This post is part of Mashable's Spring Cleaning Week. Just a little something to distract you from the eternal dread of constantly wiping all those fingerprints off your screen. 

In breakups of the pre-iPhone era, scissors were taken to holiday snaps, love letters were torn asunder, clothes were boxed up and returned to their rightful owner, and keepsakes were stowed away on a high shelf to gather dust.

Relationships and breakups have evolved since the mass adoption of smartphones. These days, not only do we have to expunge physical mementos in the aftermath of a breakup, we also have to cleanse our phones of the remnants of the relationship that once was.

You might remember that 1995 episode of Friends—the one where Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica stage a ritual burning of photos and the physical tokens given to them by bad boyfriends? That was the epitome of breakup cleanses of the pre-iPhone epoch. Over two decades later, the post-breakup rituals of the digital age couldn't look more different. So how do people cope nowadays? Mashablespoke to breakup survivors to learn their phone-cleansing protocols for surviving the end of a relationship.

Emoji wipes and name changes

Erasing any romantic emoji or photos from your contacts list is a popular post-split rite of passage. Robert Wnorowski, a campaign specialist at Mashable, removes the hearts from his ex's names in his phone contact list. He usually sets their "caller ID as an ugly picture of them."

Verity Landrock, an archaeologist, also always changes her ex's name in her phone to "something rude." "Often dickhead or a variety thereof," she clarifies. Savage.

Social media sweep

Landrock also prefers not to cut all ties, so that her ex gets the odd reminder of how well she's doing. "Snapchat stays so they can see how much fun I'm having through my Story," she says. And she prefers not to delete photos all in one go, instead deleting them "when they pop up" because she doesn't "like scrolling through at the time."

Some people take a very methodical approach to cleansing their phones of former loves. Lindy Lewis, founder of breakup coaching company Bank from Breakup, has a four-step process for uncoupling with a partner. First, she purges her phone of all pictures and archives all conversations. Then, she deletes the ex's number from her phone — a brutal but necessary step, she says, in removing the temptation to call or text. After Lewis' most recent breakup, she bought a new phone. "It allowed me to start fresh. No pictures, no texts, no phone number, no reminders," she says. Finally, she rids her social media channels of any photos of her and her ex together — the digital equivalent of taking the scissors to your snaps.

Extreme measures

It may sound a little extreme, but sometimes parting with that beloved device is the only way to get over a lost love. When Louise Bartolotta, video producer at Mashable, was 18, she said goodbye to her ex-boyfriend at the time along with her phone. "My first phone was a TracFone and when I broke up with my first boyfriend I literally threw the phone out and got an iPhone," says Bartolotta. "Like, I threw the whole phone out, contacts and everything." Of course, most of us can't really afford to buy a new phone every time we get dumped.

Virginia Fioribello, a midwife, did something rather unconventional to give herself some space from her phone immediately after she broke up with a guy she met on OkCupid. This particular ex was "very into communication," and had been a big texter during their brief relationship. Worried that she'd be inundated with texts after breaking up with him, Fioribello put her phone in the freezer and walked away for hours. "After that, no matter if my phone was fully charged, whenever it hit freezing temps outside, my phone would instantly die. The memories of the freezer were just too much for it." 

Picking and choosing

While some people are on board with the permanent act of erasing photographic evidence of a past relationship, others don't feel it's necessary. Fiona Crabb, a contract manager, deletes all conversations but keeps all photos. "Why should removing them from your life mean removing happy memories and great experiences?" she says.

Louise Matsakis, a staff writer at Wired, is of a similar mindset. She found a way to hold on to photos without having them as a constant reminder on her phone. "I keep the photos, but take them off my phone," she says, saving them on her computer instead. And Lauren Hudgins, a digital strategist, has a similar rule. She copies and archives everything relationship-related that's on her phone, and stores it in a place she doesn't frequently look. "Delete from all places you usually look," she advises.

The multi-stage process

If the thought of deleting an ex immediately out of your life feels too sudden, you could do it in stages. That's what Ashleigh Roberts, an account director at The Media Foundry, does.

She and her friends exercise a "one-month rule" when it comes to the deletion of messages. "My gal pals and I have a rule that once you hit the one full month without contact (which doesn’t necessarily mean the first month – it could be month four into the break-up as you may have exchanged the odd message in-between) you delete all conversation threads and their number," she says. She and her friends then have a mini celebration to mark this milestone. "We also usually celebrate the occasion of clearing them out of your phone with wine, ha!"

Roberts also temporarily deletes her social media accounts, and archives and mutes all conversations with that person. "I don’t want to see what they’re up to via social media, either via their page or mutual friends' pages (even if it was my decision to break-up)," she says.

Post-breakup cleanses no longer require matches to clear away the embers of our former flames, and that's probably a good thing. But in the smartphone age, we're finding new ways to rid ourselves of the mementos that have gone from heartwarming to heartbreaking, and from meaningful to meaningless.