Why is information technology that your phone's battery seems to become worse over fourth dimension? At first it might accept power to spare as you lot snuggle into bed at the stop of the day, simply as time goes on you find your bombardment is just half-full by lunchtime.

Partly it's how yous use your telephone - the apps you lot install, the junk you collect, the customisations yous make, and the more and more notifications you lot receive - puts more strain on the bombardment. (Read our tips on how to extend battery life.)

Until nosotros accept new-fangled technologies such equally smart clothes that optimise wireless functioning, we must acquire how to accuse a bombardment that keeps information technology healthy for as long as possible.

Phone batteries, like all batteries, do degrade over fourth dimension, which ways they are increasingly incapable of holding the same amount of power. While they should have a lifespan of between iii and five years, or between 500 and 1,000 charging cycles, a three-year-old phone battery is never going to go on going as long as a brand-new battery.

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

Nonetheless, armed with our tips for best battery care practice, you lot can maintain your smartphone battery health much longer.

When should I charge my telephone?

The gold rule is to keep your battery topped up somewhere between thirty% and ninety% about of the fourth dimension. Meridian it up when it drops below 50%, but unplug it before information technology hits 100%. For this reason, you lot might want to reconsider leaving information technology plugged in overnight.

Pushing in the final accuse from 80-100% causes a lithium-ion bombardment to age faster.

Possibly it's ameliorate to recharge in the forenoon instead, at the breakfast table or on your function desk-bound. That way, it is easier to keep an center on the battery percentage during charging.

iOS users can employ the Shortcuts app to prepare a notification when the battery level reaches a certain percentage. This is done under the tab "Automation" and then "Battery Level".

Giving your phone a full recharge is not fatal for a phone battery, and it seems about counter-intuitive not to do so, but giving it a full recharge every fourth dimension yous charge it will shorten its lifespan.

Too, at the other finish of the scale, avoid allowing your phone battery to become below xx%.

Lithium-ion batteries don't feel good about going too far beneath the 20% mark. Instead, see the extra 20% "at the bottom" as a buffer for enervating days, simply on weekdays offset charging when the warning for Low Battery level appears.

In brusk, lithium-ion batteries thrive best in the center. Don't get a low bombardment percent, but also not too high.

Should I charge my phone bombardment to 100%?

No, or at least not every fourth dimension you accuse it. Some people recommend that you lot do a full zero to 100% battery recharge (a "charge cycle") in one case a calendar month - as this re-calibrates the battery, which is a bit similar restarting your calculator.

Simply others condone this as a myth for current lithium-ion batteries in phones.

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

With iOS xiii and later, Optimised Bombardment Charging (Settings>Battery> Battery Health) is designed to reduce the wear on your battery and improve its lifespan by reducing the time your iPhone spends fully charged. When the feature is enabled, your iPhone should filibuster charging past lxxx% in sure situations, depending on Location Services that tell the phone when it is at home or work (when you are less likely to need a full accuse) compared to when you are travelling.

The deeper you lot discharge a lithium bombardment, the more stress is inflicted on the bombardment. So, topping up frequently extends battery life.

Besides run across: All-time ability banks

Should I charge my phone overnight?

As a rule, it'south all-time to avoid, despite the convenience of waking upward with a full battery in the morning. Each full charge counts every bit a 'bike', and your telephone is only built to last for a gear up number.

If you charge overnight, you are guaranteed to miss when the telephone exceeds the magic 80% marking that is best for extended long-term life.

While well-nigh mod smartphones accept built-in sensors to shut off charging when they hit 100%, if still turned on they will lose a small corporeality of battery while idle.

What you may go is a "trickle charge" every bit the charger attempts to proceed the phone at 100% as your phone naturally loses on its ain accuse during the night. This ways that your phone is constantly bouncing between a total charge and a little bit below that full charge - 99% to 100% and back over again during a longer-than-required accuse. It tin likewise estrus the telephone upwardly, which is also bad for the battery.

And then, charging during the day is improve than charging overnight.

