How to Save Battery on iPhone (17 Tips)

Learning how to save battery on iPhone should be every iPhone user’s top priority. Imagine if you can make a couple of tweaks to your iPhone and get more battery life without sacrificing functionality.

This is exactly what this guide is about. Today we’re going to show you how to maximize your iPhone’s battery life.

In fact, these 17 tips have helped me make my iPhone battery last all day with one single charge. We’ve got a lot to cover in this guide, without further ado let’s get started.

Locations Services is a great feature and for some is a life-save feature. I use it all the time to get around. So we’re not telling you to turn it off completely. You’ll only turn off the unnecessary ones.

Go to your iPhone Settings > Privacy > Location Services. You’ll see a list of all the apps that have access to your location and how they track you. Take your time to grant access to apps that really need your location to work properly.

Third-party apps are the ones that always need access to your location even if they don’t really need it. Most of the time they’ll abuse and misuse your location. So keep an eye on them.

1.1. Turn Off System Services

Scroll all the way down and select “System Services“. You’ll see a list of options that are probably all on by default. You might think there’s a good reason for that and be skeptical about turning them off.

Do not panic, you can safely turn them off. It won’t affect your iPhone functionality. Apple is only collecting all this data for marketing and research purposes, so it can improve its products in future releases.

Just turn off everything except Find My iPhone (in case you lose your iPhone), Emergency SOS (in case you’re in danger), and Motion Calibration & Distance (fitness activities).

Those are the options I think most people should turn on, but it’s totally up to you. At the end of the day, it will conserve your iPhone battery.

1.2. Turn Off Significant Locations

You may not be aware, but your iPhone tracks your location and keeps a log of your locations. So, tap on “Significant Locations” to turn that off. As for “Product Improvement“, You can toggle them off.

It’s up to you to leave the “Status Bar Icon” feature on or off It only lets you know if your location is being used. For some, it might be useful but could impact your battery performance.

2. Reduce Notifications

Notifications are great, they send you alerts about what’s going on. But at a cost, they’re power-hungry. I only enable the important ones.

I know people who allow Push Notifications for every single app on their phones. No wonder why their phone battery drains so quickly.

It’s kind of annoying to have your phone waking up all the time to show off notifications. Go to Settings > Notifications you’ll see a list of all your apps on your iPhone. Go through them and check if you really need those apps to send you alerts.

To turn them off, tap on the name of the app and toggle off the switch next to “Allow Notifications”. The fewer notifications you receive, the longer the battery life you’ll get.

Depending on your iOS version, you may see some government alert at the very bottom, I’d suggest you leave those on for your own safety.

3. Turn Off Push Email

Push Email is a perpetual battery drain if it’s not the absolute worst. The Email app, when it’s not set to “Manually”, will refresh itself constantly to pull off new emails from the email server as they come in.

I set up all my accounts to receive updates manually for better battery life. You can do that by heading to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Fetch New Data and switching off the toggle next to Push.

Tap on each account and set the schedule to “Fetch”. Now it’s up to you if you want to fetch manually (every time you open the app) or every certain period of time (Hourly, Every 30, 15 Minutes). You decide what’s best for you.

I was on my way to New Jersey, with my iPhone fully charged. It was a brand new iPhone, so the battery was in good shape. But surprisingly, my battery life went down to 36% with minimal use in just 4 hours.

In areas of poor reception, your iPhone or any phone will constantly check for a stronger signal. And that drains the battery must faster than anything. There’s not much you can do about it other than put your phone on Airplane mode.

You have to enable it since it’s not set up by default. Head to Settings > Battery and toggle the switch to ON next to Low Power Mode.

If your battery hits 20%, a message will automatically pop up on your screen offering to turn Low Power Mode on.

If you do so, the battery will turn orange, which shows Lower Power Mode is on. Once you charge your battery and it reaches 80% or higher, Low Power Mode will switch off.

When Background App Refresh is on, it allows certain apps to download content, and refresh themselves even when you’re not using them. By disabling it, you can save a good amount of battery life

Those features not only drain your battery life fast but can also slow down your iPhone performance. You can see our guide on how to speed up iPhone for detailed instructions.

To turn off Visual Effects, Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion and toggle the switch to turn it on.

To disable Background App Refresh, Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. You’ll see a toggle at the upper right corner of the screen where you can turn off the feature entirely. I would not recommend you do this since it can be vital for certain apps.

You can leave it on, and scroll down through each app to turn off the ones you think it’s necessary.

If you are someone that doesn’t use them, you can feel free to turn them off. To access Widgets, go to your iPhone Home screen, swipe to the right, then scroll down and tap on Edit.

You’ll see a list of the widgets. To remove a widget, tap on the red minus icon on its left, and you’re set. You should save a considerable amount of battery life by turning them off.

