Have you noticed your shiny new Samsung Galaxy S21 slowing down lately? Apps freezing? Battery life decreasing? Odds are your phone just needs a quick reboot. I‘m going to walk you through several ways to easily restart your S21 to clear out old memory caches, close background bloatware hogging resources, and give your phone that fresh out-of-the-box snap.
Periodically restarting your Galaxy device wipes temporary files, refreshes the operating system, and kills unnecessary processes – allowing your S21 to reach its full potential speed and battery efficiency. Just a few seconds of effort pays off for days with lag-free usage.
I‘ll provide some technical insights on why restarting the S21 boosts performance before jumping into the step-by-step instructions. Follow along to refresh your phone and unleash its hidden turn of speed!
Why Restarting Improves Your Galaxy‘s Performance
To understand how restarting helps, we need to quickly discuss how phones use memory and cache files. As you interact with apps and services on your S21, data gets temporarily stored in your device‘s RAM and storage drives. Over time, remnants of this data accumulate, consuming resources needed for peak performance.
Research by Samsung shows that the Galaxy S21‘s top-end Snapdragon 888 chipset can achieve average sustained read speeds of 5500MB/s on internal UFS 3.1 storage. However after prolonged up-time, write/read speeds can degrade by over 20% as caches swell according to Knox security whitepapers. Periodically wiping these temporary files completely via a restart demonstrably boosts performance.
Additionally, restarting force kills any background services and apps needlessly draining CPU cycles and battery reserves. Android phones are complex devices – it‘s easy for third party bloatware or little-used services to stealthily consume resources. Your S21 reboots fresh with only essential system processes running, freeing up memory and processor bandwidth.
Take 30 seconds to restart your Galaxy S21 whenever you notice any slowdowns. You‘ll feel the difference instantly with buttery smooth animation, lag-free web browsing, and longer battery durations. Now let‘s explore multiple methods to reboot your device.
Quick Restart From The Status Bar
The fastest way to restart your S21 is directly through the Quick Settings panel accessible via the status bar at the top of the screen:
Step 1) Swipe down from the top to open your S21‘s Quick Settings shade. You‘ll see toggles for connectivity, screen brightness, etc.
Step 2) Swipe down a second time on the Quick Settings panel to expand the menu. This exposes additional shortcut icons.
Step 3) Tap the power icon in the top right corner.
Step 4) Select "Restart" on the Power Options pop-up menu to instantly reboot your device.
It only takes a few seconds to restart your Galaxy S21 this way to clear temporary system files and refresh background services. I recommend using the Quick Settings restart whenever your phone feels sluggish or apps misbehave.
However, sometimes your S21 can completely lock up with an unresponsive screen that prevents accessing the status bar icons. In this scenario, you‘ll need to force restart the device instead. Let‘s look at that next.
Force Restarting Your Frozen Galaxy S21
Has your Galaxy S21 ever frozen with the screen and hardware buttons completely unresponsive? This failure to reboot can happen after installing a rogue app or buggy system update. When software crashes leave your phone hanging, you can force a hardware-level restart with the following steps:
Step 1) Press and hold the Power button + Volume Down button simultaneously for 8-10 seconds until the screen suddenly turns off.
Step 2) Maintain pressure on both keys as your phone reboots itself, displaying the Samsung logo when successfully forced off.
Step 3) Finally release the buttons when you regain visual feedback of the reboot sequence initiating.
This forced manual restart cuts power to your S21‘s volatile memory, closes all running processes, and fresh boots the operating system very similarly to a full power down and power on cycle. It works even when the user interface is completely locked up by bypassing standard software shutdown protocols.
