Why Does My iPhone Battery Die So Fast? An Apple Tech's 14 iPhone Battery Drain Fixes! By Payette Forward

(upbeat music) - Hi guys, David and David here from payetteforward. com, and in this video we're going to explain why your iPhone battery dies so fast, and then recommend 14 iPhone battery life saving tips. - Now I used to work in an Apple Store, and people would come in all the time with this problem.99% of the time, this problem is caused by the iPhone software. There's nothing wrong with the physical battery inside your iPhone, so we would always run these battery checks, they'd come back positive that the battery was okay, and then I'd show them how to do these tips, and people would leave and they'd have much better battery life. So that's what we're gonna show you how to do today. Our first battery saving tip is? - Is push mail.

Turn push mail from push to fetch. - So with push mail, your iPhone maintains a constant connection to your email server. And your iPhone is always asking that server, Is there mail? Is there mail? Is there mail? Is there mail? So, instead of having that happen, we can change your iPhone from push to fetch. That way we decide how often your iPhone checks to see if there's new mail or other updates. - Sure, so how do we do that? Well first let's open up the Settings app on your iPhone, scroll down to Accounts & Passwords, tap Fetch New Data.

First thing we'll do here is turn off the switch next to Push at the top of the screen. - Mh. Now how often should we fetch new data on your iPhone? And the answer is up to you. But generally every 15 minutes is what I choose. - Yes.

- Because instead of your iPhone constantly asking the server is there new mail? We tell the iPhone just check every 15 minutes. - Yep. - And that's frequent enough for me. - And then you can always just open up your Mail app, and then the mail will automatically fetch. - Exactly.

- Anytime you open it. - Yep. - So I'll tap every 15 minutes, that small check mark will appear, and now you switched your mail from push to fetch. - Mh. - Well done.

- So let's go back to the main Settings menu on your iPhone, back to Accounts, back to Settings. And our next iPhone battery life saving tip is, we're gonna take a look at Location Services. Now Location Services are one of the things that makes the iPhone so great to use. It's the GPS. It allows your iPhone to know where it is in the physical world.

So, I'm not saying that you should turn off Location Services entirely, because that would just be a drag. Instead, we're going to identify the Location Services that are using battery in the background of your iPhone, and apps that don't need to have Location Services turned on. So- - Perfect. - On the Settings app we're gonna scroll down to Privacy. - Privacy.

- And then we're gonna tap Location Services. - Okay. - Now as I said you can turn off Location Services at the top, I don't recommend doing that. Instead, I want you to look through this list of apps, and identify which ones need to know where you are. Ask yourself for each app, does this app need to know where I am? If the answer is no, turn off Location Services for that app.

- Well I know for sure that Apple Watch Faces app does not need to know my location, so I tapped on it, and I'm going to tap Never, that blue check mark will appear, and now Location Services not on for the Apple Watch Faces app. - Mh. So in the left hand side of Location Services settings that you choose for each app, you'll see these little arrows sometimes. So let's take a look at the list of arrows at the bottom of the screen here. And we'll start at the bottom one.

A gray arrow means that this app has used your location within the last 24 hours. And remember that that's gonna drain your battery life. So be aware of those apps. The second one from the bottom is a purple arrow, and that means that that app is using your location right now. So be careful of those apps especially if you see that.

And then there's the hollow purple arrow, and that indicates geo-fencing. Geo-fencing is one of those Location Services features that lets your iPhone know when it has entered or when it has left a certain location. So you can say, "Hey iPhone remind me to pick up groceries when I leave work today. " And so your iPhone is going to keep track of where you are, and where you work, and as soon as you leave, it's gonna remind you to go buy groceries. The problem with that is for the feature to work, your iPhone has to constantly be tracking your location at work.

And so, this type of Location Services, this geo-fencing, is the number one offender in my experience of iPhone battery drain. So if you can, I recommend just not using this feature. So the last place we need to look in this part of the Settings app, is under System Services. - I'll go ahead and tap on that. - Mh.

So here we have a list of Location Services that affect the operating system of your iPhone. For instance, Compass Calibration, Emergency SOS, and then there are some nefarious ones here like Location-Based Apple Ads, Location-Based Suggestions for apps, Setting Times Zone, if you're not traveling through different time zones, you don't need to have this on. So I recommend going through this list turn off pretty much every one. - Yeah, I'm gonna turn off Cell Network Search, Compass Calibration, I will leave on Emergency SOS actually in case you need that. - Yap.

- Find My iPhone definitely leaving that on in case you lose it. - Mh. - HomeKit, I don't need that. - Location-Based Alerts those are the things when you're gonna leave work it'll alert you. Now, a lot of people will ask, does this mean my iPhone will not connect to cell phone networks? It will still work.

- Great, so Apple Ads turn that on off, Location-Based Suggestions off, Motion Calibration & Distance, I mean, unless you're using your iPhone as a pedometer you probably don't need that one. - Mh. - Setting Time Zone I'm not traveling. Share My Location, definitely don't want that one. Wi-Fi Calling I will leave on.

