Tips for extending your smartphone’s battery life

People have been dissatisfied with what iOS 11 did to their battery life. In fact, a recent poll showed that 70 percent of users reported lower battery life after Apple’s most recent update.

Even though experts have predicted that most phones would regain their normal battery life a few weeks after the release, there’s a chance your phone may never return to the way it was before.

Here are some tips to make sure your phone’s battery life lasts for as long as possible.

1. Figure out what’s sucking your battery.

In Settings > Battery, you’ll get an overview of how much battery power each app is using.

Close the apps that are sucking a lot of your power when you’re not using them, and consider not using them when your battery is low.

2. Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode can help you out when your battery is at 20 percent or below. It suspends background app refresh and automatic downloads.

You can turn on Low Power Mode under Settings > Battery. 

3. Fix your auto-lock.

Your iPhone sucks battery whenever the screen is lit up, even when you’re not using it. To decrease the amount of time it spends doing this, set your phone to auto-lock as frequently as you can tolerate.

Navigate to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock. 

4. Disable location services.

Some apps consistently track your location, even when you’re not using them, which takes battery life.

Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and select the “While Using” option for all of your apps.

5. Turn of “Push” on your email accounts.

There are two ways you can set your accounts to go about checking for new emails. They can “Push” (check and download in real time) or “Fetch” (check and download every 15 minutes or so). “Fetch” uses less battery power because it pings the server less frequently. Go to Settings > Accounts and Passwords > Fetch New Data and select “Fetch” for each account.

If you are really ambitious, you can also select “Manual” and check your emails manually.

6. Turn on auto-brightness.

If your battery is draining quickly, there’s a chance your screen is brighter than it needs to be. Auto-brightness will darken your screen as it gets later in the day. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations and toggle “Auto-Brightness” to On. 

7. Don’t use data when you could be using wifi.

Not only is cellular data expensive to use, but it also requires more battery power to access than a cellular network. To turn on wifi, swipe up and select the Wifi icon in the top left box of your Control Center.

8. Turn off background auto-refresh.

Many apps are constantly refreshing and updating their content, even when you’re not using them, which eats up battery power.

To stop them from doing this, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and toggle Background App Refresh to off.

9. When you don’t have cell coverage, use Airplane Mode.

If you’re in an area without cell service, your device is probably spending a lot of power searching for a signal. If you know you won’t be getting signal back any time soon, swipe up from the bottom to open your Control Center and tap the Airplane Mode button in the top left.

10. Make sure your computer is on while it’s charging your phone.

If your phone is connected to a computer that is asleep or powered off, its battery won’t charge much, and may actually drain. Keep your computer on when your phone is plugged into it.