The Only 5 Apps You Actually Need on Your Phone After 60. Delete Everything Else.

Here Is the Only Thing You Need to Know

The average smartphone has 80 apps installed on it. The average person uses 9 of them daily. That means 71 apps are sitting on your phone right now doing absolutely nothing except taking up space, sending you notifications, and quietly collecting your personal information like tiny digital raccoons going through your garbage.

I am going to tell you which 5 apps you actually need. Not 10. Not 15. Five. Two of them are already on your phone. One of them is free. The other two are also free. Your total cost for the most useful phone setup possible is zero dollars.

After we set up your five apps, I am going to tell you exactly what to delete. Not because I enjoy taking things away from people, but because a simpler phone is a faster phone, a safer phone, and a phone you actually enjoy using instead of one that makes you feel like you need a computer science degree every time you unlock it.

App 1. Bitwarden. Your Password Problem Is Worse Than You Think.

Here is the truth that nobody wants to hear. You are probably using the same three passwords for every account you have. Maybe you change a number at the end. Maybe you add an exclamation point and feel clever about it. You are not clever. You are a target.

The average person over 60 has 47 online accounts and uses roughly 13 different passwords across all of them. That means each password is shared across three or four accounts. If one account gets hacked, and accounts get hacked every single day, the attacker now has access to three or four of your accounts. If one of those is your email, they have access to everything, because your email is the reset key for every other account.

Bitwarden fixes this. It is a password manager. It remembers every password for every account so you do not have to. You remember one single master password. Bitwarden handles the other 46.

It is free. Not the kind of free where they sell your data. Actually free. Bitwarden is open source, which means thousands of security researchers can inspect its code. It is the password manager that security professionals use for themselves.

Here is how to set it up in three steps.

Step one. Go to your phone's app store. Search for Bitwarden. Download it. It is a blue shield icon.

Step two. Create an account. Use your email address and choose a master password. This is the ONE password you will need to remember. Make it long. A sentence works well. Something like "my dog ate the remote in 2019" is an excellent password. Easy to remember, very hard to crack.

Step three. Go to Settings inside Bitwarden and turn on "Auto fill." On iPhone, go to your phone's Settings, then Passwords, then Password Options, and select Bitwarden. On Android, go to Settings, then Passwords and Accounts, then Autofill, and select Bitwarden.

From now on, every time you log into a website, Bitwarden will offer to save the password. Say yes. Over the next few weeks, your entire digital life will be organized and secured without you doing anything extra.

What it replaces. That notebook in your desk drawer with all your passwords written in it. The sticky note on your monitor. The practice of using your dog's name followed by the year you were born for every account you own.

App 2. Google Photos. Because Your Phone Could Break Tomorrow.

Imagine this. You drop your phone in a parking lot. It shatters. You go to the store and get a new one. You set it up and realize that every photo you have taken in the last ten years is gone. Every grandkid birthday. Every vacation. Every picture of your garden in full bloom. Gone.

This happens to people every single day. It happened to my neighbor Frank last March. He lost seven years of photos in an instant. He told me about it and I could see in his eyes that it hurt worse than the broken phone.

Google Photos backs up every photo and video on your phone to the cloud automatically. The cloud just means Google's computers. Your photos are stored there safely, and if your phone breaks, gets lost, or gets stolen, every single photo is waiting for you on your new phone the moment you sign in.

You get 15 gigabytes of storage for free. For most people, that is enough for several years of photos. If you take a lot of video, you might fill it up faster, but you will get a warning well before that happens.

Here is how to set it up in three steps.

Step one. Download Google Photos from your app store if it is not already on your phone. Most Android phones have it pre installed.

Step two. Open it and sign in with your Google account. If you have a Gmail address, that is your Google account. If you do not have one, the app will walk you through creating one.

Step three. When it asks if you want to turn on Backup, say yes. Choose "Storage saver" quality. This compresses photos very slightly to save space, and the difference in quality is invisible to the human eye.

