There are several reasons why your battery may run out faster than it should. Possible culprits could be your screen brightness settings, the GPS, and Bluetooth being turned on when you’re not using it, or even having a faulty charger. However, it is also possible that applications running in the background could be the cause of the problem, so how can you find out exactly which apps are draining your phone’s battery life?
Discover The Apps That Are Draining Your Phone’s Battery
According to a report published by Avast, common apps such as Facebook, Netflix, Google Maps and WhatsApp carry a lot of the guilt for draining your battery life. While some of these can seem essential to most users, there are ways to reduce their effects. For example you can view the social networks in your web browser instead of using their apps.
However, even for the apps that can’t be deleted, there are still ways to limit their energy use, such as turning off notifications and reducing background features, and limited their use of location tracking.
Up next, we detail the findings of this Avast report, before going through the specifics of how you can find out for yourself the particular apps that are draining your phone’s battery, whether you’re an Android or iPhone user.
10 Apps That Automatically Run And Are Draining Your Battery Life:
- Samsung AllShare
- Samsung Security Policy Updates
- Beaming Service for Samsung
- ChatON Voice & Video Chat
- Google Maps
- WhatsApp Messenger
- AppLock
- DU Battery Saver
10 Apps That Users Run Themselves And Are Draining Your Phone Battery:
- Samsung WatchON
- Samsung Video Editor
- Netflix
- Spotify Music
- Snapchat
- Clean Master
- LINE: Free Calls & Messages
- Microsoft Outlook
- BBC News
- ES File Explorer File Manager
How To Check For The Apps That Are Draining Your Phone Battery:
So you’ve gone through the lists, but as it turns out you don’t actually use some of these apps. If you want to see for yourself which specific apps on your phone are draining the battery life, here are the instructions for both Android and iPhone users:
- Android Users:
For most Android versions, you can go to Settings > Device > Battery or Settings > Power > Battery Use. If you’re using an Android 9 simply go to Settings > Battery > More > Battery Usage.
Here you’ll find a detailed list of all the apps that are draining your phone’s battery and at what rate. If one of these takes up a disproportionate amount of power then consider the possibility of uninstalling it. For Android 9 users, you’ll be able to turn on “Background restriction” and “Battery optimization” options for some, if not all, apps.
- iPhone Users:
For iPhone users, the process is as simple as going to Settings > Battery, where you’ll immediately find a list of all the apps draining your phone’s battery. You can even tap on the “Battery Health” option to check how well your phone’s battery is performing. If your battery’s capacity is well below 90% it might be time to replace your battery.
Bonus Tips: How To Prevent Your Phone’s Battery From Dying Too Early
Even if you’ve already deleted and replaced the most battery draining apps, here are a few bonus tips that can help your phone’s battery life last longer:
- Turn off or limit notifications:
Although instant notifications may be useful for certain social media and mailing apps, some of them require you to allow notifications which contributes to draining your battery’s life faster.
Go to your Apps window in your phone to uncheck the “Show notifications” box for the apps in which notifications are unnecessary. If you’re an Android user, you can go further by checking Settings > Device > Notifications to manually adjust the notification levels for each app, either choosing for them to never show notifications or do so silently without vibrating, pinging or waking up the screen.
- Go on Airplane Mode:
Going on Airplane Mode at night when you’re not using your phone, or in instances when there’s very low signal, can save a lot of battery life, especially since smartphones lose a lot of power when trying to connect in low signal areas.
If the low signal area is a home or office, you can use Wi-Fi when Airplane Mode is enabled as a way to stay connected, since your phone uses less energy to connect to wireless rather than cellular networks.
- Get a certified original charger:
While there are plenty of cheap chargers out there, using them or a cable that’s not coming from the original manufacturer or a certified third-party could actually degrade your battery life.
- Stop vibrations:
If your phone is ringing you might not need it to vibrate as well, so turning this option off in your notifications along with haptic feedback and “touch vibration” can save power.
- Remove unnecessary widgets off your home screen:
While having widgets on your home screen can be useful for real-time updates, they can also be major battery drainers as they’re constantly syncing. So, if you don’t need a permanent window into today’s News or regular weather updates, remove the widget from your home screen to save power.
- Turn off GPS:
GPS can be a major drain on battery life. You may have noticed this when using Google Maps, one of the main apps that drain your phone’s battery. So, when you’re not in need of active navigation, switch it off!
- Use your screen features appropriately:
While they may look cute, there’s probably no need for a live wallpaper. Enabling an option, such as automatic or adaptive brightness, in order for your phone to adapt the display based on your current lighting conditions can work wonders in saving your battery life.
Also, make sure to decrease the length of time your phone remains idle before the display goes dark automatically. Adjusting screen timeout to 15 seconds instead of a 20 minute interval can make a big difference.
- Keep your apps updated:
Updates usually include bug fixes and little tweaks that improve performance, which can sometimes also mean a more efficient use of battery life, for both apps and your OS.