Venmo crashes are terrifying. Here's what to do when the app holding your money goes down

Venmo is a digital wallet that lets users transfer money to each other through an app. You can use it to split the bill at a restaurant, send your roommate half the rent, or toss a friend a fiver with a joke that could get you suspended. There are some privacy settings with the app that you might need to adjust, but overall it's a pretty convenient tool for you and your pals.

Except when it freezes or crashes. Then it's just plain panic-inducing, especially when you're trying to make a transaction. But don't worry! Here are some steps to take to ease the fear that your cash is disappearing into the digital void forever.

1. Check online for recent maintenance

Venmo occasionally goes through maintenance periods to fix delays, disruptions, and login problems. If you're finding it difficult to load the app or transfer money, double-check the Venmo Support Twitter account.

You can also use DownDetector to look up Venmo's status and see if you're the only one experiencing problems. If it looks like Venmo is doing fine for everyone else, then it might be your phone.

2. Force stop the Venmo app

All right, so you suspect the problem might just be you. First, you'll want to force the app to stop so you can exit it completely. This will make the app close everything down, instead of just running in the background, so you can try to start the app again. It's the phone version of restarting a program.

Android:

• Pull up your 'recent applications' menu. This is usually done by hitting the leftmost button out of the three at the very bottom of the screen. This will display all the apps currently running on your phone like a slideshow. Swipe through and find Venmo. When you spot it, you can close Venmo by swiping it up until it disappears from the screen or hit 'close all' to force all of your apps shut.

iPhone:

• iPhone X and later models can get to the 'recent applications' menu by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, then pausing when you reach the middle. iPhone 8 and earlier models only need to double-tap the home button.
• Swipe to the side to find Venmo. Once you've got it, you can swipe up to force it closed.

3. Clear app data cache

A cache is basically the user information your phone keeps to load your settings and preferences without long loading times. But sometimes that data can get corrupted or save incorrectly — which, in turn, makes it load incorrectly and messes up your app. You can solve this problem by clearing out your cache, which clears out the bad data. You'll probably have to sign into Venmo again, but it shouldn't delete the app or your account.

Android:

• Go into the settings and select 'Apps'. Look for the Venmo app, tap it, select 'Storage,' and then hit the 'Clear cache' button at the bottom. The data on your phone should be cleaned out.

iPhone:

• Clearing your cache on the iPhone differs from app to app. You might be able to do it within the app by going into your settings and looking for an option to reset your cache. If it's not available, then skip this step.

4. Delete, reinstall, or restart

If all else fails, you can delete and reinstall the Venmo app from the Android or iOS store. This will completely nuke the app and create a clean install that might, hopefully, fix the problem. To delete Venmo on Androids and iPhones, just hold down the app icon until an 'uninstall' or 'delete' option pops up. Then select that to get rid of it and then reinstall.

It wouldn't hurt to restart your phone, too. Sometimes restarting solves tech problems in seemingly magical ways, so there's no harm in trying.