How to save the battery life on your iPhone

There’s nothing worse than having your smartphone battery die just as you’re about to make an urgent call, snap an amazing photo, or map directions to an important appointment. Learning how to save battery life on your iPhone can not only prevent such mishaps, it can also help you avoid the constant struggle of finding a charging cord and outlet every time you leave the house. Thankfully, there are plenty of iPhone tricks that can help you keep your iPhone going longer on a single charge.

There are a lot of reasons Apple releases software updates: to enhance privacy settings, fix bugs, offer new features. Each new iPhone software update also includes advanced energy-saving technologies, according to Apple. Typically, when an update is available, you’ll see that little red circle on your Settings app. You may also get a banner notification on your phone. If you’re not sure and want to check if an update is available, tap your Settings app. Scroll down to General, and tap it. Then hit Software Update at the top. Your screen will either say your iOS version is up to date or provide an option to update.

Don’t miss these things you’re doing to your iPhone that apple experts wouldn’t.

If you’ve ever left your iPhone in a hot car only to return and find a message telling you that your ‘iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it,’ this tip is for you. The iPhone’s battery is designed to work best when it’s between 0 and 35 degrees Celsius, but its ideal comfort zone is between 16 and 22 degrees. Expose your phone to extreme heat, and the damaging effect on the battery can be permanent: Your battery won’t last as long on a single charge, and it may not ever charge beyond 80 per cent capacity again. The best idea is to cool your phone quickly. The good news is that if you expose your phone to cold temperatures, any decrease in battery life is likely to be temporary.

And be sure you’re not accidentally turning up the heat when charging your device. The design of certain cases can generate heat and affect battery performance. If you notice your phone gets hot when you charge it, take it out of its case first.

Apple has made fast charging available since the release of the iPhone 8, claiming that the phone can gain up to 50 per cent battery life with 30 minutes of charging. The company’s USB Power Delivery makes it possible for people with an iPhone 8 or later model to upgrade from a standard five-watt charger to one that supports up to 27 watts. The downside? All that fast charging eats up your lithium-ion battery, so if saving battery life on your iPhone is a priority, stick with the old-fashioned slow chargers.

Here’s how to charge your phone faster.

While most things in life run better at a 100 per cent charge, your iPhone is not one of them. If you keep it plugged in whenever you’re not using it, you’re actually doing more harm than good. The same is true for keeping it completely drained for any length of time. Both of these extreme states put additional stress on your battery. To make your smartphone battery last longer, run it down as far as possible between charges. Surprised? It turns out that the more often you charge your battery, the less energy it retains. And if you habitually charge it when it gets to a certain level – say 50 per cent – your battery begins to think that 50 per cent is its maximum capacity.

If you have an iPhone X or later, you can view the battery percentage by swiping down from the right-hand corner of the screen. Control Centre will appear, and next to the battery icon you’ll see your battery life. Battery percentage is always visible in the status bar of earlier models. If it’s not appearing for you, click on the Settings icon. Select Battery and toggle on Battery Percentage.

In the early days of smartphones, we were taught to close apps once we were finished using them. But that’s not how you save battery life on an iPhone. In fact, force-quitting an iPhone app actually harms battery life. That’s because every time you swipe an app closed, all of the code that helps the app run is deleted from your phone. Plus, the app has to reload the code when you relaunch the app. If you use the app infrequently, by all means, close it when you’re done. (And if you really never use it, permanently delete that app.) But if you check social media, the weather, or stocks multiple times a day, let them hang out in the background.

While you don’t want to close out of most apps entirely, you can take steps to limit how much battery they consume when they’re open. Many apps use automatic background refreshing while they’re paused; this enables them to check for updates or new content. The process can drain your battery, so you may want to specify which apps can perform background refreshes when not in use. To do this, open your Settings app and select General. Scroll down and select Background App Refresh. You can either turn the feature off completely or toggle the on/off button for each app on your phone.

Check out these apps security experts would never have on their phone.

Today’s iPhone screens are capable of gorgeous, bright displays, but that brightness comes at a cost to battery power. Unless you’re using your phone in super-bright light, you probably can dim it without impairing functionality or enjoyment. Apple has a built-in setting that enables it to sense your ambient light conditions and make adjustments automatically. To activate it, go to Settings, select Accessibility, and tap Display & Text Size. Scroll all the way down and toggle on Auto-Brightness.

If you prefer to adjust the brightness of your screen manually, swipe down from the right-hand corner of your screen to pull up Control Centre. Find the sun icon, then slide the bar up or down to achieve your desired brightness level. You can also adjust brightness in Settings by going to Display & Brightness and sliding the bar to the right or left.

Display & Brightness is also where you can turn on Dark Mode, which changes the background of your screen from white to black to save a little more battery life. Most people prefer to use this setting in low light; you can tell your iPhone to do this automatically by toggling on the Automatic button.

If your iPhone alerts you every few minutes to the latest news headlines, weather alerts, sports scores, retail discounts, game updates, and more, take notice: Those notifications are consuming battery power every time they turn on your screen. You can save battery life on your iPhone by allowing only certain apps to send notifications and limiting how often.

In Settings, select Notifications. If your phone’s using iOS 15 or later (and if you’ve followed our first tip, it should be), the first setting at the top of the screen will be Scheduled Summary. Toggle this on to select a time when you want all of your nonurgent notifications to be delivered in a summary each day. You’ll still get text messages, calls, and time-sensitive notifications (like scheduled meetings) as they arrive, but Scheduled Summary will cut down on the otherwise continuous stream of iPhone notifications.

Further down the screen, you can manually adjust the notification settings for each app. Tap on the arrow next to any listed app to modify when, where, and how its notifications may appear on your iPhone.

You can also place your phone face down when you’re not using it; it won’t stop the notifications from coming, but they won’t light up your screen every time.

Bluetooth is great for connecting to wireless devices, and AirDrop is helpful when sharing files. But neither needs to be on continuously, and both consume battery power when they are. What’s more, some apps try to use your Bluetooth connectivity to track your location. To turn off Bluetooth altogether, go to Settings and tap Bluetooth. Turn the toggle to the off position. Just be careful about doing this; you may find that your Apple Car Play or Apple Watch are suddenly not working as expected.

To see which apps are using Bluetooth – and to limit their ability to do so – open Settings. Tap Privacy, then select Bluetooth. Toggle Bluetooth off for any apps that you don’t want using the technology.

Check out these hidden iPhone hacks you never knew about.