Why is My iPad So Slow? How to Speed Up a Slow iPad

Does your iPad run slower than it used to?

There are some factors that may affect your iPads performance and lead to your iPad running slow, including a full cache and required device updates. If your iPad is running slow, don’t panic. This issue is not an uncommon problem, and there are a few easy ways to fix it.

Contents

• 1 Quick Tips 
  • 1.1 Related Articles
• 2 How to Fix an iPad Running Slow
  • 2.1 Take good care of your iPad
  • 2.2 Close any running apps
  • 2.3 Clear out your cache
  • 2.4 Check your storage
  • 2.5 Stop Background App Refresh on your iPad
  • 2.6 Restart your device
  • 2.7 Force Restart your iPad
  • 2.8 Sometimes, the iPad runs slow after you have updated your iOS

Quick Tips 

The following tips should help you speed up your iPad

• Close open apps


• Clear out Safari and other browser caches


• Check your storage


• Turn off background app refresh


• Restart or Force Restart your device

Related Articles

• iPad Very Slow After Update? 5 Overlooked Tips


• iPad Air charging “very slowly” or “not charging,” fix

How to Fix an iPad Running Slow

Take good care of your iPad

• Regularly clean your iPad’s screen using a lint-free cloth (avoid liquid cleaners)


• Clean your iPad’s ports and headphone jack


• Backup your data using iCloud or iTunes 


• Update your iOS using iTunes instead of Over-The-Air 


• Optimize your battery

For more tips on best practices for your iPad, please read this article on how to properly maintain your iOS device.

Close any running apps

1. To close apps running in the background on an iPad with a Home Button, follow these steps
   
   
   
   1. Double-click the Home button to show your most recently used apps
   
   
   2. Swipe up on the app’s preview to close the app
      
      
      
      1. For some iOS, you need to tap and hold an app and tap the red minus sign 
      
      
      
      
   
   
   3. Doing this does not remove the app from your iPad. It just removes it from running as a background process (multitasking)
   
   
   
   


2. To close background apps on an iPad with no Home Button running iOS 12 or newer
   
   
   
   1. Swipe up from the bottom of the home screen and pause for a moment mid-screen
   
   
   2. This process should show you all of your recently used apps
   
   
   3. Swipe left or right to get to the one you want, and then swipe up to close it 
   
   
   
   

Clear out your cache

1. If the iPad internet is slow, it might be due to the cache being full of temporary data. The iPad safari app can slow things down


2. From time to time you may want to clear your cache


3. To do that, just tap Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data

Check your storage

If your device’s internal storage is getting full, your iPad may not run smoothly. So it’s a good idea to check your storage and see what you have available.

1. Open Settings > General > iPad Storage 


2. Take a look at the top graph and look at your used vs. available storage numbers


3. Scroll down for a list of iOS recommendations


4. Look further down and scroll the list of apps to see how much storage your apps currently use

If your iPad runs low on available space, check out our top ways to clear out the clutter and free space with iOS storage tools and leverage iCloud too!

Stop Background App Refresh on your iPad

A lot of folks don’t understand that after you stop actively using an app, that app is sometimes updating and refreshing its data in the background.

Some apps update a lot in the background while others are in a suspended like state. So let’s turn off this setting either as a whole or app-by-app.

Adjust Background App Refresh

1. Open Settings > General > Background App Refresh 


2. Turn it completely off or pick and choose which apps you don’t want to refresh when not using 

Restart your device

1. If the above tips do not do the trick, you may try rebooting your device
   
   
   
   1. For folks using iOS 11 +, go to Settings > General > Shut Down. Once it’s off, wait 30 seconds before you power up
   
   
   2. Press and Hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red “slide to power off” slider appears, and then slide the slider. Then, turn it on again by holding down the sleep/wake button again 
   
   
   
   

Force Restart your iPad

• On an iPad Pro with no Home Button: Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Press and quickly release the Volume Down button. Then press and hold the Power button until the device restarts 


• On an iPad with a Home Button: Press and hold both the Home and the Top (or Side) buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo 

Sometimes, the iPad runs slow after you have updated your iOS

This is especially the case when you have an older iPad that you upgrade to a newer iOS.

This can cause motion blurs and slow response issues, or make the iPad’s internet slow.

If you noticed that your iPad is slow after updating to the latest update, you might want to explore our article that shows you some of the simple fixes that can be made to the settings to get a better responsive device.

Before you decide to invest in a brand new iPad, please read our article below and try out some of the tricks to see if it helps with your issues.