Why is my new iPhone slow? What is indexing?

All iPhones are slower than you’d expect when they are new or when you’ve updated iOS, and Indexing is generally the culprit. Here’s exactly what’s happening and what you can do about it.

Not to drag this out, the short answer is that all you absolutely have to do to speed up your iPhone is wait. You can help it along a bit, but the iPhone is indexing all of the data you’ve got on it and when that’s done, it won’t be so slow anymore.

In fact it will feel especially fast, because then whenever you search your emails or look for a file, the iPhone has it indexed and will take you straight to it. This has always been the case with Spotlight searches, and it’s now also because of Sir AI.

It’s possible that you’ve never even noticed the slowdown. Then at the other end of the scale it’s possible that bugs with the iPhone 18 Pro reportedly not responding quickly to touch are because of this.

Everyone’s iPhone is different because everyone’s iPhone contains different data and, most importantly, different amounts of it. Apple warns that depending “on the amount of data on your device, Spotlight indexing can take hours or even days.”

This indexing is performed on your device and the resulting index stays on your device. It’s also something that iOS performs continually, it’s just most noticeable when the indexing first starts.

What gets indexed includes:

• Files
• Folders
• Apps
• Documents
• Emails
• Messages
• Contacts
• Photos
• Music
• Podcasts
• Notes
• System Settings

So later when you need to find that Apple Note about your Christmas list, Spotlight gets it right away. Now when you ask what time your flight to LA is, Siri AI gets it from your emails or your calendar because of this indexing.

Consequently, this index can be huge and it can therefore take a long time to produce at first. After that, the index is continually updated and Apple says this incremental further indexing is much faster.

What you can do

Seriously, don’t give it a thought, just wait and it’ll work out. Apple might be being optimistic when it even says that the process could take days, as AppleInsider staffers have noticed it being around a week.

However, there are steps you can take that will speed up the indexing. It’s not clear that they will make it a great deal faster, but the process will be quicker if you:

• Stop using your iPhone
• Leave it charging
• Make sure it’s on Wi-Fi

You can see whether indexing has completed or not by checking Settings. At the top, just under your name and any Family settings, you’ll either see the words “Optimising Search and Siri,” or you won’t.

This only appears during the initial indexing and it’s surely there because people have complained about the slow down. You can tap on those words to get a fuller explanation, but really you just get Apple saying the same thing in more words.

Why this is more noticeable now

Siri AI. Apple’s documentation about this reads as if they’ve just added the phrase “and Siri AI” to the odd sentence, but it is the reason the indexing is taking longer.

If you noticed it taking longer during the previous iOS 26, and specifically iOS 26.6, that appears to have been Apple preparing the way. As noted by AppleInsider about the iPad back in July 2026, iPadOS 26.6 looked to be handling background tasks in advance of the OS 27 releases.

So Apple has done what it can to cut down the indexing time. That just won’t help if you’re moving all of your data to a new iPhone where it will have to start again.