There are complaints about the battery life of new operating systems. Sometimes problems can persist longer after an update due to behind the scenes sync and updating.

New features, bugs, and an increase in usage can cause battery life problems. Whatever the reason, we've put together some suggestions on how you can increase the battery life of your phone.

You will have to balance the battery drain with the feature set that you want enabled if you want better battery life.

1. Turn Off Live Activities

The Live Activities feature allows apps to keep an ongoing notification on the Lock Screen or Dynamic Island. Live Activities can be used for things like tracking a sports game, following along with a flight, progressing through a workout, and more.

Live Activities is one of the things that depletes the battery on your phone. It's not a surprise that disabling the feature improves battery life, and it's also a good idea to turn off the constant notification feature. If you follow these steps, live activities can be disabled.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Go to Face ID & Passcode.
  3. Enter your passcode to unlock the ‌iPhone‌.
  4. Scroll down and toggle off Live Activities.

Live Activities will not show up on the Lock Screen if you take this step further. Live Activities can be disabled on an app-by-app basis in the settings section of the app.

The Dynamic Island can't be completely disabled, but you can dismiss it with a left turn.

Apple added the option forwidgets to the Lock Screen in the latest iteration of its operating system. The Lock Screen has a lot ofwidgets that are refreshing in the background and eating up battery.

If you're worried about battery life, you might want to create a Lock Screen that doesn't have anything to do with gadgets. There are multiple Lock Screens that you can swap between, so if you occasionally want to usewidgets, you can.

We have a dedicatediOS 16 Lock Screen guide for details on how to add, remove, and create lock screens.

The Home Screen has pre-ios 16 features. We don't recommend Home Screen Widgets for battery life concerns.

3. Disable Haptic Keyboard Feedback

When using the on-screen keyboard, Apple added a feature that gives you feedback. It vibrates with each key tap for a better typing experience, but it also depletes the battery.

It's not something you want to use if you don't have a lot of battery to spare. You can turn it off if you enabled it.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Tap on Sounds & Haptics.
  3. Tap on Keyboard Feedback.
  4. Toggle off Haptic.

4. Turn Off Always-On Display (iPhone 14 Pro)

The first devices to come with the pre-installed version of iOS 16 were the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Always-on display leaves the time, your wallpaper,widget, and Live Activities visible on the Lock Screen even when your phone is locked.

The display is using a 1Hz refresh rate to preserve battery, and Apple has neat tricks like turning off the display when a connected Apple Watch is no longer nearby.

The always-on display can be turned off.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Tap on Display & Brightness.
  3. Toggle off Always On.

It's not clear how much battery life the always-on display depletes because it's going to vary from use case to use case, but even if it's only a few percent, it's worth turning off.

You can use a standard Photo Library with five other people, with everyone able to uploaded, edited, and deleted images. If you use the shared photo library, it could cause photos from other people to be uploaded to your phone at a time when you need them the most.

If you're worried about battery, it might be helpful to avoid using it by not setting it up and not accepting invites to join. If you want to use the iCloud shared photo library but still cut down on battery and data usage, you can use a setting that only allows sync over wi-fi.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Scroll down to Photos.
  3. Tap on Cellular Data.
  4. Toggle off Cellular Data.

Photos shared with you won't be downloaded to your device when you only have a cellular connection.

6. Choose Non-Animated Wallpapers

An animated wallpaper will drain more battery than a static wallpaper because it is animated. If you don't care about the animations, choose something that won't change throughout the day.

The weather wallpaper can change based on the weather, and the photo shuffle option can change your photos during the day. Current conditions affect the Astronomy wallpaper.

7. Use Focus Modes

If you use Apple's built-in Focus option, you can cut down on the number of notifications you receive during the day, and less notifications will cause less battery drain.

Focus Modes allow you to choose which apps and people can send you notifications and when, so you can limit your work notifications. You can limit notifications when you're driving, when you're sleeping, or when you're working out. You can use focus filters to remove emails, messages, and more.

All of your notifications will be in one alert when the focus mode ends. The best way to save battery life is to turn off notifications from apps, but Focus allows you to keep your notifications and cut down on the number that you receive.

