Why is it that your phone's battery seems to get worse over time? At first it might have ability to spare every bit you snuggle into bed at the end of the twenty-four hour period, simply every bit time goes on you find your bombardment is simply one-half-full by lunchtime.

Partly it's how y'all employ your phone - the apps you install, the junk you collect, the customisations yous make, and the more and more than notifications y'all receive - puts more strain on the battery. (Read our tips on how to extend battery life.)

Until we have new-fangled technologies such as smart dress that optimise wireless performance, we must learn how to accuse a battery that keeps it good for you for as long as possible.

Phone batteries, like all batteries, do degrade over time, which ways they are increasingly incapable of holding the same amount of power. While they should take a lifespan of between iii and v years, or betwixt 500 and 1,000 charging cycles, a 3-yr-old phone battery is never going to keep going equally long equally a make-new battery.

Three things habiliment out lithium-ion batteries: number of charging cycles, temperature, and age.

Withal, armed with our tips for best battery care practice, you tin maintain your smartphone battery health much longer.

When should I accuse my phone?

The gold rule is to go on your battery topped up somewhere between 30% and 90% most of the fourth dimension. Summit information technology upwards when information technology drops below 50%, but unplug it before it hits 100%. For this reason, yous might want to reconsider leaving it plugged in overnight.

Pushing in the last charge from eighty-100% causes a lithium-ion battery to age faster.

Maybe it'due south better to recharge in the forenoon instead, at the breakfast table or on your role desk. That way, it is easier to go along an middle on the bombardment percent during charging.

iOS users tin can utilise the Shortcuts app to gear up a notification when the bombardment level reaches a certain percent. This is done under the tab "Automation" and and then "Battery Level".

Giving your phone a full recharge is not fatal for a phone battery, and it seems nigh counter-intuitive non to do so, but giving information technology a full recharge every time you charge it will shorten its lifespan.

Likewise, at the other end of the scale, avoid allowing your phone battery to get below 20%.

Lithium-ion batteries don't experience skillful about going too far beneath the xx% mark. Instead, run into the actress twenty% "at the bottom" as a buffer for demanding days, simply on weekdays showtime charging when the alarm for Depression Bombardment level appears.

In brusk, lithium-ion batteries thrive best in the centre. Don't become a low battery percentage, but likewise not too loftier.

Should I charge my telephone battery to 100%?

No, or at to the lowest degree non every time y'all charge information technology. Some people recommend that you lot do a full naught to 100% battery recharge (a "charge cycle") once a month - as this re-calibrates the battery, which is a bit like restarting your figurer.

But others disregard this every bit a myth for electric current lithium-ion batteries in phones.

To continue your long-term battery life in good health, frequent, small charges are better than full recharging.

With iOS 13 and later on, Optimised Battery Charging (Settings>Battery> Battery Health) is designed to reduce the wear on your battery and improve its lifespan past reducing the fourth dimension your iPhone spends fully charged. When the characteristic is enabled, your iPhone should filibuster charging past 80% in certain situations, depending on Location Services that tell the phone when it is at home or piece of work (when you are less likely to need a full accuse) compared to when yous are travelling.

The deeper you discharge a lithium battery, the more stress is inflicted on the bombardment. And so, topping up oftentimes extends battery life.

Also see: All-time power banks

Should I charge my phone overnight?

Equally a dominion, it's best to avoid, despite the convenience of waking up with a full battery in the morn. Each full charge counts every bit a 'bicycle', and your phone is simply congenital to last for a set number.

If you charge overnight, yous are guaranteed to miss when the phone exceeds the magic eighty% mark that is all-time for extended long-term life.

While most modernistic smartphones take built-in sensors to close off charging when they striking 100%, if nonetheless turned on they will lose a small corporeality of bombardment while idle.

What y'all may become is a "trickle accuse" as the charger attempts to continue the phone at 100% as your phone naturally loses on its own charge during the night. This ways that your telephone is constantly bouncing between a full accuse and a picayune bit beneath that full charge - 99% to 100% and back once more during a longer-than-required charge. It can besides heat the phone upwards, which is besides bad for the battery.

And then, charging during the mean solar day is better than charging overnight.

Your best policy is to have Do Not Disturb and Airplane Mode switched on. Meliorate even so, you could completely switch off your phone, but that may not exist possible if you rely on it as an alarm or wish to exist ready to have calls at all hours.

Some devices are besides ready to power upwardly in one case the cablevision is connected past default. Even during waking hours, information technology'southward best to catch your phone before it hits 100%, or at to the lowest degree not get out the charger supplying charge to an already total bombardment for also long.

If y'all are leaving information technology plugged in for a long menstruum of time, removing the case tin can prevent it over-heating.

Volition fast-charging damage my phone?

The majority of modern smartphones support some class of fast-charging. However, this ofttimes requires you to purchase an additional accessory. The industry standard is Qualcomm's Quick Charge, which delivers 18W of ability.

Nonetheless, many phone makers have their own fast charge standard, many of which can deliver even faster speeds by adjusting power direction code to request a higher voltage charge is sent. Samsung is now even selling a 45W charger!

While fast-charging itself will non damage your phone's battery, which is built to back up information technology, the heat generated will potentially touch on its lifespan. So information technology's on you to balance the advantages of faster charging with the convenience of quickly topping up your telephone earlier you nuance out the door.

In the same way that phone batteries don't similar farthermost heat, they likewise don't like the cold. And then information technology goes without saying that you should avoid leaving your telephone in a hot car, on the beach, side by side to the oven, out in the snow. Typically, batteries perform at their optimum somewhere between xx and 30°C, just short periods outside of this should exist fine.

