How to Save iOS Battery Life...Practically

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How to Save iOS Battery Life...Practically

This guide will show you how to save your battery life...practically.

Cerulean Apple

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Step 1 of 19

Note: You'll notice this guide is shorter than the average "Save Battery Life" guide. That's because I find it hard to shut everything off AND still enjoy my iPod touch.

Step 2 of 19

Disclaimer: Let's get real, y'all. How many of you turn off WiFi whenever you don't need it, have brightness at 0, and avoid third-party apps? Yep, that's what I thought.

Step 3 of 19

Disclaimer 2: Feel free to adjust any of my suggestions. Everyone uses their Apple product differently.

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This guide will show you how to save battery life (and improve it), but still enjoy your iOS device.

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First, make sure your notifications are manually sorted. Then, press Edit and change the order to your liking. This improves battery life.

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Next, leave only the stock apps in your Notification Center. Take all third-party apps out.

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Now, you don't want to miss updates from your third-party apps, either. Turn Banners off, and turn Alerts (popups) on. That's a sure-fire way to improve battery life, and not miss notifications.

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Next, turn your brightness to halfway (more or less), and turn on Auto-Brightness. That way, your iOS device will never get brighter than what you set it, and battery life is saved and improved.

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Turn Location Services if you don't need it. This saves battery life. That's also helpful if you don't want Apple tracking you...

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Turn Bluetooth off unless you REALLY need to use those headphones, speakers, and whatnot RIGHT NOW. This definitely saves battery life.

Step 11 of 19

Turn off everything you do not need Spotlight Search (I forgot to turn off Applications). I only use SS to search for things on the Internet.

Step 12 of 19

Turn Auto-Lock on to five minutes. That improves battery life and saves it by locking your iOS device after a set amount of time.

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You can keep Fetch on if you want. I have Fetch on for every 15 minutes for 4 accounts, and I get 8-12 hrs./weekdays and 3-5 hrs./weekends of battery life. Scroll down to Advanced...

Step 14 of 19

...and you can also choose which accounts Fetch new messages, and which ones do not. Pretty useful for the email account that only gets spam.

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I get 8-12 hours of battery life on the weekdays (occasional Internet and music, iMessage, FaceTime, third-party apps (not games) ), and 3-5 hours on the weekend (everything).

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By the way, that's only until my battery goes to 20%.

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I hoped this guide helped you eek some more battery life out of your iOS device. As stated previously, feel free to tweak any of my suggestions. Apple products are not one-size-fits-all.

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Additional Tips by iOS users...

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Rakz Munna - To improve the battery life only charge your battery when it gets under 5%. Charging your battery whenever phone is free will damage the battery and will drain out quick.

You're Done

Check out other guides by this author!

Cerulean Apple

In the world, but not of it.

Love to obey to live.

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Add this: if you double press the home button, and hold our finger on one of the apps that pops up, there should be minus signs in the corners of them. Click on all of the minus signs. And add this: when you are not using it hold the power button down until a slide to power off comes up. Slid it to power off. Press and hold to power it back on again when you want to use it.

Alyssa James 4 weeks ago

my iphone 5 drains really quick, even sleeping as soon as it is not plugged in, brand new too... nothing to drain it I am VERY disappointed, I have never spent 20o $ + 89$ a month to have a cell phone.

Jody Agerton 3 months ago

Thanks for the tip, Rakz! I'll add it in now.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Add one more tip in guide: To improve the battery life only charge your battery when it gets under 5%. Charging your battery whenever phone is free will damage the battery and will drain out quick.

Rakz Munna 11 months ago

No problem, Jessica. Happy to help!

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

No problem, then, Angela. As I said, you can make adjustments.😊

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

I made the changes and my battery life has improved considerably. Thanks!

Jessica Charlotte 11 months ago

On the page where you say set auto-lock to 5mins, do you say to do 5 mins for a reason, or is it just to take it off "never" I think I already have mine set to auto-lock after a minute or two.

Angela Dumas 11 months ago

You're welcome.😊

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Pretty good. My battery time well today. Thank you for the tip.

Annie Chow 11 months ago

2. Go to Settings - Mail.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

1. Go to Settings - Notifications.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Where do find the menu to change push notifications and the fetch option. I have gone through everything and can't find that page!!!

Heather Rettberg 11 months ago

Thanks, Marc and Annie.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Thanks I've done changes. Let's see if I can save some battery time.

Annie Chow 11 months ago

Good effort. Well done.

Marc Williamson 11 months ago

You are welcome, Marie-Anne. I wanted to make a battery life guide that would BE useful, not just SOUND useful.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Thank You!!! I love how you wrote it according to people who actually ENJOY their phones!!

Marie-Anne B 11 months ago

Be first to comment on Step 1.

Be first to comment on Step 2.

Be first to comment on Step 3.

Be first to comment on Step 4.

Because your iOS device is not working extra hard to sort every notification by time.😊

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Why does this improve the battery life?

Nate Braxton 11 months ago

Did you make sure Notification Center was off and Manual was on?

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

I did this but when I go back in to notifications my phone has moved it all back again :(

Sarah Wall 11 months ago

No problem!😄

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the tips!

Nate Braxton 11 months ago

I mean the whole thing is a way to save battery life. Not having all the notifications in the Center saves battery life, not just this part.😃 Sorry if I confused you any, Nate.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Also, why does this improve battery life? Banners use more energy than popups? Seems strange.

Nate Braxton 11 months ago

Be first to comment on Step 8.

Be first to comment on Step 9.

Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Where is Bluetooth??

Sara Rock 11 months ago

Yes, it does. That and Wikipedia are the only things in SS that cannot be unchecked.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Does SS automatically include Internet search (I noticed it's not one of the items on the list)?

Melinda Hooper 11 months ago

I'm glad I could help.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

Ohhhh, thank you!!! xxx

Sara Rock 11 months ago

If you have a lot of apps, want to find an email, etc., then, swipe to the left when you're on your first home screen to enter SS. From there, you can find anything on your iOS device.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

What does spotlight search do??

Sara Rock 11 months ago

It won't rapidly drain battery life...personally, I don't think there is much of a difference, besides having the screen cut off at one minute being annoying. Thanks for your input, though, Conor.

Cerulean Apple (author) 11 months ago

This should be 1 minute...if it was 5 minutes, it would take 5 minutes for the phone to lock when idle rather than 1 minute. This would rapidly drain battery life due to more screen usage, which is a main cause of battery drain in a smartphone

Conor Bradley 11 months ago