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Every year we feel like we’ve reached peak smartphone, and yet, we continue to receive phones with better cameras, faster processors, and screens that bend in half. New chips bring not just performance gains but also better efficiency. Pair that with small, but appreciable improvements in battery capacity, and these powerhouses still manage to last a full day. Batteries degrade, though, and with all the processing our phones do in the background, it’s very common to find yourself plugging it in for charging multiple times a day.

Poor battery performance can be caused by two broad reasons. First, if your phone has physically started to age. Checking your phone’s battery health will confirm this. Manufacturers typically recommend a battery swap once this number drops below 80%. Some phones may also dial down performance to make up for a weaker battery. However, if your phone’s been draining a lot of battery despite its health being intact, there may be multiple factors at play.

It’s common for your phone’s battery to drain faster than usual during intensive use, like high-brightness navigation or gaming. The built-in power saver mode on your phone can come in handy. When enabled, it limits background services and drops your screen’s refresh rate to stretch its remaining battery. You may already know of this feature, so here are five other settings that can help you prevent battery drain. Do note that the exact labels for the menus and options may vary depending on which Android device you own.

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Ever wondered why your phone’s screen never fully turns off when you lock it? That’s the always-on feature, which is useful for providing quick information like the time and incoming notifications at a glance. This way, you don’t have to wake your phone’s screen to check for new messages or peep the remaining battery percentage. Always-on display is a feature typically only found on phones with AMOLED screens because they don’t drain copious amounts of battery life when that feature is enabled.

That said, leaving the feature turned on chips into your phone’s battery a bit. If you seldom find this utility useful or can make do without it, then turning it off could contribute to better endurance. To turn the feature off, navigate to Settings > Display, and look for an always-on display toggle. On some versions of Android, this setting may be buried under the “Ambient Display” or other lock screen options.

While you’re in the display settings, you can also drop your phone’s refresh rate to 60Hz. Dialing this down may help conserve more battery, but it comes at the cost of elements on your screen appearing a bit sluggish. Gamers aside, this should not be a dealbreaker to many people, and your eyes should slowly adjust to the lower refresh rate with time.

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Dark mode has been a staple feature in Android phones for a number of years now. It shifts the color of all the bright UI elements to a deep gray, or sometimes even pitch black. If the phone you’re using has an AMOLED screen, then switching to a system-wide dark mode will help boost battery life. This is because, to display true black colors on an AMOLED screen, the pixels can simply turn off. 

Not only does this offer richer contrast ratios when viewing content, but it directly favors battery life since there are physically fewer pixels to power. Switching to dark mode also makes using your phone easier on the eyes. You can find the toggle to change your system theme color by navigating to Settings > Display. If you find that the dark mode is giving you readability issues in bright environments, you can set up a schedule that automatically handles the switch based on the time of day.

Another tip is monitoring your screen’s brightness level. Having it cranked all the way up even when indoors is not only detrimental to your phone’s battery, but also to your eyes. In case you find changing your phone’s brightness level all the time a tedious task, you can enable adaptive brightness in settings. This feature uses your phone’s ambient light sensor to detect the intensity of light in your surroundings and automatically sets the right brightness level.

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With hundreds of apps installed and at least a dozen constantly pinging us with updates or messages, our Android phone does a lot more in the background than we realize. Background network permissions are necessary for apps like Instagram and WhatsApp to receive new messages and notify you of them instantly. Services like Google Maps and the weather app rely on location services to fetch you accurate details about your commute or the weather.

While background permissions are an essential component for services to function, not every app on your phone might need unrestricted access to your data when you’re not actively using it. Disabling these permissions takes a noticeable burden off your phone’s back, which helps with battery life. Android makes managing background apps really simple.

1. Head to Settings > Apps > See all apps.
2. Scroll down to find an app you wish to disable or limit background resources for.
3. Tap on “App battery usage” and uncheck the “Allow background use” option.
4. Head back to the main settings page and navigate to “Location.” Here, you can select which apps have access to your location at all times, even in the background. 
5. For any app, you can limit location access to only when the app is in active use or tap the “Don’t allow” option to disable this permission altogether.

Make sure you don’t disable location permissions for apps you use on a daily basis like Google Maps or Uber.

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The rollout of 5G on mobiles wasn’t the most elegant, but we’re a few years in, and nearly every smartphone shipping today comes with support for 5G. It offers some blazing fast download speeds — around 10 times that of 4G. The speed and latency benefits are best illustrated in industries dealing with healthcare equipment or autonomous vehicles. While quicker download speeds on your phone are always nice to have, it’s worth noting that 5G notoriously drains a considerable amount of battery compared to 4G.

It also has less coverage, especially in suburban areas in many parts of the world. 4G provides speeds that are more than enough to stream 4K videos, play games on the cloud, or download large files on your device. If you’re okay with receiving “slower” speeds, switching to 4G can be a smart choice. To do so, follow these steps:

1. On your Android phone, navigate to Settings > Network and Internet > SIMs.
2. Tap on your primary SIM card.
3. Scroll down and tap the “Preferred network type” option.
4. Select 4G or LTE from the list.

It may take a few seconds for your phone to switch to 4G. Alternatively, you can toggle the airplane mode on and off for a quick network refresh.

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The settings we’ve talked about so far should already contribute to better battery life on your phone. However, there are countless smaller tweaks that can supplement this quest. For starters, it’s highly advisable to remove battery saver apps from your phone. There is an abundance of them on the Play Store that claim to manage background services or optimize your phone’s RAM for a smoother experience. However, Android as an operating system has evolved plentifully in this manner and does all the optimization for you already.

Using an additional third-party battery saver app that constantly runs in the background may inadvertently end up draining your battery faster. If you have multiple accounts signed into your phone that you don’t necessarily need timely notifications for, disabling synchronization can be beneficial. On your phone, open the Settings app and navigate to the “Passwords, passkeys and accounts” option. This will display a list of various accounts from different apps. You can tap on them and configure sync options manually.

Another tip involves disabling connectivity features when not in use. Things like mobile data, location, or Bluetooth can be quickly toggled through the quick settings panel that appears with a swipe down. This way, your phone isn’t constantly searching for new devices or updating its location. Lastly, consider picking up a slim power bank for your phone. This can double or triple your phone’s battery life during travel.