- Mh. - Because I use the Wi-Fi Calling and Wi-Fi Networking, I'll turn that one off. - Mh. Now another place where battery drain is hiding, is in Significant Locations, which used to be called Frequent Locations. So just tap on that.

- Face ID confirmation. - So your iPhone has the capability of tracking you everywhere you go, that's fun. So let's take a look at your list here. - Lot of New York ones, I actually just went on a trip upstate a little bit recently, and I got a lot of locations here. - Right, but who needs it? - Not me.

- Yeah, we don't need to keep track of our locations. Let's turn off Significant Locations entirely. - Tap the switch, now it's off, those locations are gone. - Right, back to System Services. So here are the bottom of the menu, we see Product Improvement.

This is gonna send data from your iPhone to Apple developers, we don't need to be doing this. So let's just turn off iPhone Analytics, Popular Near Me, Routing & Traffic, Improve Maps. That's their job to figure that stuff out. We don't have to waste our battery telling them that stuff. So that pretty much wraps up the Location Services.

- That wraps up Location, it's a long step but it's really great for your iPhone's battery. - Mh. Let's go back to the main Privacy menu on your iPhone for the next tip. So, we're in Privacy now, and scroll down to the bottom, and you'll see Analytics. Tap on that, and then Share iPhone Analytics.

This means that your iPhone is periodically going to send data about the way that you use your iPhone, to Apple and other app developers, so that they can develop fixes, not something your iPhone needs to be doing in the background, because it's doing extra stuff, it's draining your battery life. So let's just go ahead and turn that off. - Off. - Yap, iCloud Analytics, let's turn that off. And then all of these other ones if you see it- - Turn it off.

- Turn it off, it's gonna save your battery life. So our next iPhone battery life saving tip, is close out your apps. Now this is kind of a controversial topic, a lot of people say it makes a difference, a lot of people say it doesn't make a difference. As an Apple tech with experience working with hundreds of iPhones, I can tell you definitively that this does make a difference. And the reason is, that sometimes apps don't work the way that they're supposed to.

Apps are not perfect, the App Store is not perfect, developers are not perfect. So, what this does, is it prevents those problems from happening. - So first we need to open the app switcher on your iPhone, then close out of the apps. So to open the app switcher, iPhone eight or earlier, double press the Home Button, iPhone 10 swipe up from the bottom of the screen, pause in the center, so now we're in the app switcher. iPhone eight or earlier, swipe 'em off the top of the screen.

- Yap. - iPhone 10 same thing we have to press and hold first until this little red minus button show up, and then swipe 'em up and off the top of the screen. - You might have 40 apps open. This is going to save your iPhone battery life, in spite of what other people say, it works. - Totally.

Our fifth iPhone battery life saving tip, is to turn off the notifications that you don't need. So notifications are those little pop-ups that appear on your iPhone from time to time. Now notifications can sometimes be good, like text messages, we wanna find out when people are sending us text messages, we'll leave notifications on for that. However, there are other apps that may be alerting you and they don't need to be. For notifications to work however, that app needs to be running in the background of your iPhone, just to pay attention to whether it needs to alert you, so by turning off notifications for apps that don't need to alert you from time to time, you're gonna save battery life.

- So go to the Settings app, scroll down and tap on Notifications. - Now, take a look through your list of apps here, ask yourself, does this app need to be able to notify me when something happens on my iPhone? Do I need a pop-up alert? If the answer is no, turn off notifications for that app. So let's go ahead and take a look through yours. - Alright, let's see, I don't need any notifications from the Mr. Time app.

- Yap, so when you open this menu, just turn off Allow Notifications at the top. There are ways to customize the notifications that you get in your iPhone, but it's easier just to turn 'em all off. So just head back to Notifications in the upper left hand corner of the screen, take a look through this list, turn off notifications for apps that don't need to notify you from time to time. So what's our next iPhone battery life saving tip? - Next we're gonna turn off widgets you don't need. Widgets are little mini-apps that are on your iPhone, they give you a little snippet of information about what's going on inside that app.

- And how do I get to see which widgets are running on my iPhone? - Well, you can swipe left to right on your home screen until you reach this menu with few widgets, I've got the Batteries widget, ESPN widget, and the weather widget. To turn off any of these widgets just tap that circular Edit button, and then tap the red minus button next to the widget you want to remove. - Mh, widgets are mini-apps like David said, they're always running in the background. By removing these, we're cutting down the number of apps that are running in the background of your iPhone, and saving your battery life. - Yep, just tap Remove again, and then tap Done in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and that Weather app widget is gone.

- It's gone - Simple. - Mh, so what's our next iPhone battery life saving tip? - Our next tip is to turn off your iPhone once per week. - Your iPhone is a computer. It's a little tiny computer that you carry around in your pocket. If you were to leave a computer on, it's plugged into the wall forever, it would slow down eventually.

It's important to turn off your computer, and turn it on every once in a while, same thing goes for your iPhone. How do we do it? - Well iPhone eight or earlier, press and hold the power button, until slide to power off appears, swipe that power icon left to right, it'll shut down your iPhone. iPhone 10 is a little bit different, press on all the side button and the volume down buttons, so slide to power off appears, slide it, your iPhone's off. Wait a few seconds turn it back on. So our next tip is to turn off Background App Refresh for apps where you don't need it.

