The dreaded notification pops up on your phone screen: your battery is running low.
We’ve all experienced the feeling of seeing that percentage drop further and lower with no access to a phone charger.
Whether you’re hoping to extend your battery’s life, or you need to keep your phone alive for a few extra hours, follow these simple steps to keep a little extra juice in that charge.
Table of Contents:
How to keep extra charge to your iPhone battery
First, let’s check the health of your battery to determine if this is the root of your problems.
How to check your iPhone’s Battery Health
If your iPhone is older than a year, your battery could be spent. To check the health of your battery:
Settings > Battery > Battery Health
On this screen, if your battery is good, it should say “Peak Performance Capability”. If it says anything less than this, you should consider contacting Apple to understand what options you have to replace the phone battery.
Close down apps using the most battery
You’ll note on the prior screen (Settings > Battery), at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a list of apps that are consuming the largest parts of your battery. This may be helpful if you happen to keep apps open all the time. You may want to close then to see if it makes a difference in your battery performance.
If your battery is good, now try these steps:
Tips to Maximize your iPhone Battery
1) Be sure to update your apps and update your phone to the latest iOS.
If there is a new iOS, app developers often have to update the apps to optimize performance. That said, be sure to update.
2) Turn on Low Power Mode.
You may already be familiar with Low Power Mode because the iPhone will prompt the option to turn it on when your phone dips to 20% in battery, but you can turn it on anytime in your Settings.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Battery”
- Activate the “Low Battery Mode” slider so it’s green
Low Power Mode will help keep your battery charged longer, but it will stop some apps like your email from refreshing in the background.
3) Turn off Location Services for apps you don’t need
While you don’t want to turn off Location Services completely, you can change the settings for individual applications that don’t need your location at all times.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Privacy”
- Tap “Location Services”
- Don’t turn off Location Services completely
- Click each app and choose between “Never”,“Ask Next Time or When I Share”, and “While Using the App”
Many apps require your location, but by opting to allow them access only while using the program will save your battery.
4) Turn off Background App Refresh
If your phone is in Low Power Mode, this feature will automatically be disabled.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “General”
- Tap “Background App Refresh”
- Click “Background App Refresh” and select “Off”
You can also keep Background App Refresh on and instead toggle off all of the applications you don’t need to check while saving battery.
5) Reduce the brightness of your screen
To manually reduce the brightness of your screen:
Settings > Display & Brightness > Slide the circle on the slider to the left.
Please note that another source of battery drainage could be because your phone was hacked. For more information about this, please refer to our article How to tell if your phone has been hacked.
How to keep extra charge to your Android battery
1) Turn on Power Saving Mode
Turning on Power Saving Mode will automatically reduce battery-draining settings like your screen brightness.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Battery”
- Toggle on the “Power Saver Mode” or “Battery Saver” slider
2) Turn off Nearby device & WiFi/Bluetooth scanning
Even if your Bluetooth is deactivated, the Nearby device scanning setting will automatically scan for other devices nearby and let you connect to them. This will drain your battery quickly if you’re in a setting with lots of other devices.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Connections”
- Tap “More Connection Settings”
- Toggle off “Nearby device scanning”
If you’re not home or connected to a known WiFi network, your phone will constantly search for an open one your device could be connected to. While turning off Wifi and Bluetooth scanning will mean you have to manually select a WiFi network or Bluetooth device, turning this feature off will keep your battery charged longer.
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Location”
- Tap “WiFi and Bluetooth Scanning”
- Toggle off “WiFi and Bluetooth Scanning” slider
3) Stop Background app refresh
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Apps & notifications”
- Tap “Apps info”
- Click each of your individual applications one at a time
- Tap “Advanced”
- Tap “Battery”
- Tap “Background restriction”
- Click “Restrict”
While it may take a few minutes to Restrict each of your applications’ refresh settings, this will save significant battery life.
Please note that another source of battery drainage could be because your phone was hacked. For more information about this, please refer to our article How to tell if your phone has been hacked.
How to keep extra charge to your Samsung battery
1) Power-saving mode
Be sure to conserve your phone’s battery by having it automatically reduce the screen’s brightness, and close apps you don’t need open urgently. Power saving mode does all of that for you and will limit the device’s power used to save the battery longer. You can also choose a different mode, like Optimized, so your device can be somewhere in the middle of a High and Low performing battery.
- Go to “Settings”
- Click “Device maintenance”
- Click “Battery“
- Toggle on Power Saving Mode
2) Turn off AOD Mode
You may not even realize how much battery your phone uses for this one. Every time your phone is sitting on the table and lights up to tell you about a new notification, it’s using up some battery. Samsung allows you to adjust this so you can still tap your phone and get basic information like the time and your battery percentage, but still let you turn off those constant notifications. AOD is Always On Display mode and you can either turn it off, or set a schedule for it to be off during certain time frames.
- Go to “Settings”
- Click “Lock screen and security”
- Click “Lock screen and Always On Display”
- Toggle off AOD
Scroll down to set a time schedule for AOD.
- Go to “Settings”
- Click “Lock screen and security”
- Click “Lock screen and Always On Display”
- Tap on “Set schedule” and follow the steps provided
3) Don’t let your battery drop too low
Your smartphone’s battery will die sooner and faster if you let it die. It’s best to keep your phone charged whenever possible and not let it drop below 20% too often. It takes more power for it to charge back up than to keep it charged, so the best tip to maintain your Samsung’s battery life is to keep it charged and with power-saving mode on when possible.
Please note that another source of battery drainage could be because your phone was hacked. For more information about this, please refer to our article How to tell if your phone has been hacked.
For our best portable charges so you can stay charged wherever…
In addition to the tips above, you can double the battery life of your phone with any of these best portable battery add-ons for any mobile phone or portable device.
