Quick Info
  • There's a long list of things you can do to preserve your iPhone's battery, like turning off Always On Display, Live Activities, Hey Siri, Haptic Keyboard Feedback, etc.
  • It will be a tradeoff between functionality and battery life, so each person's choice will be different.
  • Turn off the features you least care about while keeping the non-negotiable ones on.

Turn off Always-On Display

If your iPhone has an Always On Display (iPhone 14 Pro and 15 pro series), turn it off to preserve and extend battery life throughout the day.

  1. Open the Settings app and navigate to 'Display & Brightness'.
  2. Go to the option for 'Always On Display'.
  1. Turn the toggle for Always On Display off.

Things to Know:

  • Apple says that AOD isn't power hungry;it has a refresh rate of only 1 Hz.
  • However, it depends on you whether you want to sacrifice the small number of percentage it does consume in favor of using the AOD.
  • I, for one, generally turn it off when I'm traveling and need to make my battery last as long as I can between charges and it definitely makes a difference.

Adjust your Brightness

Either use auto-brightness or adjust the brightness to a lower level so the screen isn't too bright.

  1. You can dim the screen from the Control Centre to preserve battery life.
  2. To turn on auto-brightness, go to Settings > Accessibility.
  1. Then, go to 'Display & Text Size'.
  2. Scroll down and turn on the toggle for 'Auto Brightness'.

Disable Haptic Feedback when typing

  1. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics.
  2. Tap the option for 'Keyboard Feedback'.
  1. Turn off the toggle for 'Haptics'.
  2. While you're at it, you can also turn off the toggle for 'Sound' so that there's no keyboard sound even when your iPhone ringer is switched on.

Things to Know:

  • Haptic feedback while typing is a tactile experience produced by vibrations.
  • While it is a nice experience, it can drain your battery faster, especially if you're on your keyboard, clickety-clacking away, a lot.

Disable listening for "Hey Siri"

  1. Go to Settings > Siri.
  2. Tap the option for 'Listen for'.
  3. Then, select 'Off' from the options.

Things to know:

  • "Hey, Siri" lets you use Siri hands-free; disabling this option would mean you cannot use Siri hands-free. But you can still talk to Siri by long-pressing the Lock button.
  • To be able to respond to your hands-free requests, a speech recognizer is always running on your device so it can listen for the phrase, which consumes power.
  • If you're not a frequent Siri user, disabling the feature will save your battery.

Reduce the number of notifications throughout the day

Every time you get a notification, a lot of battery-sucking stuff happens on your phone depending on your settings – your display turns on accompanied a sound, it probably also vibrates, and there's a notification animation. You might be thinking how much battery can one little notification take, but it's not just one notification, is it? There are many ways to reduce the number of notifications you get throughout the day.

  1. Open the Settings app and go to 'Notifications' from where you can manage your notifications.
  2. For apps you don't want notifications from, turn off the toggle for 'Allow Notifications'.
  3. You can also use notification summary to deliver semi-important notifications only a few times a day.

Turn off Nearby AirDrop Sharing

Nearby AirDrop sharing lets you use AirDrop and NameDrop by holding two iPhones nearby.

  1. To turn it off, go to Settings > General.
  2. Go to 'AirDrop' from the general settings.
  1. Then, turn off the toggle for 'Bringing Devices Together'.

Things to Know:

  • While Nearby AirDrop sharing doesn't generally consume too much battery, it's a good idea to turn it off if you have more than one iPhone (or even holding someone else's) and accidentally triggering it repeatedly.
  • You can still use AirDrop manually when you turn off this feature.

Check Lock Screen Widgets

Lock screen widgets are great for getting information at a glance but you should check if you've got widgets on there from apps that are draining your battery.

  1. To monitor your battery usage, go to Settings > Battery.
  2. Then, go to the 'Battery usage by app' section and check the percentage for apps with widgets. If it's unfairly high, you need to cut it lose.
  1. You can delete the lock screen widget by opening the customization screen for the Lock Screen and tapping the '-' icon on the widget.

Reduce Refresh Rate

On iPhone 13 Pro and newer Pro models, reduce the refresh rate to preserve memory.

  1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion.
  2. Then, turn on the toggle for 'Limit Frame Rate'.

Things to Know:

  • The default refresh rate on these models is 120 Hz, which is responsible for smoother animations on your iPhone.
  • Limiting the frame rate drops it down to 60 Hz, which will result in lesser smoothness than before but will help in preserving battery.

Turn off Background App Refresh

  1. On your iPhone, go to Settings > General.
  2. Next, go to 'Background App Refresh'.
  3. Then, turn off background app refresh for apps that are eating too much battery or that you don't use frequently.
  1. You can also change the setting so that apps can only refresh in the background when you're connected to the Wi-Fi, instead of both Wi-Fi & Cellular, since Wi-Fi consumes less battery than cellular.

Things to Know:

  • Background app refresh is a great feature that allows apps to fetch fresh data in the background so you don't have to wait for them to reload when you open them.
  • It's not recommended to turn this feature off entirely as it will significantly derail user experience.
  • Go to your battery settings to figure out if any app is consuming too much battery in the background.

Turn off Live Activities

Live Activities show updated information from apps in an ongoing notification on your lock screen and Dynamic Island, which can affect the battery life.

You can either turn off Live Activities entirely or for specific apps (if they tend to show longer Live Activity notifications that cause more battery drain).

  1. To turn them off completey, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode.
  2. Scroll down and turn off the toggle for 'Live Activities'.
  1. To control Live Activities on a per-app basis, scroll down in the Settings and navigate to the app in question.
  2. Then, tap on 'Live Activities'.
  3. Turn off the toggle for 'More Frequent Updates' to still allow live activities from the app while lessening the frequency of updates.
  4. To turn it off completely for the app, toggle off 'Allow Live Activities'.

Bonus tips

  • When available, use Wi-Fi instead of mobile/ cellular data as it consumes less battery. To turn on Wi-Fi, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and turn on the toggle. Then, connect to an available network that you trust.
  • Use Low Power Mode to preserve battery.
  • If you're traveling somewhere, download the maps ahead of time and use ofline maps in Google or Apple Maps to preserve battery.
  • If you have an iPhone with an OLED display, use dark mode as it consumes less battery since the pixel is turned off. Dark mode won't make a difference on devices with LCD screens.
  • Keep your phone face down when not in use so it won't light up every time you receive a notification.
  • Turn off 'Raise to Wake' by going to Display & Brightness settings so your iPhone won't wake the screen until you explicitly do so.
  • Turn on Airplane mode if you're in an area where reception is bad. Your iPhone consumes a lot of power when it's trying to find signals continously.
  • Limit apps' access to location services so they aren't always accessing your location and draining your battery.