If you don’t have a tune-up and clean-up app for your Android phone or need a better one, here are two great ones that offer a comprehensive collection of useful tools and are free.

If you have a top of the range Android phone with lots lots of RAM and storage, you don't really need to clean up or tune up and it can cope with anything. Older Android phones can accumulate junk files, unused apps, forgotten downloads and more. They often have barely enough RAM to work and storage that is nearly full. For these phones, tune-up and clean-up utilities are useful.

Here are a couple I have used and they work well. The first is my favorite, but both are good.

All-In-One Toolbox: Storage/Cache Cleaner, Booster

Price: Free | By: AIO Software Technology | Size: 8.5 MB | Android: 4.1 and up

As of January 2020, All-In-One Toolbox has clocked up over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store and it is one of the most popular apps of its type. It is free and ad-supported, but ads can be removed for less than $1 a month.

The main screen shows the amount of RAM used. Below is the RAM used and the total RAM in gigabytes. Below, it says ROM and there is a bar and percentage, but Storage would be a better label. It shows the used and free storage space on the phone.

Tapping the big percentage in the middle of the screen runs a clean-up function that frees up extra memory. Increasing the free memory helps when you next run an app because it has more memory in which to work. However, it may make some other apps and functions slower because Android uses free memory to speed up certain operations. Try optimizing the memory and if it makes the phone more responsive then use it, but if you cannot tell the difference, ignore it.

Tap the Clean button on the home screen and there are standard and advanced clean-up functions. They erase general items like caches, temporary files, thumbnail images, app leftovers, empty folders and so on. It also cleans some app-specific items. It is possible to recover gigabytes of space using the Clean tool.

Although some items, such as caches, are designed to boost app performance, it can be useful to clean up the device occasionally, but over using it may be detrimental to performance. A white list of items to be left alone can be created and nothing is cleaned without your permission.

The Boost button on the home screen is basically a task killer and memory recovery. It lists all the apps and background services that are running and it enables them to be selected and stopped. This can be useful for killing apps that are using too much memory or battery power. However, by default it selected too much for my liking, but you can deselect items and pick the ones you want to kill. A white list of apps and services to be left alone can be created.

There are several useful tools in All-In-One Toolbox. Boot Speedup is one of the more useful and it enables you to stop apps from automatically starting when the phone or tablet starts. Although it lists all apps you have installed and all system apps bundled with the device, some things restart automatically when stopped, so you can't actually stop everything. It is still useful for blocking those apps that can be blocked and this makes more memory available for running apps and stops battery draining apps from starting.

A file manager enables you to explore the phone or tablet’s storage. Files can be deleted, copied, zipped and so on, and some files, such as text files, can be opened. It helpfully provides buttons to list categories of files, like images, audio, video, documents and so on. Duplicate files can be listed and a Device Storage Analyzer shows the storage used in categories. It isn’t for novices, but if you know your way around the storage system, it can be a useful tool for cleaning up the system.

The app contains more tools and there is an App Manager for making backups or uninstalling apps, and a CPU cooler, which is basically an app killer.

All-In-One Toolbox contains a lot of features and many of them are very good. You may not need all the tools, but even if you only use a few, it has to be worth installing. There is so much in this app that everyone is bound to find at least some of the functions useful and it is recommended.

Droid Optimizer

Price: Free | By: Ashampoo | Size: 22 MB | Android: 4.0 and up

Droid Optimizer is another popular app for Android phones and it has over one million installs in the Google Play Store. It offers dark and light interface color schemes and an interesting and useful set of functions.

There are three items at the top of the screen and the first shows the percentage of free storage space on the phone. Tapping it displays a larger display. In the center is the free RAM and it shows the percentage and the total and free space in gigabytes. Tapping it displays running apps and there is an option to close them. It is a simple task killer.

The third item at the top shows your achievements summary and in more detail when tapped. You gain achievements for cleaning your phone and the amount cleaned and you are ranked. It is just for fun and has no other purpose.

There are five items 1-Touch Speed Up, Clean Up, Automatic, App Manager and Privacy Advisor. The 1-Touch Speed Up can clean caches, stop background apps, and delete folders. The gear icon enables these items to be configured and apps you don't want closed can be white listed.

Automatic enables scheduled actions to be configured and enabled. There are two types and Auto Cleanup cleans the item categories you choose every so many hours, from one to 48. The other scheduled action turns off certain features at night, like the Wi-Fi. The hours you normally sleep can be set.

App manager lists all the apps on the phone and they can be selected and deleted. More interesting, for geeks at least, is the amount of information it can show about an app, such as detailed permissions and services. You will be surprised by the number some apps use and Amazon Alexa for example, has 68 permissions and 60 services. A shortcut can be created on the home screen that stops a specific app, which could be useful.

The Privacy Advisor is both useful and useless. It found 18 suspicious apps on my phone and among them were Google Contacts, Microsoft Outlook, LastPass, Amazon Kindle, Google Pay, Google Calendar and more. It seems to regard apps as suspicious when they have a lot of permissions or permissions they don't need. This is a general Android app problem and there isn't anything you can do about it if the apps are essential. You can dig deep into permissions and services if you want.

Droid Optimizer is an excellent app for cleaning and tuning your Android phone. It has automatic clean-up and one-touch clean-up, and it shows more information about apps than many rival apps. It is recommended.