How to Fix a Phone Where Apps Keep Crashing
It is not just one app — multiple apps are crashing on your phone. They open for a second then close, or they freeze and the phone returns to the home screen. When multiple apps crash at the same time or within the same period, the problem is almost certainly not with individual apps. Something system-level is wrong — a bad update, full storage, corrupted cache, or in rare cases, failing hardware.
Restart the phone first
A restart clears all running processes, releases memory, and reinitializes the operating system. If the crashes are caused by a memory leak, a stuck system service, or a temporary glitch after an update, a restart fixes it immediately. This is not a placeholder suggestion — a simple restart resolves a significant percentage of system-wide app crashes.
If the phone is too frozen to restart normally, force restart it:
- iPhone (Face ID models): Press and quickly release Volume Up, press and quickly release Volume Down, then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears
- iPhone (Home button models): Press and hold both the Home button and the Side (or Top) button until the Apple logo appears
- Samsung: Press and hold Volume Down and Power for 10 seconds
- Most other Android: Press and hold Power for 10 to 15 seconds until the phone restarts
Check storage space
Full storage is the most common cause of system-wide app crashes. Apps need free space to create temporary files, update their data, and operate normally. When storage is nearly full, apps cannot write the files they need and crash instead.
- iPhone: Settings, General, iPhone Storage. If the bar at the top is nearly full, you need to free space
- Android: Settings, Storage. Look at the used vs available space
Aim to keep at least 10 to 15 percent of your total storage free. On a 64 GB phone, that means keeping at least 6 to 10 GB available. On a 128 GB phone, 12 to 20 GB.
Quick ways to free storage:
- Delete old photos and videos (back them up to Google Photos or iCloud first)
- Offload apps you do not use (iPhone: Settings, General, iPhone Storage, Enable Offload Unused Apps)
- Clear app caches — on Android, Settings, Storage, Cached Data, Clear. On iPhone, offloading and reinstalling the largest apps clears their caches
- Delete downloaded music, podcasts, and offline content from streaming apps (Spotify, Netflix, YouTube)
- Clear message attachments — old message threads with photos and videos can use gigabytes of storage
Update everything
System updates
If the crashes started after or around a system update, the update may have introduced a bug. Paradoxically, the fix is usually the next update — developers push fixes quickly when a system update causes widespread crashes. Check for and install any pending updates:
- iPhone: Settings, General, Software Update
- Android: Settings, System, System Update
App updates
Outdated apps that have not been updated to work with the latest OS version can crash. Open the App Store or Google Play Store and update all apps. Pay particular attention to system apps like Google (the core Google app on Android), Android System WebView, and Google Play Services — these are foundational apps that many other apps depend on, and an outdated or corrupted version causes cascading crashes across dozens of apps.
Android System WebView (Android-specific)
WebView is the system component that lets apps display web content. When WebView has a bug or becomes corrupted, every app that displays web content (which is most apps — email, social media, banking, news) crashes. This has caused multiple widespread crash events affecting millions of Android users.
To fix: open Google Play Store, search for Android System WebView, and update it. If it is already up to date, try uninstalling updates (three-dot menu, Uninstall Updates) to revert to the built-in version, then update again. Do the same for Google Chrome, which also provides WebView on newer Android versions.
Clear system cache (Android)
Android maintains a system-level cache partition separate from individual app caches. Corrupted system cache causes unpredictable crashes across multiple apps. Clearing it forces Android to rebuild the cache from scratch:
- Power off the phone
- Boot into Recovery Mode (the button combination varies — usually Power + Volume Up, held together while the phone is off)
- Use volume buttons to navigate to Wipe Cache Partition, then confirm with the Power button
- Select Reboot System Now after the cache is cleared
This does not delete any personal data, apps, or settings. It only clears temporary system files that are rebuilt automatically.
Safe mode test
Safe mode runs the phone with only the pre-installed system apps — all third-party apps are disabled. If crashes stop in safe mode, a third-party app is causing the problem.
- Android: Press and hold the Power button, then press and hold the Power Off option until the Safe Mode prompt appears. Tap OK. In safe mode, uninstall recently added apps one at a time
- iPhone: iOS does not have a traditional safe mode. The equivalent test is to offload all recently installed third-party apps and test stability
If crashes continue even in safe mode, the problem is with the operating system itself or the hardware.
Factory reset
If nothing else works and system-wide crashes persist, a factory reset returns the phone to its original software state. Back up everything first — photos, contacts, messages, app data.
- iPhone: Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Erase All Content and Settings
- Android: Settings, System, Reset, Factory Data Reset
After the reset, set up the phone as new rather than restoring from a backup. If crashes stop with a fresh setup, the backup contained corrupted data. If crashes persist even after a factory reset with no apps installed and no backup restored, the problem is hardware.
Hardware causes
System-wide app crashes that survive a factory reset point to hardware failure:
- Storage degradation: The NAND flash memory in phones degrades over time. As storage cells fail, the phone cannot reliably read and write data, causing random crashes across all apps. This is more common on older phones that have been through many write cycles
- RAM failure: Defective RAM causes crashes when apps happen to use the faulty memory addresses. The crashes appear random because different apps use different memory locations at different times
- Overheating: A phone that overheats during normal use (not just during heavy gaming or charging) may have a cooling system problem or a battery that is generating excess heat. High temperatures cause the processor to throttle and apps to be force-closed to reduce heat output
App crash help in Marion
If your phone's apps keep crashing constantly and the steps above did not fix it, or if crashes continue after a factory reset suggesting a hardware problem, Marion Phone Repair can diagnose whether the cause is software, storage health, RAM, or thermal issues and get the phone stable again.