Background App Refresh is kind of like Notifications but it is a little different. It allows your iPhone apps to download new content in the background, even when you're not using your iPhone. And that uses your battery life. So let's head to the Settings app, and then to General, and then down to Background App Refresh tap on that, and now ask yourself which of these apps need to be able to download new content in the background of my iPhone when I'm not using them. - A lot of 'em for me honestly.

I usually turn off these switchers pretty much every single time. - Mh. So go through the list and turn it off for almost all your apps. That's what I do, that's what David does. - Yep.

- So our next iPhone battery life saving tip is, keep your iPhone cool. - Apple designed the iPhone to function most efficiently between 32 degrees Fahrenheit and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. We start to go above 95 or below 32 you can run into problems. - So just like your dog, don't leave your iPhone in a hot car. You should know that extreme heat can damage your iPhone battery permanently, and that's no good.

Cold temperatures however, will drain your iPhone battery temporarily, but it won't cause any permanent damage, it'll come back to life as soon as it warms up. So be especially careful about hot temperatures. - Our next tip is to make sure Auto-Lock is turned on. Auto-Lock is a feature that turns off the iPhone screen after a certain amount of time. If you don't have it turned on, your iPhone screen can stay on forever in your pocket, that's no good.

- Nope, not at all. - How do we turn it off? Let's step back to General in the upper left hand corner, and back to Settings, and then scroll down to Display & Brightness, and then here we'll see Auto-Lock. David has Never turned on right now, and why do you have that turned on? - Well because we're doing a screen recording for this video. - Mh. But he's always careful to turn it off after we do this.

- Right. I would never leave Auto-Lock to Never in any other circumstance, except for recording YouTube videos - Never say Never, except in this circumstance. - Yeah (chuckles). So we'll tap on Auto-Lock, and just select something other than Never, I usually choose two to three minutes, it's a good balance between 30 seconds and five minutes. - Mh, I'm more of a two-minute guy myself.

- Blue check mark will appear, you're all set. - Mh. So our next iPhone battery saving tip is turn on Reduce Motion. Now the visual effects in your iPhone and any gamer will tell you this, are one of the primary reasons why iPhone batteries die so fast. Your iPhone is computer as I said before, and it has a little graphics processor inside, and that's what's responsible for all those little fancy animations that happen.

But every time an animation happens, it's draining your iPhone battery. So, a lot of the time we can turn off these features, and you won't even notice a difference. So, how do we do it David? - Well, we're gonna tap the back to Display & Brightness, and back to Settings, and then we're going to tap on General, tap Accessibility, tap Reduce Motion, and turn on the switch next to Reduce Motion, you'll know it's on when it's green. - Mh. So David let's show them how it works.

- So I'll swipe up and go back to the Home Screen. - Right, and instead of having a fancy animation where the app gets swiped up and animated, it just fades into the background. Doesn't really affect the way you use your iPhone, but it can save battery. - I usually leave Reduced Motion on, and I've never noticed the difference. - Mh.

So our last iPhone battery life saving tip is DFU restore your iPhone. Now before you decide to do this, make sure you leave out the changes that we've suggested for at least a few days, because a lot of the time, you will have fixed the problem just by changing these settings in the Settings app. However, if your iPhone battery still continues to die too quickly, you may have a deeply rooted software problem that only a DFU restore can solve. A DFU restore removes everything from your iPhone, and then puts it back on again. So make sure you have either an iTunes backup first, or an iCloud backup.

Let's show 'em how to do an iCloud backup real quick. - Alright well let's open up the Settings up, and it'll go back to the main Settings page by tapping these back buttons. - Mh. - And then we're gonna tap on my name at the top of the screen, obviously it's gonna be your name on your iPhone. - Mh.

Unless your name is David Lynch. - That'd be coincidence, interesting. Tap iCloud. - Scroll all the way to the bottom to see your iCloud Backup. David has this feature turned off.

- Make sure this is turned on. - Yap. - Make sure that's what just turned on. Start iCloud Backup, okay. - Mh.

So this can take a while. I thought backups do happen automatically, as long as your iPhone is plugged in overnight, and connected to Wi-Fi and the screen is off. It's a good feature just to have on. - Yeah, and then once that iCloud Backup is set, check out our DFU videos, there's a card up above, and a link in the description. - So that pretty much wraps up our list of iPhone battery life saving tips.

Now what should we do if we've done all this stuff, we've done a DFU restore and we're still having a problem? - Well, you might be in that 1% that needs their battery replaced. Go to your local Apple Store, or check out Puls, an on-demand repair company, they'll send a tech to you, replace the battery on the spot. - Mh. But before you do that make sure you've tried all these tips because a lot of the time people pay for these battery replacements, and nothing changes. It's because it is the software that is causing this problem.

- So thank you guys for watching this video, hopefully your battery is better. Leave us a comment down below, if it helped you out. Give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed this video. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel. Click the notification bell, to get an immediate update when we upload a new video.

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Source : Payette Forward