8. Turn Off Bluetooth / Wi-Fi / AirDrop

In iOS 11, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi always stay on so you can use some important features like AirDrop, Apple Watch, etc.

They’re critical for assisted GPS (aGPS) (when you can’t receive GPS satellite signals) and to help you back up your iPhone to iCloud, but they do not always improve your battery life if you are not using it.

When you are away from home, your phone continually scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks. You can turn off these services by scrolling down to the Control Center and pressing the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth icons.

You can turn off AirDrop by pressing down slightly and then selecting the AirDrop menu option. Remember to turn these services back on as soon as you need them.

If your iPhone battery is running low, using Bluetooth headphones for streaming music for long periods of time, is definitely not a good idea. I would suggest you use wired headphones instead.

9. Minimize Power-hungry Apps

Some apps use way more power than others. So it might be a good time to check what apps are sucking up your battery juice. Go to your iPhone Settings, scroll down and find Battery, then tap on it.

You’ll see a list of apps with details on battery usage for the last 24 hours and 7 days, with the heaviest battery-hoggers at the top of the list.

Now, it’s up to you if you want to delete those who consume more battery life or reduce how much time you spend on them. The latter option seems more doable since Apple introduced a new tool in iOS 12 to help you fight iPhone addiction.

10. Close Apps

This one is controversial and there’s a myth behind it. Many people believe running apps in the background drains the battery quickly.

Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi put that myth to rest by responding to an email a customer sent to CEO Tim Cook. According to his answer closing out running apps doesn’t save battery life.

iPhone apps crash more frequently now than you think. You can check the crash logs in Settings > Privacy > Analytics > Analytics Data. Sometimes apps will crash in the background and drain the battery life quickly without you even knowing it.

11. Turn Off App Suggestions

If you pull down on your iPhone screen, you may see some apps waiting for you at the bottom of the search bar, that’s Siri App Suggestions.

Some people may not even be aware of it, but it can be very handy as it suggests apps that you use frequently. Have you ever used it? If not, it’s time to turn it off because it’s draining your iPhone battery.

From your Home screen, swipe to the right to get access to Widgets. Scroll to the bottom and Edit. Look for Siri App Suggestions, tap on the red minus icon next to it, then tap remove.

12. Turn Off iPhone Analytics (Diagnostics & Usage Data)

During your iPhone setup, you may have chosen to send diagnostics data to Apple and developers. It’s a good thing, you’re sending Apple anonymous information about how your iPhone works to help the company improve its products.

But there’s a catch. It sucks battery life when your iPhone automatically sends data to Apple. To stop sending iPhone analytics, head to Settings > Privacy, scroll to the bottom, and open Analytics. Toggle off the sliders next to Share iPhone Analytics and Share iCloud Analytics.

Depending on the display on your iPhone, some may consume more energy than others. OLED displays are more power-efficient than LCD ones.

Even though Apple started to use an OLED display in its bezel-less iPhone X, you can still do some tweaks to improve battery life. The brighter the screen the more power it consumes. 

The iPhone has an ambient light sensor that determines how much light is around your iPhone and automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen.

From Control Panel, you can use the slider to reduce your screen’s brightness. You can also enable Auto-Brightness, which will do the job for you. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations.

14. Turn Off Siri Suggestions

Do you rely on Siri to get stuff done with your iPhone? If not, it’s time to turn it off. Like every app, the more you use them, the more battery they consume power.

But I don’t use Siri, how does it drain my battery? Even though you don’t use Siri at all, “Hey Siri” is listening to you all the time so he/she can respond to your commands. And, that drains the battery.

Go to your iPhone Settings, scroll down and find Siri and Search, and tap on it. Toggle off all three buttons shown in the image above.

Siri Suggestions can be a battery drainer too. Siri analyzes how you use your Apple device to give you personalized suggestions and better search. In order to do that, Siri needs to send some of this information back to Apple.

While you’re in Settings, find Siri Suggestions under Siri and Search and toggle the “Suggestions in Search” and “Suggestions in Look Up” switches to off.

You can also prevent apps from helping to personalize Siri. Scroll down to find the app you want to disable, select it and slide the “Search and Siri Suggestions” switch to off.

Accessory maker like Mophie makes good battery cases that can easily double your iPhone battery life. Feel free to check out their website.

16. Turn Off Personal Hotspot

Personal Hotspot is a feature that I use all the time with my Mac, especially when I’m on those long commutes. While it’s nice to turn your iPhone into a wireless hotspot, it also can drain your battery fast.

A few years ago, Apple got in hot water for admitting to slowing down older iPhones for better battery life.

If you have an older iPhone model, it’s a good idea to check your iPhone battery health. That way you’ll know if you need a battery replacement.

If you know some good iPhone battery-saving tips that should be in this guide, please let us know in the comment.

Any comments, suggestions, or concerns, please the comment box below.