(Credit: Google, René Ramos)
Slim frames, bright screens, and overactive apps look great, but they take their toll on your Android phone's battery life. The newest flagships are supposed to keep you going all day, but if you're sticking with out-of-the-box settings, your battery is probably dying sooner than you'd like. A few simple adjustments are all it takes to help preserve your phone's battery life, especially as your phone ages.
All Android devices have similar features depending on the phone and version of Android, but for this story, I used a Google Pixel 6a running Android 15 and a Galaxy Z Flip 4 on Android 14. Here are 6 quick fixes to improve your Android phone's battery life.
1. Turn On Power Saving Mode
If you're in a situation where you need your phone battery to last longer than it normally does, Samsung and Google phones offer an emergency option to reduce power-hungry functions that may drain the battery. It's named something different on each phone, but the features are similar.
Samsung Power Saving
Open Settings > Battery and enable Power saving (or use the Power Saving option in the Quick Settings menu) to limit networking, syncing, and location services, and turn down the screen's refresh rate. Tap Power saving for options to turn off the Always on Display, limit CPU speed, or decrease brightness. For maximum power savings, tap Limit apps and Home screen to create a much more limited OS experience where your wallpaper is black, only select apps are enabled, and all background activity is cut back.
(Credit: PCMag / Samsung)Google Battery Saver
Open Settings > Battery > Battery Saver and enable Use Battery Saver to limit visual effects and background activity, and turn on dark mode. Enable Extreme Battery Saver to pause non-essential apps and notifications, and use the gear icon to choose approved apps that will still work. Keep Adaptive Battery enabled to optimize how apps use the battery and use Schedule and reminders to control when Battery Saver should go on automatically.
(Credit: PCMag / Google)2. Adjust Screen Brightness
Smartphone screens are big, bright battery hogs. You probably don't need your device turned up to the brightest setting. Go into your Display settings and turn down the brightness on the screen. You can also open the pull-down screen and control the brightness from there. While you're at it, consider disabling auto brightness. This feature adjusts based on your perceived needs, but can raise the brightness higher than necessary. Disable Adaptive brightness and your eyes (and battery) will thank you.
(Credit: PCMag / Samsung)3. Manage Your Lock Screen
Your phone's always-on display allows basic information, such as the time and date, to be visible on the screen when the display is otherwise turned off. The feature is designed to use as little energy as possible, but you can set limits to extract every last drop of power.
If you own a Samsung Galaxy device, head to Settings > Lock screen and disable the switch next to Always on Display. You can also tap When to show and set it to only display when the screen is tapped or just at certain times if you don't want to lose the feature completely. For a Pixel phone, you can make changes under Display > Lock screen; enable Always show time and info and customize several settings to determine when the feature is used.
(Credit: PCMag / Samsung)4. Change Your Screen Timeout
The longer your phone's screen stays on, the more battery life you use up. You can counter this by setting the screen to turn off sooner than it might normally. If you tend to leave your unlocked phone on the table, this is the feature to change. On both Galaxy and Pixel phones, you can open Settings > Display > Screen timeout, and then select among a number of options, from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
(Credit: PCMag / Samsung)5. Turn Off Background App Updates
Apps continue to run in the background even when you aren't using them. This will, of course, eat up data and battery life over time. It's a good idea to periodically check on the apps that are draining your battery. Go to Battery > View details on a Galaxy phone or Battery > Battery usage on a Pixel phone, then decide which apps should be limited.
Samsung Background Usage Limits
Open Battery > Background usage limits and enable Put unused apps to sleep to prevent apps from wasting battery life. You can go a step further and manually tell your phone to put certain apps to sleep. Select Sleeping apps or Deep sleeping apps, then tap the plus (+) icon and add your app to the list. Keep in mind that sleeping apps will only receive updates occasionally, and deep sleeping apps will not work unless they are in use, so updates may be delayed.
Google Adaptive Battery
Open Battery > Battery Saver > Adaptive Battery and turn on Use Adaptive Battery so apps you don't use will work less in the background. You can also control individual apps from Apps > App battery usage. Select an app, tap App battery usage, and either disable it manually or tap Allow background usage and make sure the app is set to Optimized.
(Credit: PCMag / Samsung)6. Watch Out for Abusive Apps
If you feel like some apps are more of a battery suck than others, Google agrees. That's why it's adding a warning system to Google Play that will alert you to apps that could potentially drain your battery. Look for an alert on app listings that says: "This app may use more battery than expected due to high background activity"
This system targets what the company calls "wake locks," which prevent a device from going to sleep. Apps that are found to be abusing these wake locks will be slapped with the warning and banished from Google Play recommended lists. This is rolling out over the next few weeks, so if you're looking for a battery-drain culprit, it may be a good idea to check out the Google Play listings for your apps to see if any of them have this warning.
(Credit: Google)