If your phone is overheating and you have a case on, the first thing you should do is remove the case. According to Joule’s law, all electronic devices, including your smartphone, generate heat when they’re working (turned on). When a case is on your phone, it can prevent the heat from escaping effectively, causing the device to overheat.

This is especially true if your case is made from an insulating material such as silicone, rubber, or thick plastic. The worst part is that the case can mask the heat buildup, so you might not even realize your phone is getting hot until the screen starts feeling warm. At that point, your phone is probably already overheating, so remove the case quickly and let it catch some air.

Close all open Apps and Background Apps

Every time you open an app on your smartphone, it uses the CPU and memory, which in turn generates heat. So, closing all open apps can help reduce overall heat generation.

When you simply swipe up and exit an app, you aren’t actually closing it—instead, it’s still running in the background. If you open and exit multiple apps, you end up with many minimized applications, all contributing to heat generation. As such, if your phone starts to feel hot, go into the multitasking menu and check if you have a lot of apps running. If yes, swipe them away, and it should help cool down your phone.

Restart your Phone

If your phone is still hot after closing all the apps, consider restarting it or turning it off. Similar to background apps, there are background processes that also contribute to resource consumption and heat generation.

For example, Instagram will run a background process, so you receive notifications even if the Instagram app itself is not open or in the multitasking menu. And since there isn’t a straightforward way to access these processes, you can’t stop them as quickly. So, the best thing you can do is restart your phone, which will reinitialize the operating system and terminate any rogue processes that could cause excessive heat generation.

Turn off Mobile Data and Reduce Screen Brightness

When mobile data is enabled, your phone continuously communicates with nearby cell towers to manage data transmission and reception. This process requires significant processing power, which generates heat. Additionally, your phone’s screen is one of the most power-hungry components. Increasing the brightness requires more power, which in turn generates more heat.

As such, lowering the screen brightness and disabling mobile data can help reduce overall heat generation and potentially cool down an overheating smartphone.

If charging, stop using it or remove it from the charger

Charging your phone is an electrochemical process that generates heat. And as we discussed, using your phone also generates heat. So, if you’re charging your phone and using it at the same time, that’s a double whammy, causing your phone to overheat quickly.

To prevent this, if you have to use your phone, take it out of the charger and then use it. Or ideally, wait until it is done charging and then use it.

If your smartphone is near a heat source, move it to a colder environment or simply away from the heat source to prevent it from overheating. This is simple to understand, but we often unconsciously place our phones near hot objects or in direct sunlight, causing them to overheat.

For example, I used to keep my Pixel 6a in my jeans pocket, which got blasted by sunlight when I rode the bus. It felt toasty hot when I eventually pulled it out. I’ve also kept my phone on my desk near the exhaust of my PS5, and it took me too long to figure out why my phone always felt hot after playing FF16 on my console.

As such, be mindful of where you keep your phone. If it feels like it’s overheating, move it to a cooler environment. Keeping it close to a fan for airflow or entering an air-conditioned room can help lower the temperature.

If your phone is IP-68 rated, it means you can theoretically dip it 6 meters underwater for up to 30 minutes, and the phone should still be okay. Following this logic, I used to place my Pixel 6a (which has an IP67 rating by the way) under a running tap when it overheated—an issue that has hence been solved with a software update.

You see, phones with IP-68 ratings are not immune to water damage. The glues and seals used in this process can and will wear off with time. This process is further accelerated if your phone suffers drops, bumps, and other accidental damage. Overall, using water to cool your phone is not a great idea.