10 Proven Tricks to Extend Your Phone's Battery Life

 

10 Proven Tricks to Extend Your Phone's Battery Life

(And the surprising myth that could be hurting it)

The dreaded red battery icon—it's a universal symbol of modern anxiety. Before you give up on your phone, try these proven, expert-backed techniques to reclaim your battery life. Small habits can make a huge difference.

Proven Tricks to Boost Your Battery

1. The Power of Dark Mode

Switch your phone's system and apps to Dark Mode whenever possible.

Why it works: If your phone has an OLED or AMOLED screen (most modern iPhones and high-end Androids do), black pixels are literally turned off. They consume zero power. The more black on your screen, the less energy you use.

2. Tame Background Refresh

Go to settings and disable "Background App Refresh" for apps that don't need to be constantly updated (like social media, games, or news apps).

Why it works: This feature allows apps to check for new content even when you're not using them. Disabling it stops this hidden activity, saving both battery and data.

3. Be Strict with Location

Review your app permissions. Set Location Services to "While Using the App" instead of "Always." Turn off location for apps that don't need it at all.

Why it works: Your phone's GPS is one of its most power-hungry components. Limiting which apps can access it, and when, provides a massive battery saving.

4. Dim Your Screen

Your screen is the #1 battery drain. Lower the brightness to the lowest comfortable level. Using Auto-Brightness is a good compromise.

Why it works: Powering the backlight of an LCD screen or the individual pixels of an OLED screen requires a lot of energy. Less light equals less energy used. It's that simple.

5. Use Low Power Mode Early

Don't wait until you're at 10%. Enable Low Power Mode (iOS) or Battery Saver (Android) when you hit 30-40% if you know you have a long day ahead.

Why it works: These modes automatically implement several battery-saving tricks at once, like reducing background activity, stopping auto-downloads, and lowering performance slightly.

6. Reduce Motion & Animations

In your Accessibility settings, look for "Reduce Motion" (iOS) or "Remove Animations" (Android). Enabling this can provide a small but noticeable boost.

Why it works: Fancy animations, like the parallax effect on your home screen or apps zooming open, use the phone's graphics processor (GPU). Reducing them lessens the load on the GPU.

Myth vs. Fact: The Truth About Your Apps

The Myth

"Force-quitting apps from the app switcher saves battery."

We all do it—swiping up to close every app we're not actively using, thinking we're cleaning house and saving power.

The Fact

This often uses MORE battery.

Apps in the switcher are typically in a "frozen" or suspended state, using almost no resources. When you force-quit an app, you purge it from the phone's memory (RAM). The next time you open it, the phone has to load it from scratch, which is a much more energy-intensive process.

Only force-quit an app if it's frozen or misbehaving.

Charging Best Practices for Long-Term Health

The 20-80% Rule

For maximizing the long-term lifespan of your lithium-ion battery, try to keep its charge level between 20% and 80% as much as possible.

Sweet Spot (20% - 80%)

Think of it like a muscle: constantly stretching it to 100% or letting it become fully depleted puts stress on it. While modern phones have safeguards against "overcharging," leaving a phone at 100% on a charger for extended periods (like overnight, every night) can accelerate battery aging.

Bonus Tip: The Surprising Effect of a Weak Signal

Ever notice your battery drains incredibly fast in a basement, elevator, or rural area? When your phone has a weak or non-existent cell signal, it dramatically increases its power output to constantly search for a connection. It's essentially "shouting" for a cell tower, and that shouting takes a ton of energy.

The Fix: If you know you'll be in a low-signal area for a while, switch to Airplane Mode. You can still turn on Wi-Fi separately if it's available.

Back to blog