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How to identify apps draining your smartphone battery
In This Article
Smartphone battery life continues to be a hot topic in 2024 despite huge advances in power efficiency and battery tech over the past few years. So how can you stop your battery from draining so quickly?
Chances are, there’s an errant app that’s hogging your phone’s battery, making it drain quicker than it’s supposed to. Thankfully, if you’ve got an Android device, there’s an easy way to identify these troublemaking apps and stop them in their tracks.
So, if you’d like to regain control of your apps and stop them from needlessly draining your battery in the background, here’s how you can do it on anAndroid smartphone.
Editors note:We’re using aMotorola Edge 50 Ultrawith stock Android 14 for this tutorial. Some custom Android skins, like Samsung OneUI and Honor MagicOS, may have a slightly different Settings app layout, but the process remains broadly the same.
What you’ll need:
The Short Version
Step1
Open the Settings app
To see which apps might be draining your battery, you’ll need to head to the Settings app. That’s the app icon with a cogwheel if you’re unfamiliar.
Step2
Tap Battery
From the main Settings menu, scroll down until you find the Battery section. Tap it to continue.
Step3
Tap Battery Usage
You should then be taken to the battery settings section of the app. From here, tap Battery Usage – it’s usually at the top of the list, depending on the Android skin your smartphone uses.
Step4
Identify which apps are active most often
You’ll then see a graph and a list of apps that have been using battery power since your last charge beneath. The most power-hungry apps are at the top of the list, so pay the most attention to these troublesome apps.Look not only at the screen-on time (aka how long you’ve been actively using the app) but also background time, as this could be the reason why your phone’s battery is draining more significantly than usual.
Step5
Tap the app, and tap Force Stop to close it
If you do notice that an app has been active in the background for hours, draining your phone’s charge, tap the app on the list and tap Force Stop to close it.You can also change the battery optimisation settings for that specific app in the same menu. If you want to stop it from being used in background activity in the future, tap Restricted Use. However, keep in mind that you’ll likely be disabling that app’s ability to send notifications if you activate this restricted mode.
Lewis is the Mobile Editor of Trusted Reviews with plenty of phone experience, from the Nokia 3210 to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. He has been in the tech industry writing about phones, headphones, tablets,…
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
