10 iPhone battery tips that actually work

Is your iPhone battery not getting you through the day? Want to go more than a single day on one charge? Depending on how much you use your iPhone, that isn’t an impossible feat — as long as you have your iPhone set up to optimize battery life as best it can.

Here are 10 iPhone battery tips that actually work, and best of all, they don’t involve giving up important functionality or features!

1. Limit location services

Location services let apps see where you’re located and can report that information back to the app. If you have apps set to Always, this can happen in the background without your knowledge.

I’ve never found a reason to completely disable location services, and there are even a few apps I let have full access. However, letting all apps run rampant in the background isn’t a good idea.

My suggestion? Simply limit apps with access to location services and you’ll get far. For example, I let Fantastical and a few other apps use my location specifically for location-based reminders. All others only have access to my location while I’m actually using the app, or never.

To check your location services settings and change them, just follow these steps:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on Privacy.
2. Choose Location Services.
3. Tap on each app and choose how you want to limit it. My best recommendation is to only allow apps to use your location while you’re using them, if at all.

2. Disable Background App Refresh for most apps

Background App Refresh lets apps poll data and perform actions in the background while you aren’t even using them. That includes while your iPhone is in your pocket and not even in use.

You can always disable background app refresh altogether, but I’ve never found this necessary. Just turn it off for most apps and leave it on for the ones that are important to you.

I am currently only allowing four apps access to background app refresh, and I have over 200 installed.

Here’s how to pick and choose what apps can refresh on their own in the background:

1. Launch the Settings app and choose General.
2. Tap on Background App Refresh.
3. Turn OFF background app refresh for apps that aren’t absolutely necessary.

3. Limit apps that show notifications on the Lock screen

If you only choose to implement one tip from this list, this is the one you should really consider.

Your iPhone has a gorgeous retina display on it, and it takes a lot of battery life to power the pixels behind it. That means every single time your iPhone’s screen lights up, your battery takes a hit.

Notification Center gives you the option to control what notifications show on the Lock screen. This can save tremendous amounts of battery life. If you turn off Lock screen access, you’ll still see an app badge, notifications will still filter into Notification Center, and an audible tone will still play. The only difference is that your screen doesn’t light up.

Follow these steps to disable Lock screen access on an app by app basis:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on Notifications.
2. Go through each app and turn OFF the Show on Lock screen option for notifications that aren’t absolutely necessary.

4. Use manual fetch for mail accounts that don’t support push

If email is super important to you, skip right over this tip. However, if you don’t need instant access to every mail message that comes through, manually fetching mail for accounts that don’t support native push is a great way to squeeze a little extra juice from your battery.

For example, I have push enabled for most of my accounts but for personal accounts that don’t support push, I fetch manually. This way my iPhone isn’t doing it in the background without my knowledge. I launch the Mail app enough times a day that I don’t need my iPhone to check any more than I already do on my own.

To fetch manually for all accounts that don’t support push, follow these steps for each account you’d like to apply those settings to:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2. Choose Fetch New Data.
3. Choose Manually at the bottom.

5. Turn down your screen brightness

Turning down screen brightness is a great way to save loads of iPhone battery life. If you’re in a dark room, just swipe up to get to Control Center and use the slider to manually adjust the brightness.

You can take it one step further and disable auto-brightness in Settings but I’ve never found that to be necessary. If anything, I’ve found it to be annoying since I like that my iPhone can automatically jack up the brightness when I’m in bright sunlight.

Just using a lower brightness setting indoors is enough to save battery life throughout the day.

6. Turn off automatic app updates over cellular

I like the automatic app updates feature and I don’t want to turn it off. Nor do I find that it takes up that much battery life, when used over Wi-Fi.

Updating apps over cellular is another story. I’ve had them hang up and drain my battery without my knowledge quite a few times. Turning this feature off not only lets you save battery, it also lets you save precious data.

Keeping it on over Wi-Fi only is a happy medium that I’ve found to be just fine.

To turn off updates over cellular, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on App and iTunes Stores.
2. Turn OFF the option for Use Cellular Data.

7. Turn off app suggestions

App suggestions use your location to recommend apps that may be useful to you based on your location. If you like this feature, I haven’t found it to drain that much battery.

However, I personally find it a little creepy and I’ve never actually utilized it. If you’re in the same boat as me, here’s how to disable it:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on App and iTunes Stores.
2. Turn OFF the option for Installed Apps under the App Suggestions section.

8. Use a Safari content blocker (iOS 9 only)

Content blockers not only create a much more pleasant browsing experience, they also stop scripts and trackers from eating at your battery. Even better, they can keep data hungry sites from blowing through your cellular data plan.

If you’re running iOS 9, you can follow our guide on how to install, manage, and use iOS 9 content blockers in mobile Safari.

9. Use face-down detection (iOS 9 only)

iOS 9 has a new feature called face-down detection. Using this as often as possible will stop your iPhone screen from lighting up as long as the screen is face-down.

To use this feature just place your iPhone face down on any flat surface. That’s it.

Use it often. Seriously.

10. Use Low Power Mode (iOS 9 only)

Low Power Mode is also new in iOS 9 and lets you squeeze an entire extra hour of battery life out of your iPhone, at least. It works by turning off battery intensive services such as polling email, background app refresh, and Hey Siri functionality.

If you’re serious about saving battery life, enabling Lower Power Mode should get you through.

To turn on Low Power Mode just follow these steps:

1. Launch the Settings app and tap on Battery.
2. Turn ON the option for Lower Power Mode.

Bonus tip: Stop flicking apps away!

I see far too many people flicking apps out of the multitasking tray thinking it saves their battery. It actually does the complete opposite. iOS automatically saves states so apps can launch as they were without having to restart completely. Flicking them away and then restarting them actually consumes more battery.

Compare this process to putting your computer to sleep instead of shutting it down and restarting it each time. Which method do you think uses fewer resources?

If you want even more information on this why flicking apps away isn’t a good idea, iDownload Blog has an excellent piece on that exact subject.

Thanks to Sarah in the comments for reminding me of this excellent point!

Your iPhone battery tips?

I’m currently using an iPhone 6s Plus and using a combination of all of these tips allows me to get over 8 hours of usage and 15 hours of standby, on average. That’s pretty incredible.

Let me know in the comments what your battery usage is like, as well as any iPhone battery tips you’ve been using that you think others would find useful!