Tin I use any phone charger?

Where possible employ the charger that came with your telephone, equally it is sure to have the correct rating. Or make sure that a tertiary-political party charger is approved by your phone's manufacturer. Cheap alternatives from Amazon or eBay may harm your phone, and in that location have been several reported cases of cheap chargers really communicable on fire.

That said, your phone should describe only the power that it needs from a USB charger.

As well see: Best USB Chargers for your telephone and Best Wireless Chargers.

Battery memory result: Fact or fiction?

The battery retentivity consequence concerns batteries that are regularly charged between 20% and eighty% and suggests that the phone might somehow 'forget' that extra 40% you lot routinely ignore.

Lithium batteries, which are in the bulk of modern smartphones, exercise not endure the battery retentivity effect, though older nickel-based (NiMH and NiCd) batteries practise.

Nickel-based forget their full capacity if they aren't discharged and charged from 0 to 100%. But, habitually cycling your lithium-ion battery from 0 to 100% will adversely bear upon its battery life.

Avoid Parasite Loads

If you accuse your phone while using it - for instance, while watching a video - you can "confuse" the battery past creating mini-cycles, during which parts of the battery continually cycle and deteriorate at a faster rate than the residuum of the cell.

Ideally, you should plow your device off while charging. Simply, more realistically, merely go out it idle while charging.

Battery Settings iPhone

Battery protection settings past phone maker

OnePlus has a battery monitor called "Optimized Charging" from its OxygenOS 10.0. This is activated under "Settings / Bombardment". The smartphone then remembers what time you usually climb out of bed in the morning and only completes the critical last step of charging from 80 to 100% shortly before you get upwardly - that is, as tardily as possible.

Google besides offers integrated battery protection for its devices from Pixel 4 onwards. You will observe the "Adaptive Charging" function under "Settings / Battery / Smart battery". If yous apply it to charge your device after 9pm and at the same time set up an alarm clock between 5am and 10am, you volition accept a freshly charged smartphone in your hand when you become upwardly, but the full accuse is just completed shortly before the alarm clock rings.

Samsung has a battery charge role in selected tablets, such every bit the Galaxy Tab S6 or Galaxy Tab S7. "Protect Battery" can be found under "Settings / Device maintenance / Battery". When the part is activated, the device simply defines the maximum chapters of the bombardment to 85%.

Apple'south "Optimized Battery Charging" role is primarily intended to reduce the time window in which the battery is heavily charged. Fully charging over 80 percentage is delayed or non fifty-fifty carried out in certain situations. Information technology too depends on your own location, so free energy gaps should exist avoided when travelling or on holiday, for example.

Huawei's battery assistant is called "Smart Charge" and is available from EMUI 9.1 or Magic UI 2.i. The function can exist switched on under "Settings / Bombardment / Boosted Settings", which means that charging of the device is stopped at lxxx% at dark and only completed before you get upward. Here, too, usage behaviour and, if necessary, an alert clock setting is included in the planning.

Sony'southward "Bombardment Care" role is establish in the Bombardment settings for many models. The device learns when and for how long users connect the charging cablevision and adjusts the end of charging so that it coincides with the disconnection of the power supply. Sony devices can also be charged with a maximum accuse of 80 or 90%.

Go along the telephone bombardment cool

Equally you might expect, heat is a bombardment'south enemy. Don't permit it become too hot or too cold - especially when charging. If a phone gets also hot, you will exist damaging its battery, so try to keep it cool where possible.

Charging the phone from a power depository financial institution on the beach in a deckchair is a worst-instance scenario for bombardment health. Attempt keeping your phone in the shade if yous need to accuse on a hot summer 24-hour interval. Charging by a window tin also atomic number 82 to backlog heat. Read how to absurd down a hot iPhone.

The cold is too not good for batteries either. If you come up in from a long walk in the winter common cold, permit the telephone reach room temperature before you plug in the cable.

Heat and batteries practice non vest together. Batteries are a bit like humans, at to the lowest degree in the narrow sense that they thrive best around twenty-25 degrees.

Storing bombardment tips

Don't go out a lithium battery lying around also long at 0% - if yous're non using it for a while, exit it with around 50% charge.

If you are going to put the phone away for a long time, first accuse it to somewhere between forty-eighty% and and so turn off the phone.

You'll find the battery volition drain between v% and ten% each month, and if you permit it belch completely it might get incapable of holding a accuse at all. That's probably why an old phone'due south battery life is so much worse afterwards a few months in a drawer, fifty-fifty when it hasn't been used.

More tips for longer telephone bombardment life

• Employ the power save mode more often. It reduces power consumption and thus reduces the number of cycles.

• Attempt your screen's Nighttime Style, equally the phone turns off the pixels displaying black, This ways you save bombardment life when the white panels go dark. Or just turn your phone's brightness down!

• Plow off groundwork updates for apps you lot think don't need them - it also reduces power consumption.

• Turn off or put the phone in Airplane Mode when you lot don't need it, such as overnight - preferably with a reasonable battery level left.

• Don't force quit the apps. Your phone'due south operating organization is best at pausing the apps that aren't needed - it uses lower power consumption than a "cold start" for each app again and again.

• Avoid cheap chargers and cables. When buying charging cables and plugs, it'due south a false economy to purchase cheap products. Hardware should take a accuse command rather than an inferior, cheap circuit - otherwise in that location is a risk of overcharging. Come across best phone chargers, best charging cables for iPhone, best USB-C cables, and best MicroUSB charging cables.

Additional reporting past Samuel Nyberg and Steffen Zellfelder.