With normal use of your iPhone or iPad, the battery will last a whole day in most cases. But as your iDevice ages, its battery life may shorten. Fortunately, you can extend this by making certain choices.
Naturally, the way you use your iPhone or iPad is an important factor. If you constantly play a game, use navigation or listen to music frequently, the battery life will decrease drastically. Fortunately, there are a lot of tips that can extend the battery life of your iPhone, but also your iPad. Please note that this also means you lose a number of functions, such as automatically retrieving new e-mail messages. Make the trade-off between quality and quantity yourself.
Check your battery consumption
Before you take action, it is best to first check whether there is a culprit that affects the battery life. Find out which applications use a lot and why. You can check this via the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad. Go to the ‘Battery’ option and wait for the list to load.
Tap ‘Last 10 days’ and view the overview. At the top of the list you will find the app that uses the most. Select the clock to view the on-screen time (and/or) background activity. Decide for yourself why it is at the top and whether you want to remove or disable it.
Tips to extend battery life
1: Screen brightness
The screen of your iPhone or iPad consumes the most energy. To save money, it is therefore a good idea to adjust the brightness lower. You do this via the control panel or via Settings â–¸ Screen and brightness. In addition, it is smart to enable the ‘Adjust automatically’ option. iOS/iPadOS then regulates the brightness itself depending on the light. You can enable this via Settings â–¸ Accessibility â–¸ Display and text size â–¸ Auto fit.
2: Auto lock
When your iDevice is unlocked, it will automatically go to sleep after a certain period of time. Choose a short period so that it does not remain on unnecessarily when you are not using your iPhone or iPad. You do this via Settings â–¸ Display and brightness â–¸ Automatic lock.
3: Turn off Bluetooth
Have you not connected any Bluetooth devices? Then disable the function via Settings â–¸ Bluetooth.
4: Automatically retrieve new email
Email is still an important source of communication, but not everyone believes it is necessary for email messages to arrive immediately. A few minutes later is also fine. Then you can disable immediate automatic collection and choose a different period. This can be done via Settings â–¸ (apps) â–¸ Mail â–¸ (Mail) accounts â–¸ New data â–¸ switch off ‘Push’. Choose a different time at the bottom such as ‘Every 15 minutes’.
5: Use Do Not Disturb smartly
If you are doing a certain activity where you cannot constantly look at your screen, enable ‘Do Not Disturb’ or another focus. This will prevent your iPhone or iPad from constantly lighting up with incoming notifications. This is especially recommended during exercise, at the cinema, in a meeting, etc. You can enable a focus via the control panel and manage it via Settings â–¸ Focus.
6: Disable unnecessary vibration
If your iDevice is on silent, your iPhone will vibrate. This requires a lot of energy, so you can switch off unnecessary vibration. For example, when receiving an e-mail message. You can switch off vibration per category via Settings â–¸ Hearing and feeling (sounds) â–¸ choose a category â–¸ Vibrate â–¸ choose ‘none’.
7: Personal hotspot
Do you sometimes use your personal hotspot to convert your iPhone’s cellular network to a Wi-Fi connection? Only do this when you actually use the function. Otherwise it will continue to send a signal continuously. You can temporarily enable or disable the function via Settings â–¸ Personal Hotspot.
8: Be careful with your location determination
Location tracking allows an app to send you information regarding your location. Many apps would like to have this information, but do not always need it. Therefore, go to Settings â–¸ Privacy and security â–¸ Location services. Review the apps that have access to your location, disabling them when not necessary. Otherwise, choose ‘When using’, this ensures that the location can only be requested when you use the app. Apps that have ‘Always’ permission may request and process your location at any time.
9: You should not close apps completely
In the past, completely closing apps in the app switcher ensured that they used less energy. Today this is contradicted. Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of software, has even said that shutting down and restarting uses more energy than keeping the apps running. That is why it is better not to close the apps completely, more info.
10: Limit push notifications for apps
When an application sends you a notification, this is to alert you to news or a new message, for example. All these notifications cause a sound, vibration and/or the screen to light up. Those who receive a lot of notifications have a shorter battery life. Check the apps that are allowed to send you notifications and adjust this if necessary via Settings â–¸ Notifications. Turn off an app’s notifications completely by turning off “Allow Notifications.” You can also show the notification in your notification center and access center without actually receiving a notification. Then select ‘None’ under ‘Notification style’. You can also use the scheduled overview for notifications.
