What's Draining Your Android Battery?
If you find your Android battery is regularly emptied, consider the following reason why it might be so:
1. Check which apps are draining your battery
In all versions of Android, hit Settings > Device > Battery or Settings > Power > Battery Use to see a list of all apps and how much battery power they're using. If an app you don't use often seems to take up a disproportionate amount of power, consider uninstalling it.
2. Uninstall apps
Delete apps you don't use from a single menu by heading to Settings > Apps > All. Tap on each app and hit Uninstall to remove it as well as any data it has created.
3. Remove unnecessary widgets from the home screen
Many Android apps, including social networks, weather apps and news apps, come with widgets that sit handily on the home screen for real-time updates. However, widgets are battery drainers due to their constant syncing with the mothership or power-sucking animations. If you don't need a permanent window into Twitter, or regular updates on the weather, remove the superfluous widget by pressing and holding it, then dragging it to the trash can icon.
4. Turn off WIFI and Hotspot when not in use
Your WIFI and Hotspot radio drink lot of battery charge. So keeping them on when not in use causes your battery to discharge quickly.
5. Don’t let apps wake your screen
On the other hand, if notifications are necessary, prevent apps from waking the screen when they do send them through. Head to Settings > Display and select to turn off Ambient Display (which means no app notifications will cause the screen to wake).
6. Turn off GPS when not in use
GPS is one of the heaviest drains on the battery – as you've probably noticed after using Google Maps to navigate your last road trip. When you're not actively using navigation, swipe down to access Quick Settings, and toggle it off. You'll be prompted to re-enable it when you use Maps.
Alternately, if you're using apps that require your location, you can head to Settings > Location > Mode and select “Battery saving” (where Wi-Fi and mobile networks are used to determine your location) over “High accuracy” (where GPS is also used).
7. Check app location tracking
Some apps track your location and therefore use more battery power than strictly necessary by accessing your GPS. At Settings > Location you can see which apps recently requested your location, as well as how much (low/high) battery it took. For apps that seem to be demanding more than necessary, head into the apps and manually adjust the permissions individually.
8. Enable Power Saver Mode
For Android 5.0 and newer, this feature helps maximize battery life as well as stretch out those last several minutes. For example, animations are pared back, most background syncing is halted and location services turned off (so no navigation on Google Maps). You enable it manually in Settings > Power, where you can also fine-tune specifics such as whether or not to conserve CPU power, screen brightness or vibration feedback and choose whether or not to turn off data connection when the phone is asleep.
On Android 7, you can additionally set Battery Saver Mode to kick in automatically at 5% or 15% battery left.
Some phones such as the HTC One M8 (and newer) and Samsung Galaxy S6 (and newer) also have an “extreme power-saving mode” in which data connections turn off when the screen is off, notifications, GPS, Auto Sync and Bluetooth are off, and only essential apps such as text messaging, email and the clock are allowed to run.
9. Dim the screen – intelligently
If you're using Android 5.0 or newer, head to Settings > Display and enable “automatic brightness”, which allows the phone to adapt the display based on the lighting where you are, ensuring the screen is never brighter than necessary.
But if your battery is in dire straits, manually dimming the screen is a good temporary fix until you can get to a charger. Pull down the notifications menu and drag the brightness slider to the very dimmest display level you're comfortable with.
10. Tone down those live wallpapers
You can kit out your home screen and lock screen with some nifty animated wallpapers that change in ombre or style as the day wears on – but this doesn’t come for free. Save on battery by heading to Settings > Display > Wallpaper to select a static counterpart instead.
11. Decrease screen timeout
You can save a little bit of battery power many times over by decreasing the length of time your phone remains idle before its display automatically goes dark. Head to Settings > Display to adjust Screen timeout to, say, 10 seconds rather than an interval like 30 minutes (which you may have chosen if you were doing something like using the phone for a recipe).
12. Stop vibrating
If your phone is ringing, you don't need it to vibrate as well. Head to Settings > Sound and uncheck “Vibrate for calls”. To really get into battery miser mode, turn off haptic feedback, the handy little vibe when you press virtual keys, by going to Settings > Language and keyboard and unchecking “Vibration feedback”.
13. Keep weather updates local
Who doesn't love the weather widget that tells the time and the temperature in one handy, live-updating home screen box? If you've loaded yours up with cities where you've been vacationing, that widget could be contributing to heavy battery drain. Remove superfluous cities from your weather app by heading to Settings.
14. Keep your phone cool
Phone batteries degrade much faster when they’re hot, whether you're using the phone or it's idle. Avoid leaving your phone on the dashboard of your car on a sunny day.
15. Occasionally let your battery die
Battery University suggests that calibration – fully discharging then recharging your phone's battery – once every three months helps it maintain its charge capacity.