That is it. Every photo you take from now on is automatically backed up. You never have to think about it again.

The one setting to change. Open Google Photos, tap your profile picture in the top right, tap Photos Settings, then Backup, and make sure "Use cellular data" is turned ON. This means your photos back up even when you are not connected to WiFi. It uses a small amount of your phone data but it means your photos are protected at all times.

What it replaces. Whatever prayer you were previously using as a backup strategy.

App 3. FaceTime or Google Meet. Because the Face Matters.

A phone call is wonderful. Hearing someone's voice connects you in a way that text never will. But seeing their face while you hear their voice is something else entirely. You can see the smile. You can see the new haircut. You can see the grandkid holding up the drawing they made for you.

If you have an iPhone, FaceTime is already on your phone. It is green with a white video camera icon. You do not need to download anything. You do not need to create an account. If the person you are calling also has an iPhone, you just open FaceTime and tap their name.

If you have an Android phone, or if the person you want to call has an Android phone, use Google Meet. Download it from the app store. Sign in with your Google account. To start a call, tap New Meeting, then Send Invite, and text or email the link to whoever you want to talk to. They tap the link and you are connected.

Here is the setup in three steps.

Step one. If you have an iPhone, open FaceTime. It is already there. If you have an Android, download Google Meet from the Play Store.

Step two. For FaceTime, there is no setup. For Google Meet, sign in with your Google account.

Step three. Make your first call. Call someone right now. Tell them you are testing your video. They will be delighted.

The one setting to change. In FaceTime, go to Settings, then FaceTime, and make sure "FaceTime" is turned on. In Google Meet, open the app, tap the three dots in the top right, go to Settings, then make sure "Front facing camera" is the default. Nobody wants to see your ceiling fan.

What it replaces. Wondering what your grandchildren look like this month. Trying to describe things over the phone when showing would be easier. That vague feeling that technology has made us more connected and less close at the same time.

App 4. Your Weather App. It Is Already on Your Phone.

I am including this because I have watched too many people spend 30 minutes watching the Weather Channel to find out if they need a jacket. Your phone already has a weather app. It shows you the current temperature, the forecast for the week, and whether it is going to rain in the next hour. All in about four seconds.

On iPhone, the app is called Weather. It has a blue background with a sun and clouds. On Android, the app is called Weather or you can simply type "weather" into the Google search bar on your home screen.

Here is the setup in three steps.

Step one. Find the weather app on your phone. If you cannot find it, swipe down on your home screen and type "weather" in the search bar.

Step two. Open it. If it asks for your location, say yes. This is how it knows to show you the weather for where you actually are rather than for Topeka, Kansas.

Step three. Add any other cities you care about. If your daughter lives in Denver, add Denver. If you are planning a trip to Charleston, add Charleston. Most weather apps let you add multiple locations by tapping a plus sign or a search icon.

The one setting to change. Turn on weather notifications for rain or severe weather. On iPhone, open the Weather app, tap the three lines in the bottom right, tap the three dots next to your location, and turn on Severe Weather notifications. On Android, open the weather app, tap your profile or the settings gear, and turn on alerts.

What it replaces. The Weather Channel. The habit of watching a full hour of weather television to get five seconds of useful information. Asking your spouse to check the weather while you finish getting dressed.

App 5. Your Notes App. The Most Underused App on Your Phone.

Your phone came with a notes app. On iPhone it is called Notes with a yellow and white icon. On Android it is called Google Keep with a yellow icon that looks like a lightbulb.

This is your grocery list. This is your list of questions for the doctor. This is where you write down the name of the restaurant your friend recommended. This is where you keep the measurements of your living room windows for when you are standing in the curtain aisle at the store wondering if 84 inches is the right length.

I know what you are thinking. I can just remember things. No. You cannot. Nobody can. The human brain is extraordinary at creative thought and terrible at remembering to buy milk. Use the tool.

