It'due south impossible to beat Amazon'southward lineup of Fire tablets for the money — even when other companies try, the Eastward-commerce behemothic always comes out on summit. Unfortunately, even the highest-end Fire HD x Plus can't compete with tablets from Samsung or Apple tree on performance lonely. Like information technology or not, Amazon's gadgets are affordable because they're using slower, cheaper parts — but that doesn't hateful y'all can't utilize a few tricks to brand them faster. While y'all shouldn't await the incommunicable, past switching off a few settings and taking advantage of a few power-user tips, y'all can give your Fire tablet a pretty significant heave.

Articulate cache segmentation

The kickoff step towards improving performance on a Burn down tablet is wiping the cache sectionalisation. If you're not familiar with it, the enshroud partition is the space Android gives to apps to store temporary data. It'southward normally unnecessary to manually wipe this division, but it does typically make a difference on Fire tablets, especially ones that take been used for a while.

This action will not delete any of your files or awarding data. The enshroud sectionalisation just contains temporary files that are regularly auto-deleted.

Showtime, shut down your Fire tablet by holding downwards the power button. In one case it'southward off, press down on both the power and volume upwards buttons. In one case you run into the Amazon boot logo, you can let go of the volume push, merely keep belongings down the power button until you enter the recovery screen (pictured below). This method may differ on certain older models, simply this process is how it's accessed on the latest 11th gen Burn down HD 10.

fire-tablet-cache

On the recovery screen, scroll through the recovery menu using the volume buttons until "wipe enshroud sectionalization" is selected, then printing the ability push button to enter. Make sure you don't select the factory reset option by fault. You'll then be asked to confirm your choice.

Once you get kicked back to the recovery screen, curl down to "ability down" and select information technology. Then hold down the power push button again (without property downward whatsoever volume buttons) to plow your tablet dorsum on.

Uninstall apps you don't need

This tip might seem obvious, but it'south worth explicitly mentioning: remove whatsoever apps you installed and don't need anymore. You can't delete most of Amazon's pre-installed applications (and disabling them could crusade problems), but you can still go through the apps and games you've downloaded to clear out any outdated or unused software.

Turn off telemetry reporting

By default, Fire tablets send data about how y'all use your device back to Amazon. While turning them off won't result in a noticeable speed boost, there volition be fewer services running in the background — plus, it just feels nice to reduce Amazon'southward personal data collection. Here's where you can find the options:

Marketing analytics

  • Burn Os 5 and 6: Settings app > Security & Privacy > Marketing
  • Burn down Bone vii: Settings app > Security & Privacy > Device Usage Information

App usage data

  • Fire Os 5: Settings app > Security & Privacy > Collect App Usage Data
  • Burn Os half-dozen: Settings app > Apps & Notifications > Collect App Usage Information
  • Fire Os 7: Settings app > Security & Privacy > Collect App Usage Data

Install Files by Google

If you've had your Burn tablet for a while, you lot've probable accumulated a lot of junk files — downloads, folders from games you deleted ages ago, and and then on. Files by Google is a useful app that can detect and clean upwards junk files, all in a few taps.

While cleaning up unused files doesn't straight bear upon performance, Android does start to slow down when you run out of internal storage. Files by Google is great at finding the type of leftover data and junk that can rapidly fill your tablet'southward storage.

If y'all've already installed the Google Play Shop on your Fire tablet, you can just download Files past Google from the Play Store. If you don't have it installed, yous can nonetheless grab the Files app from APKMirror.

Don't install apps to an SD card

Well-nigh Fire tablets don't accept much internal space, so many device owners choose to put in a microSD carte du jour. Older Burn down tablets let you lot movement some apps to the microSD card, but if yous take one of the newer models with Android vii.0 Nougat (like the 2019 Burn down 7 or 2018 Fire HD 8), you can actually use an SD card as an extension to your internal storage.

Notwithstanding, moving apps to your SD carte makes your Fire tablet slower. Equally we've covered in detail, fifty-fifty the fastest microSD cards are slower than the internal storage used by modernistic phones and tablets. We tested this 16GB SanDisk A2 microSD card (A2 cards are supposed to be the best for apps) with a 7th-generation Fire HD 8, and random read speeds were 3x slower than the internal storage, with even worse random write speeds. In other words, fifty-fifty one of the fastest microSD cards is twice every bit deadening equally the Fire tablet'due south internal storage.

Disk benchmarks on internal storage (left) and Class ten A2 microSD (right)

Equally a more extreme example, we also tested an older Grade 10 (not A1) microSD carte with an 8th-gen Fire HD 8. These are among the lowest-grade SD cards you lot can still buy, and as you can see in the screenshots below, random read performance was effectually 6x slower than the internal storage. Random write speeds were unusable, at 35x slower than internal storage.

Deejay benchmarks on internal storage (left) and Class ten microSD (right)

It's important to annotation that SD card speeds don't thing if yous're simply using them for data storage. If you merely want to save Netflix movies for offline utilise or continue a massive music collection on your tablet, any SD card volition do just fine. Running applications direct from an SD card is what will drastically reduce performance.

If you really need the extra storage for apps, get an A2-rated card like this SanDisk model. Your apps will still run slower, only they won't be equally slow every bit they could be.

Plow off Alexa

Some people have reported that disabling the Alexa voice banana can help set up performance problems and battery drain, so if you don't care most Alexa, it's something you tin can try. Open up the Settings app from the home screen (or swipe down from the top and tap the gear icon), select 'Alexa' from the listing, and switch Alexa off. Just keep in heed that, if you regularly use Show Way on a Fire Hd 8 or Hard disk drive 10, you lot won't be able to activate it with Alexa disabled.

If you're still having issues with slowdowns/bombardment draining, you can try enabling Parental Controls from the Settings app, which prevents Alexa from running at all. I couldn't tell the departure between that and but turning off Alexa ordinarily, merely you might see different results.

Nuclear option: Set a background process limit

If your Fire tablet is all the same slow, there's ane more option you can endeavour. Android has a hidden setting for limiting the number of applications running in the background. Typically, Android will close background apps when it runs out of available RAM, but you can set it to be more ambitious. This won't affect push notifications and other tasks that normally stay in the background, only apps you opened and then exited.

Enabling a background process limit can crusade some apps to break, resulting in reduced battery life every bit apps reload more oft. Proceed at your own take a chance.

As well, this option is not available on secondary profiles on Fire tablets, but the master user.

Starting time, yous need to enable the Developer options menu if you oasis't already. Open the Settings app, select 'Device Options,' and keep tapping 'Serial number until the 'You lot are now a developer' message appears. A new 'Developer Options menu volition appear in the Device Options section.

Once you become access, open the Settings app, select 'Device Options,' tap 'Programmer Options,' press 'Background process limit' (information technology'south near the lesser), and set information technology to 2 processes.

Now your Fire tablet volition only keep ii apps running in the background. If you want to turn this off later, just go dorsum to the option and set it to 'Standard limit'. The setting is besides usually reset after a reboot, so if yous notice your tablet condign boring, bank check to see if it's still enabled.

Until Amazon steps up its game with the components it's putting in Burn down tablets, at that place's only so much you lot can do to speed them up. That said, with these tricks ready in your dorsum pocket — and some regular maintenance for clearing out old and unused files and apps — getting a better experience isn't as well difficult.

Nearly The Author

Corbin Davenport (3633 Articles Published)

Corbin is a tech journalist and developer who worked at Android Police from 2016 until 2021. Check out his other piece of work at corbin.io.

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