Battery life is important because your super-powerful and ultra-versatile smartphone, tablet or laptop becomes less useful once its battery runs out. We all want to maximize the time between charges, whether it is by checking battery capacity, buying a portable powerbank, or using special low-power mode.
To extend the battery life of your device, you can identify which apps are using the most energy. You can either use less of them, modify their settings to reduce the amount they consume, or remove them completely. It’s not difficult to identify the apps that are draining your device’s battery. You can then use them less, change their settings to make them less energy-demanding, or uninstall them altogether.
Jump to your operating system and see which apps drain your battery.
Open Settings and then Battery to check the battery level on your iPhone or iPad.
You will see two toggles at the top that allow you to view your battery percentage as well as enable low power mode. This mode restricts background processing for all apps. You’ll be asked to activate it when your battery is down to 20%.
You’ll also see the battery usage percentages for the apps responsible for draining battery. Scroll down to find out more. The Last 24-Hour tab is open by default. You can change to last 10 Days if you want to view battery usage for a longer time period.
The tab Show Activity at the top of your apps list will show you how long each app was active, rather than the battery percentage it is responsible for. This time will be divided into time spent on the screen and time spent in the background.
You can disable the strong>Background App Refresh/strong> toggle switch to stop the app from working in the background or select strong>Location/strong> to ensure that the app only pulls GPS coordinates when it is actually being used. For example, you can turn off the Background app Refresh toggle to stop the app working in the background, or select location to ensure the app only pulls GPS coordinates when it is actually being used. Controls available depend on the app.
Android
Open Settings on an Android device and select Battery > Use Battery.
You will then see how much battery power has been consumed since you last connected the charger. The screen below will also show the percentage that each app accounts for. Scroll down to see additional apps.
You can also see under each entry how long the app was active in total since the last recharge, and how much that time the app spent in the background. If the two figures are very close, then using the app less won’t make a big difference in how much battery it consumes.
You can get more options by tapping on an app. You can set an app to Restricted, Optimized or Unrestricted. Optimized is best for apps that do not need to run constantly.
You can remove an app that is particularly battery-hungry by selecting Uninstall from the same screen. You can also send feedback to the developer of the app by going to its entry in the Play Store. This will help them to make a future update to the app that is less battery-hungry.
macOS
You have a few choices when it comes time to monitor battery usage. Clicking on the icon for battery in the menu bar will show you which programs are “using significant power” and therefore putting the most strain on your battery.
Open the Activity Monitor utility and select the energy tab. All the apps and processes currently running are listed with the power-hungry applications at the top. The console shows you the current “energy impact” of an app (lower is best) and the power consumption each app has been responsible for in the past 12 hours.
Battery management is handled elsewhere. You can view battery usage over the past 24 hours or 10 days by opening the Apple Menu, then choosing Settings > Battery (as with iOS and iPadOS). You can choose when Low Power Mode is activated: when the device is being charged, on battery, at any time or not at all. For more settings, click Option (for example, when to put hard drives to sleep to save battery life).
There’s nothing you can do about battery-sucking apps, other than ignoring them or uninstalling (by dragging them to the Trash on the dock from the Applications window or deleting them directly from the Applications folder). To ensure that your software is as efficient and bug-free, you should always run the latest version.
Windows
Open Settings and then select System > Battery & power. You can view stats by opening the battery usage area. The drop-down menu on the right allows you to choose the last 7 days or last 24 hours. You’ll find a graph showing the battery drain over time and, under it, the most responsible applications.
Sort the list according to overall usage, background use, and current usage. If background usage is high for apps, reducing the time they’re open will not have a big impact on their draining power. On the left side, you’ll find a search bar that allows you to find specific programs.
Windows has some settings that are available for all apps.
To set the automatic start of this mode or to manually turn it on, click Battery Saver. This will reduce the amount of background activity that programs can perform when they are not being used.
Further up, you’ll find a power mode option that allows you to balance performance with power requirements (slowing the speed of your laptop will usually require less power).
You can uninstall a program that is causing battery drain to be significant and can’t live without it.
