the web and power the ads and content you see. Plus, your internet history, cache, and download history can be messing things up.
A free program called CCleaner helps you sort out the cookies and archives you don’t really need. When you download the app, you can focus on the specific browser you want to clear. CCleaner analyzes its backlog of information and lists the data that seems unnecessary.
Tap or click here to get required details and links for CCleaner.
You can also delete cookies from your phone. Tap or click here for step-by-step instructions whether you’re using iOS or Android.
2. Speed Up Your Smartphone
You remember cleaning out your cluttered computer from time to time, but what about your smartphone? Our phones are essentially handheld computers, and when they fill up with useless information, their operation can be slow as well. Think overburdened call logs, search history, and saved texts.
For Android users, try Clean Master or Magic Toolbox. You can use these apps to clear junk files, clear your cache, delete cookies, delete temporary files. Note: Both are free to use but are ad supported.
Tap or click here for a direct link to download Clean Master or Magic Toolbox.
iPhones don’t have a similar app, but clearing your cache is simple. Tap or click here and scroll down to “Clear cache”.
3. Delete Duplicate Photos
Digital photos that are easy to shoot, upload, and copy come in handy in almost every way, especially if you grew up carrying a roll of film to an hour-long photo lab. The downside is that you may end up with multiple copies of the same photo.
The trick is to safely delete unnecessary photos without losing the original image. That’s the premise behind Remo Duplicate Photo Remover, which is designed to filter through your photo collection in search of a double-take. It works with Android and iPhone.
Tap or click here for the direct link to download Remo Duplicate Photo Remover with reliable alternatives for your Mac or PC.
4. Delete old accounts you no longer use
As you know by now, the more online accounts you have, the more risk you are at getting called by hackers. With a new data breach around every corner, your username and password are in high demand.
You can delete your unwanted accounts, but it’s not always easy. It’s nearly impossible to erase sites like Pinterest and Evernote from your digital life. Other sites hide their deleted links, which means you’ll have to dig a lot deeper to find them.
That’s where JustDelete.Me comes in. The site has a directory of links to get rid of hundreds of different accounts. This makes deleting old accounts so easy.
Tap or click for directions and a link to begin deleting.
5. Scan Your App List
Here’s an item to add to your quarterly to-do list: Audit your apps. This frees up valuable digital real estate and protects you from another developer who wants to get their hands on your data.
Scroll through your app list. You’ll find at least one pair that you no longer use. Do you have many similar functions? What about that game you quit a long time ago or a loyalty app for a company that went out of business?
Before you hit the Big X, you need to make the right moves. Tap or click here for a step-by-step guide on how to properly delete apps and their data.
6. List Your Physical Goods
You may be the type of person who likes to keep track of every ironing board and lampshade in the house, or you want to compile a report for insurance companies so there’s no question that something is stolen or lost. has gone.
The Encircle app works on iOS and Android and was created to take inventory of your worldly possessions.