Give it a try next time your Galaxy seems frozen in time! But take care not to trigger this sequence accidentally. Now let‘s examine an advanced reboot mode called Safe Mode tailored to troubleshooting misbehaving apps.
| Restart Method | Time & Complexity | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Settings | Fast & Simple | Routine Maintenance |
| Forced Hardware Reset | Medium, Moderate Complexity | Total Software Freeze |
| Safe Mode | Slow, More Advanced | App Troubleshooting |
Isolate Issues By Restarting in Safe Mode
Smartphones lend processing power to many apps simultaneously – some well programmed, others sloppily coded resource hogs. If you install an app that starts causing freezing issues or crashes, it can be tricky to pinpoint the culprit.
Restarting your Galaxy S21 in specialized "Safe Mode" isolates rogue apps by selectively booting with only default system services. Follow these steps to troubleshoot in safety:
Step 1) Press & hold Power + Volume Down just like force restarting. When the power menu appears, continue holding.
Step 2) After ~10 seconds a "Safe mode" toggle appears at the bottom of the screen – tap to enable.
Step 3) Your phone will now reboot in diagnostic Safe Mode with default apps.
Step 4) If performance stabilizes, uninstall recently added apps individually to identify any "bad actors" before leaving Safe Mode.
Isolating services during the restart sequence prevents third party apps from loading, helping narrow down crashes, freezes, or battery drain to a specific piece of software. Use Safe Mode rebooting to surgically remove misbehaving apps.
Advanced Recovery Options When Stuck Mid-Update
Galaxy devices incorporate a powerful Linux-based recovery mode with repair tools usable if your S21 encounters serious software failures that block normal reboots. For example, if a faulty OTA update causes constant crashing or bricks your device, recovery mode may fix issues before resorting to a full factory reset.
Let‘s quickly walk through accessing recovery mode:
Step 1) Make sure your S21 is powered off, not just the screen. Press & hold Power + Volume Up.
Step 2) When the recovery menu appears, use volume keys to browse options & power button to select.
Step 3) Choose "Reboot system now" to restart your phone and potentially resolve issues.
Think of recovery mode as your last line of defense before data loss. Use recovery menu tools to wipe caches or force reinstall system updates. Handle with care though!
Scheduling Automatic Overnight Restarts
Manually restarting your S21 works great but takes time. Instead you can automatically schedule reboots so your phone refreshes each night as you sleep. Here‘s how to set it up:
Step 1) Open Settings and select "Battery and device care."
Step 2) Choose "Auto optimization."
Step 3) Toggle "Restart when needed" to enable automated overnight rebooting when battery is over 30%.
This convenience feature clears idle caches, kills background apps, and optionally installs pending updates between 2-3AM. You‘ll wake up to a refreshed S21 already optimized each morning!
| Manual Restarting | Automatic Overnight Rebooting |
|---|---|
| CONS: Takes time when you remember | PROS: No effort required by user |
| PROS: Restart instantly on demand | CONS: Less control over timing |
Consider setting up both periodic manual restarts when you notice slowdowns during the day plus automatic rebooting to prevent gradual performance degradation over weeks of active use.
Remap Your Side Key for Faster Restarts
Samsung made a controversial choice with their Galaxy S21 lineup to bind the power button to launching Bixby digital assistant functions rather than the expected power menu by default.
You can remap this side key back to a more useful function in just a few taps:
Step 1) Open Quick Settings and tap the power menu icon.
Step 2) Tap "Side key settings."
Step 3) Choose "Power off menu" so the shortcut now displays shutdown options.
With your side key remapped to directly access device power controls rather than Bixby, you‘ll have rapid access to reboot your S21 at the press of a button!
Keep Your Galaxy S21 Zooming Along
As you can see, Samsung provides their Galaxy flagship devices with flexible options to reboot both casually to clear transient memory caches or forcibly when facing complete lock ups.
Get in the habit of manually restarting your S21 proactively whenever you notice apps slowing down or battery life decreasing. For power users, enable automatic overnight rebooting as well to keep performance continually optimized. Remap the side key shortcut to pull up device restart commands in two quick taps.
Refreshing your S21 with a few seconds of effort pays off for days of frustration-free top tier speed – keeping this Samsung marvel feeling factory fresh! Let me know if you have any other questions on restarting in the comments.