Here is the setup in three steps.

Step one. Find Notes (iPhone) or Google Keep (Android) on your phone. If you cannot find it, search for it.

Step two. Open it and create your first note. Call it Grocery List. Add whatever you need from the store right now. I guarantee there is something.

Step three. Create a second note called Doctor Questions. Every time you think of something you want to ask your doctor, open this note and type it in. When you are sitting in the examination room and the doctor says "do you have any questions" you will, for the first time in your life, actually have an answer.

The one setting to change. On iPhone, add Notes to your lock screen by swiping left on the lock screen to access Quick Notes. On Android, add a Google Keep widget to your home screen by long pressing on your home screen, tapping Widgets, and finding Google Keep. This lets you open your notes instantly without unlocking your phone and trying to remember what you were going to write down.

What it replaces. Scraps of paper. The back of envelopes. That napkin from the diner with the phone number you cannot read. Forgetting why you walked into the kitchen.

The Complete Picture

Total cost for all five. Zero dollars. Total setup time for all five. About thirteen minutes. Total improvement to your daily life. Enormous.

Now for the Satisfying Part. What to Delete.

Your phone is about to get faster, simpler, and more pleasant to use. Here is what to remove.

Delete the Facebook app. I can hear the gasps from here. Let me explain. The Facebook app is one of the largest battery drains on any phone. It tracks your location. It monitors what other apps you use. It sends you notifications designed to pull you back in every few hours. You do not need any of this.

Instead, open your phone's web browser. Type in facebook.com. Log in. Bookmark it. You now have full access to Facebook without the app eating your battery, tracking your location, or interrupting your afternoon with a notification that someone you went to high school with has a birthday.

Delete all news apps. Every major news website works perfectly in your phone's browser. The apps exist primarily to send you alarming push notifications throughout the day. Your blood pressure does not need this. Bookmark your preferred news sites in your browser and check them when you choose to, not when an algorithm decides you need to feel anxious.

Delete games that show ads. If you enjoy games on your phone, that is perfectly fine. But if the game interrupts you with a 30 second advertisement every two minutes, delete it. These games are not designed to entertain you. They are designed to show you ads. Your time is worth more than that.

Delete anything you have not opened in 60 days. This is the big one. Go through your apps one screen at a time. For each app, ask yourself one question. Have I opened this in the last two months? If the answer is no, delete it. You can always re download it later if you discover you need it. You will not discover you need it.

How to Delete Apps

On iPhone. Press and hold the app icon until a little menu appears. Tap Remove App. Tap Delete App. Confirm. Done.

On Android. Press and hold the app icon. Drag it to the word Uninstall at the top of the screen. Or press and hold, tap App Info, then tap Uninstall.

Some apps that came with your phone cannot be deleted. That is fine. You can at least move them to a folder on your last screen so they are out of sight. Create a folder called "Stuff I Ignore" and put them all in there. It is the digital equivalent of that junk drawer in your kitchen. Everyone has one. No judgment.

The After Picture

When you are done, your home screen should have your five essential apps, your phone app for making regular calls, your text messaging app, your camera, and your web browser. That is nine things on your home screen. Everything else lives in a folder or does not live on your phone at all.

Your phone will be faster because it is not running thirty background processes for apps you forgot existed. Your battery will last longer because Facebook is not tracking your location every eight minutes. Your notifications will be quieter because the apps that existed solely to interrupt you are gone.

Most importantly, your phone will feel like a tool again instead of a source of confusion. A tool that protects your passwords, saves your photos, connects you face to face with people you love, tells you the weather, and remembers your grocery list.

That is what a phone should do. Everything else is noise.

One last thing. If you found this useful, do not forward this article to your adult children and ask them to set up your phone for you. Set it up yourself. Follow the three steps for each app. If you get stuck, call them. That is what the video calling app is for.

You have got this. It is five apps. Thirteen minutes. And a phone that finally works the way you always wanted it to.