Android phones have become remarkably powerful over the past several years. We’ve now reached a point where many can comfortably continue using the same device for four, five, or even seven years without feeling held back.

Sometimes, however, a software update introduces a new feature that was never intended for the phone in question. In my case, a feature designed to improve multitasking ended up making my phone feel a lot less responsive, and turning it off changed everything.

What is extended RAM, and how does it improve performance?

A promising feature, on paper

Extended RAM, or depending on the manufacturer, RAM expansion, Virtual RAM, RAM Plus, Memory Fusion, and so on, are all different names for the same feature designed to help your phone manage apps in memory when you run out of space in the ultra-fast RAM that your apps run in.

Extended RAM essentially takes a chunk of your slower internal storage (ROM, the one you have a lot more of) and uses it as an overflow “parking lot” for your apps when you have insufficient RAM. Some apps, like emulators, can use a lot of RAM and quickly exceed the small amount of available space on an older or lower-end phone that might only have 4 to 6GB, and thanks to the extended RAM feature, the app won’t immediately crash.

Extended RAM also helps with background apps. Once you run out of physical RAM, apps you’ve recently closed stay frozen and compressed in virtual RAM. When you reopen them, your phone can read the stored data from the storage space (sequential reads) instead of having to re-run the app’s startup code scattered across your storage drive (random reads). Since the app is already cached, the CPU also has less work to do.

To give you an illustrative example, it’s the difference between opening your fridge and taking out the bowl of cherries you placed on the top shelf earlier vs. having to reach the back of the crisper drawer to get the cherries out, one by one.

Disabling extended RAM made my old phone feel faster

The one setting I didn’t expect to help

Credit: Joe Fedewa / How-To Geek

In theory, extended RAM is a good thing. It helps phones with low RAM manage background apps more smoothly and gives foreground apps more space to work with while things load.

However, in practice, your phone can behave differently. While resuming an app from virtual RAM should be faster than a full restart from storage, ROM storage is still much slower than actual RAM. Even with fast UFS 4.0 storage, it’s still far slower than RAM—and even more so on budget phones.

The main issue is that when virtual RAM is enabled, the phone can start moving apps into storage even when there’s still free physical RAM available. Android is designed to keep RAM full for faster switching, but in some cases, this means apps get pushed out of fast memory too early.

This leads to unnecessary swapping between RAM and storage, which adds overhead and can make the phone feel slower in everyday use. The CPU also has extra work compressing and decompressing data.

All of this can result in a slightly sluggish experience that wouldn’t be there if extended RAM were turned off. In my case, disabling it made the phone feel smoother, especially when switching between already-open apps, likely because my phone already had a decent amount of RAM at 8GB.

Another problem with dedicating a large amount of internal storage space to virtual RAM is that storage can slow down as it fills up. This is counterproductive, especially if you already have limited free space left, and virtual RAM takes up a large chunk of it.

Disabling extended RAM isn’t a universal fix

Your phone might benefit from the opposite setting

Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek

Although disabling extended RAM was an easy fix that eliminated lag on my old phone, it might not apply to your phone as well. Remember, the feature was designed to help phones with an insufficient amount of RAM in the first place, and if your phone doesn’t have enough physical RAM to compensate for the feature being disabled, you could end up doing more harm than good.

Storage speed and the amount of available space are also factors to consider. An older phone that has lived a full life is likely filled with apps, photos, videos, and music, which is a scenario where extended RAM can struggle.

However, if you don’t take many photos and stick to basic app usage, your internal storage won’t slow down nearly as much with extended RAM enabled. On that note, you should absolutely try freeing up storage space before blaming the lag on extended RAM. Uninstall unused apps, delete those blurry photos you don’t need, and compress large videos.

If the feature has already been disabled on your phone and you find that it’s struggling, enabling it might be the hidden fix you were looking for after all.

How to find and disable extended RAM

A simple solution for a complicated problem

Disabling virtual RAM is very straightforward. If you’ve noticed your aging phone struggling with performance issues, it’s worth trying to disable (or enable) this feature and seeing if performance on your device improves.

To find the option, head to your phone’s settings and type “RAM” in the search bar. Look for “Virtual RAM,” “RAM Expansion,” “RAM Plus,” or any other similar-sounding feature. Tap the result and disable the feature. Alternatively, consider reducing how much storage space is reserved for virtual RAM. On some phones, dedicating a smaller amount instead of the maximum—or disabling extended RAM altogether—can strike a better balance.

Android phones can last a long time with small tweaks

It’s safe to say smartphone hardware has plateaued (or is very close to it), so it makes more sense than ever to keep an old Android phone running for years. However, features like extended RAM don’t always behave as intended in real-world use.

While they’re designed to help you squeeze more out of your phone, sometimes they can cause more problems than they solve on certain devices. So it’s worth digging into your phone’s settings, especially anything that sounds like a guaranteed performance boost, and testing whether turning it off actually makes your phone feel better.