Extend battery life

Choose settings that use less battery

To get the most life from your battery:

  • Connections: Turn off Bluetooth and GPS when you're not using them.
  • Wi‑Fi: Turn on Wi‑Fi when the phone is in a location with Wi‑Fi coverage.
  • Screen: Turn down screen brightness, change to Dark theme, and set a shorter screen timeout.
  • Sync: If you don't need it, turn off automatic syncing for all accounts. This means you won't receive notifications when updates occur and you'll need to manually sync to get new emails.

Temporarily conserve battery power

Use Battery saver mode to keep going on a low battery.

Also, avoid these battery-intensive activities until you can charge:

  • Recording or watching videos
  • Listening to music
  • Taking pictures
  • Using Live (animated) wallpaper

See what’s using your battery

To see if a specific app or service is draining your battery:

  1. Go to Settings > Battery > Battery usage.
  2. Swipe up to view the list of apps and features using power since the last full charge.
  3. Tap the app or feature using a lot of power.
  4. Tap options for managing power usage.

Manage apps running in the background

For best results, keep Settings > Battery > Manage background apps turned on .

Apps that run in the background use battery power and data. You can categorize apps with these options to control how your phone manages their background activity.

Smart use (recommended)

Your phone monitors how these apps behave in the background. If an app uses excessive battery, Smart use automatically restricts it. Choose this setting when:

  • You’re unsure how important an app is
  • You want a balance of battery life and convenience
  • The app isn’t time-sensitive
Always allow

Use this setting for apps that must run reliably without delay. Your phone still monitors these apps and will notify you if any are draining the battery excessively. Good candidates include:

  • Messaging and calling apps
  • Email you need instantly
  • Health and safety apps
  • Navigation and ride apps
  • System-critical apps (VPNs, backups)

If missed notifications, sync failures, or lost GPS would be a problem, choose Always allow.

Don't allow

Use this setting for apps that don’t need background access and may waste battery, data, or affect privacy. Good candidates include:

  • Games (especially offline or casual)
  • Shopping or promo-heavy apps
  • Social media you open manually
  • News, wallpaper, or theme apps
  • Apps you rarely use

When you set an app to Don't allow, you won’t receive notifications, updates, or new content from that app until you open it.

Allow app to run in background

  1. Go to Settings > Battery > Manage background apps.
  2. Tap Background use > Smart use.
  3. Select the app, then choose Always allow.

If you have allowed apps to run in the background, your phone still monitors them and will notify you if the app is draining the battery.

Check for problem apps

If you allowed apps to run in the background, you can check to see if they’re causing issues with battery drain.

  1. Go to Settings > Battery > Battery usage.
  2. View usage for the Last 24 hours or Last 14 days.
  3. If an app shows unusually high battery use, tap the app and change its status to Smart use or Don't allow.

Stop app from running in the background

  1. Go to Settings > Battery > Manage background apps and confirm it's turned on.

  2. Tap Apps, then select the app and choose Don't allow.

    You won’t receive notifications, updates, or new content from that app until you open it.

Keep adaptive battery on

When you keep adaptive battery on, infrequently used apps will run less when you're not using them. Your phone will learn how you use apps over time and adjust for best battery life.

  1. Go to Settings > Battery > Adaptive Battery.
  2. Turn Use Adaptive Battery on .