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These 10 Tips Will Make Your iPhone Battery Last All Day

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Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Herby has a healthy obsession with all things technology, especially smartphones. He loves to rip things apart to see how they work. He is responsible for the editorial direction, strategy, and growth of Gotechtor.

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Learning how to save battery on an 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 will show you how to maximize your iPhone’s battery life.

These 10 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.

How to Save Battery Life on Your iPhone

Here are all the tips that will help you save more battery life on your iPhone. You can also save battery on your Apple Watch by following some of these tips.

1. Turn Off Location Services

We all know GPS can drain your iPhone battery quickly. So does Location Services, since it uses GPS, Bluetooth, and crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations to determine your location. That is heavy lifting for your iPhone battery.

Locations Services is a great feature and, for some, a life-saving 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.

how to save battery on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 time to grant access to apps that need your location to work properly.

Third-party apps are the ones that always need access to your location, even if they don’t 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 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.

how to save battery on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

Do not panic, you can safely turn them off. It won’t affect your iPhone functionality. Apple only collects all this data for marketing and research purposes to 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 logs your locations. So tap on “Significant Locations” to turn that off. As for “Product Improvement,” You can toggle them off.

how to save battery on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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.

iphone x notifications
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

It’s annoying to have your phone always wake up 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 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 alerts at the very bottom, and I suggest you leave those on for your safety.

3. Turn Off Push Email

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

push email settings in ios
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 minutes, 15 minutes). You decide what’s best for you.

4. Use Airplane Mode

Have you ever noticed your iPhone’s battery drains faster in places with poor reception? Yes, and it’s no coincidence. That happened to me at least once.

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 much faster than anything. There’s not much you can do about it other than put your phone in Airplane mode.

5. Activate Low Power Mode

Apple introduced iOS 9 with a new Low Power Mode feature, which reduces power consumption and makes your battery last longer.

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.

Low Power Mode in iOS settings
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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.

You should know that when your iPhone is in “Low Power” Mode, some features may not work. These are the ones that are not working.

  • “Hey Siri”
  • Email fetch
  • Automatic downloads
  • Background app refresh
  • iCloud Photo Library
  • Some visual effects
  • Auto-Lock

6. Turn Off Visual Effects / Background App Refresh

The Visual Effects first introduced in iOS 7 are marvelous, but at a cost, they’re power-hungry. They continuously use your iPhone’s graphics processor to give you those pretty Parallax effects.

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

Background App Refresh turned on in iOS
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 your 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.

7. Remove Widgets

The chances for iPhone users to use widgets are very low. If you use them, you should know these widgets consume much power. They continually run in the background to give timely information from your favorite apps.

iPhone widgets
Photo: Apple

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 Edit.

You’ll see a list of the widgets. To remove a widget, tap 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 that you can use important features like AirDrop, Apple Watch, etc.

Bluetooth and WiFi icons in control center
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 to “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 to stream music for long periods of time is 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, find Battery, and tap on it.

apps battery usage on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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.

Now, it’s up to you to delete those who consume more battery life or reduce your time 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.

close out apps on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi dispelled that myth by responding to a customer’s email 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, such as Siri App Suggestions.

Apps suggestions on iPhone
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

Some people may not even be aware of it, but it can be handy as it suggests apps 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 access Widgets. Scroll to the bottom and select Edit. Look for Siri App Suggestions, tap the red minus icon next to it, then select 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 good that you’re sending Apple anonymous information about how your iPhone works to help the company improve its products.

iPhone analytics settings
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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.

13. Adjust Screen Brightness

Displays usually consume a lot of power, which can be problematic for mobile phones that depend on batteries.

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

Accessibility settings on iOS
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 is, 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 the “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.

Siri and Search settings on iOS
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

But I don’t use Siri. How does it drain my battery? Even though you don’t use Siri, “Hey Siri” listens to you constantly so he/she can respond to your commands. And that drains the battery.

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

Siri suggestions settings turned on
Siri Suggestions Settings. Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

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 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 off.

15. Buy an External Battery or Charging Phone Case

If you want longer battery life but don’t want to turn off those features, your best options are to invest in an iPhone extended-life battery case or an external iPhone battery charger.

Accessory makers like Mophie make good battery cases that can 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.

Personal Hotspot turned on in iOS settings
Screenshot: Herby Jasmin/Gotechtor

It’s recommended to turn it off if you’re not using it. Here’s how to turn Personal Hotspot off:

  1. Go to your iPhone settings
  2. Tap Personal Hotspot
  3. Toggle off the slider on the right

17. Make Sure There’s No Hardware Problem

Most of the time, your iPhone battery problem will come from software issues, but sometimes it can be hardware issues, too. If that’s the case, it’s time for you to change the battery.

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.

Final Thoughts on How to Save Battery on iPhone

So, these are our best tips to save iPhone battery life. Which ones are you going to implement to keep your iPhone running longer?

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

Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Herby has a healthy obsession with all things technology, especially smartphones. He loves to rip things apart to see how they work. He is responsible for the editorial direction, strategy, and growth of Gotechtor.

Herby Jasmin

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