11: Choose the right background
Since iOS 7 you can also set dynamic backgrounds, but these consume more energy. It is best to choose a stationary background via Settings â–¸ Wallpaper â–¸ Choose a new background â–¸ Still. It is also best to switch off the depth effect when setting up.
12: Index Spotlight
Spotlight can search your entire iPhone or iPad. Please note that this also indexes everything in the background, even when you do not use the option. That is why it is recommended to disable the apps that you do not use in Spotlight. To do this, go to Settings â–¸ Search â–¸ select an app from the list â–¸ disable ‘Show app in ‘Search” and/or ‘Show content in ‘Search”.
13: Automatic download of apps and updates
You can automatically update apps or have them installed when you purchase them on another device. It is better to disable this to extend battery life. You disable it via Settings â–¸ App Store â–¸ disable ‘Apps’ and ‘App updates’. Can’t find the option? Then you can find this at Settings â–¸ App installations.
14: Refresh apps in the background
Applications have the ability to refresh (refresh) in the background. New information is retrieved, but this is detrimental to the battery. It is advisable to only activate the apps that you use the most. You can set this via Settings â–¸ General â–¸ Refresh in background â–¸ disable apps. New data will then only be retrieved when you start/open the app.
15: Disable mobile internet
This is a drastic option, turning off the mobile internet significantly extends the battery life. However, you are inaccessible outside your home via the mobile network. Make the decision yourself, switch off the internet via Settings â–¸ Mobile network â–¸ switch off ‘Mobile data’. Of course, you can also quickly enable or disable access to the mobile network via the control panel.
16: Reduce exercise
iOS and iPadOS contain all kinds of animations and gestures. Such as opening and closing apps and settings. These movements use little energy, but turning them off does extend battery life. You can do this in Settings â–¸ Accessibility â–¸ Motion â–¸ enable ‘Reduce motion’ and, if necessary, disable ‘Play effects automatically’.
17: Hey, Siri
Using ‘Hey Siri’ you can consult Siri without having to press a button. This ensures that your iPhone or iPad is constantly listening for you to say this message. If you don’t use this much, it’s better to disable it via Settings â–¸ (general) â–¸ Siri. Good to know, Hey, Siri will automatically be temporarily disabled when you place your iPhone with the screen down or when the screen is covered, for example in your pocket.
18: Increase the contrast
The iPhone and iPad use a blur effect, which, for example, adjusts the background of the message center to the colors of the screen. You can stop this and choose one uniform color. This means that the display is always the same, which benefits the battery life. You do this via Settings â–¸ Accessibility â–¸ Display and text size â–¸ choose ‘Make less transparent’. You can also enable ‘Increase contrast’ if necessary.
19: Widgets
With the help of Widgets you can see information about certain apps at a glance. This is useful, but these interactive mini-apps are constantly updated. Therefore, it is recommended to limit the number of widgets on the home screen and/or lock screen.
20: Temperature is crucial
Too hot or too cold? There is a good chance that the battery life of your iPhone or iPad will shorten. This is because the battery functions best between 0 and 35 degrees Celsius. Everything above and below affects battery life.
Mini tips that also help
- Only use dark mode
- Disable mobile network for certain apps via Settings â–¸ Mobile network
- Restart your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch regularly, whether or not forced
- Calibrate the battery
- Reset the network settings
- Try resetting the settings in iOS
- Activate the battery percentage for a better indication via Settings â–¸ Battery
- Use energy saving mode
- Check your battery life with Battery Life
- Turn off AirDrop when you’re not using it (via Control Center)
- Turn off Night Shift when the battery is low, this only uses more energy
- Only use a VPN connection when you really need it
- Deactivate WiFi when you don’t need it
- Use airplane mode when you have no network or are driving
- Only charge iPhone or iPad with Apple certified accessories (preferably original)
- Log out of the App Store, it would help
- Disable equalizer for music (temporarily) via Settings â–¸ Music â–¸ Equalizer
- Turn off 5G or use 5G Auto
- Turn off Screen Time if you’re not using it
- Smart Data Mode saves battery life when using 5G
- How to turn off an iPhone’s always-on screen
- Disable automatic connection of two iPhones by holding them together
- Download maps offline while navigating
- Disable keyboard taps for iPhone
- Check if you qualify for a free battery replacement program
Finally, we would like to say that it should not become an obsession, the more often you check the battery life, the more it deteriorates. Every time you activate the screen, it’s one minute less. Many people also find that the battery is almost empty at a battery percentage of 45%. You are only half way there, so keep that in mind.