Phone Hacks for Battery Life

Your phone has many titles: your assistant, your library, your entertainment, your guide – the list goes on. But one title it shouldn’t have is a nuisance. Specifically, when it comes to battery life, and how it always seems to be nearing 0% at the most critical times of the day.

The good news? You don’t have to be a tech wizard to squeeze every last drop out of your device. Here are some clever hacks that’ll help you charge faster, waste less power, and keep your phone running like a champ.

Hack to Charge Your Phone Faster:

Airplane Mode

Want your phone to charge faster? Pop it into Airplane Mode while plugged in. Turning off all that constant signal searching and notification pinging means more energy goes straight into your battery. Handy if you’re looking to charge it sufficiently in a pinch.

Hacks to Make Your Battery Last Longer:

1. Apps Management

Apps helping to reset your social battery? Great. Apps draining your actual battery? Unacceptable. To see which apps drain your battery the most, follow these steps:

On iPhone, head to Settings > Battery;

on Android, try Settings > Battery > Battery Usage.

You’ll see the culprits ranked. (Spoiler: Instagram and TikTok are usually repeat offenders.) Once you know, you can restrict background activity, take a break, or reserve them for end- of-night-when-a-charger-is-easily-accessible time. Your battery and your sanity will thank you.

2. Dark Mode

Switching your screen to dark mode doesn’t just look sleek, it saves power (especially on OLED screens). Plus, your eyes could use the break from the overly bright doom scrolling.

3. Temperature Matters

Phones hate extremes. Too hot? Battery drains faster. Too cold? Your phone might ghost you entirely. Keep your device in the Goldilocks zone: not sweating in direct sunlight, not chilling directly in front of the AC.

4. Low Power Mode

Yes, Low Power Mode (or Battery Saver Mode) can make your phone act a little sluggish. But when you’re stuck in a commute that just got caught in a traffic jam with less than 30% left, it’s a lifesaver. It cuts out the fluff—background refreshes, auto-downloads, flashy animations—and keeps only the essentials running.

5. Cut Out the Notifications

Every widget on your home screen is constantly updating, and every push notification is a tiny energy nibble. Ask yourself: do you really need to know that Uber Eats has some promotion nearby, 4X a day? Probably not. Trim the extras by disabling the notification permission for unnecessary apps.

Hack to Keep Your Battery Quality Last Longer:

The 100% Myth

We all know about the infamous Apple scandal a few years ago, whereby they were caught intentionally slowing down the performance of older phones to “prevent shutdowns from older batteries.” What came out of that is a lot of (valid) rage, but also a new way of assessing the quality of batteries.

Now, Apple – alongside other manufacturers – readily offers battery replacements (which are much cheaper than a full phone upgrade) to keep your “old” phone performing like new. If you'd like to avoid all of that for as long as possible and keep your battery performing like new for longer, here’s an unexpected fact: constantly charging to 100% is actually what not to do. Lithium-ion batteries are happiest when they hang out between 20%–80%. Think of it like a diet: moderation over all-you-can-eat binges.

Have you tried any of these hacks? Let us know how they work for you!

Send us a note at [email protected]!