We have a dedicated Focus guide because it still takes some work to get everything running. The focus features can be found in the settings section.

The App Summary saves up notifications and sends them to you once or twice a day, so it's important that any app that sends non- important notifications is demoted. If you're not already using it, it's worth a look.

The Notifications section of the app's settings allows you toggling on App Summary.

9. Limit When and How Often Apps Can Access Location

It's always a good idea to check in on the settings of apps and services to make sure they aren't doing things you don't want them to be doing.

It's possible to save battery life by limiting the apps that have access to your location.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Choose Privacy.
  3. Tap Location Services.
  4. Review the list and edit settings by tapping on the name of each app in the list.

There are four possible locations for each app, but not all of them will be available for every app. You can choose between Never, Ask Next Time or When I Share, while using the app and always.

Setting location access to Never is the best option if there is a specific need for an app to know where you are.

If Ask Next Time asks you with a popup, you can temporarily approve it. The location access is off until the popup is allowed.

The app can only detect your location when the app is open and active. The location access ends if you close the app or switch to another app.

It is always possible for an app to have access to your location at any time. You should only use the apps that you need the most, because this will result in the most battery drain.

A lot of apps will ask for location information that doesn't really need it to function, so clearing the cruft will make sure no apps are accessing your location without express

It's not ideal that you can turn off all of the location services at the same time.

10. Limit Apps Using Bluetooth

There are a lot of apps that want to use Bluetooth for things other than location tracking, scanning, or other purposes.

To make sure that you don't have a sneaky app connecting toBluetooth sources without your permission and draining battery, check the apps you use. You have to get to the settings.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap on Privacy.
  3. Tap Bluetooth.

It's best to uninstall any app that doesn't need aBluetooth connection for most of the time. It's possible to turn a feature back on in an app.

Most people can't turn it off because it's used for Apple Watches and other accessories.

11. Use Low Power Mode

If you want to maintain battery without having to bother with a lot of settings, you can use Low Power Mode liberally. Low Power Mode cuts down on background activity, limits display refresh rate, limits email fetch, and more.

If you want it to turn on automatically when you need it, you can use the Shortcuts feature.

12. Use Wi-Fi and Airplane Mode

One of the battery preserving tips offered by Apple is to connect to the internet via wi-fi. You should connect to the internet at home or at work.

Turn on Airplane Mode or turn off your cellular connection if you're in an area with no wi-fi and you know you have low cellular signal. It only works when you don't need a cellular connection in the moment, but it can have a big impact and you can't do much with low signal anyways.

13. Manage Apps Draining Battery

It's possible to make sure nothing is draining your battery without your knowledge if you know which apps are consuming the most battery. If you want to check your battery usage statistics, open the settings app and tap on the battery section.

You can see your battery level over the last 24 hours or the last 10 days with the help of battery usage charts. If there is an app that you don't need, it is time to uninstall it. Moderate how often you use the app and how much you have access to.

14. Limit Background Activity

Background refresh and limited background activity is one of the best ways to cut down on battery usage.

You can either turn off background app refresh all together or choose which apps can refresh in the background.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Select General.
  3. Choose Background App Refresh.

If you tap the Background App Refresh option again, you can either turn it off all together or have it activated only when connected to the internet.

If you want to turn Background App Refresh on just for your most used apps, you can tap on the toggle next to each app.

15. Change Your Mail Settings

Changing when and how frequently the Mail app checks for new emails can save you some battery.

  1. Open up the Settings app.
  2. Tap Mail.
  3. Tap Accounts.
  4. Tap "Fetch New Data" at the bottom. mailfetch

You can turn off Push and adjust the Fetch settings on a per account basis for accounts that don't support Push.

Changing the Fetch settings to have longer intervals before checking for new messages can help save battery life, as can turning off Fetch all together in favor of manual checks that will download new messages only when the Mail app is open.

You can change the settings to automatically, manually, hourly, and every 15 minutes.

Conclusion

Finding what works for you, what you don't need, and where you can compromise to extend battery life are all part of preserving battery life.