Your best policy is to have Practice Non Disturb and Plane Mode switched on. Better yet, you could completely switch off your telephone, just that may not be possible if you rely on it every bit an alert or wish to exist ready to take calls at all hours.

Some devices are too set to power up in one case the cable is connected past default. Fifty-fifty during waking hours, it's all-time to catch your phone before it hits 100%, or at least not leave the charger supplying accuse to an already full bombardment for as well long.

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

Will fast-charging harm my phone?

The bulk of modern smartphones support some form of fast-charging. However, this often requires yous to buy an additional accompaniment. The manufacture standard is Qualcomm's Quick Charge, which delivers 18W of power.

However, many phone makers have their own fast accuse standard, many of which can deliver even faster speeds past adjusting power management lawmaking to request a higher voltage charge is sent. Samsung is at present even selling a 45W charger!

While fast-charging itself will not impairment your phone's battery, which is congenital to support it, the heat generated volition potentially touch its lifespan. So information technology's on you to remainder the advantages of faster charging with the convenience of quickly topping up your phone before y'all dash out the door.

In the same way that phone batteries don't like farthermost heat, they also don't like the common cold. So it goes without maxim that y'all should avoid leaving your telephone in a hot car, on the embankment, next to the oven, out in the snowfall. Typically, batteries perform at their optimum somewhere between 20 and 30°C, simply short periods outside of this should be fine.

Can I employ any telephone charger?

Where possible utilise the charger that came with your phone, equally it is sure to take the correct rating. Or make sure that a third-party charger is canonical past your phone'southward manufacturer. Cheap alternatives from Amazon or eBay may harm your phone, and in that location have been several reported cases of cheap chargers actually catching on burn down.

That said, your telephone should draw but the power that it needs from a USB charger.

Also see: All-time USB Chargers for your phone and Best Wireless Chargers.

Battery memory upshot: Fact or fiction?

The bombardment memory event concerns batteries that are regularly charged between twenty% and fourscore% and suggests that the phone might somehow 'forget' that extra 40% you routinely ignore.

Lithium batteries, which are in the majority of modern smartphones, practice non suffer the battery retentiveness effect, though older nickel-based (NiMH and NiCd) batteries do.

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

Avert Parasite Loads

If you accuse your telephone while using information technology - for example, while watching a video - you can "misfile" the battery by creating mini-cycles, during which parts of the battery continually cycle and deteriorate at a faster charge per unit than the rest of the prison cell.

Ideally, you lot should turn your device off while charging. Simply, more realistically, just leave it idle while charging.

Battery Settings iPhone

Battery protection settings by phone maker

OnePlus has a battery monitor called "Optimized Charging" from its OxygenOS 10.0. This is activated nether "Settings / Battery". The smartphone and so remembers what fourth dimension you usually climb out of bed in the morning and only completes the critical last step of charging from eighty to 100% shortly before you get up - that is, as tardily equally possible.

Google also offers integrated battery protection for its devices from Pixel 4 onwards. You will detect the "Adaptive Charging" function under "Settings / Battery / Smart battery". If you lot utilise information technology to charge your device after 9pm and at the same time set an alarm clock between 5am and 10am, yous will have a freshly charged smartphone in your hand when y'all become upward, but the total charge is simply completed shortly before the warning clock rings.

Samsung has a battery charge office in selected tablets, such as the Galaxy Tab S6 or Galaxy Tab S7. "Protect Battery" tin can exist establish under "Settings / Device maintenance / Battery". When the function is activated, the device but defines the maximum chapters of the battery to 85%.

Apple's "Optimized Battery Charging" office is primarily intended to reduce the time window in which the bombardment is heavily charged. Fully charging over 80 percent is delayed or not even carried out in certain situations. It also depends on your own location, so free energy gaps should be avoided when travelling or on holiday, for instance.

Huawei'due south battery assistant is called "Smart Charge" and is available from EMUI 9.1 or Magic UI two.1. The part tin be switched on under "Settings / Battery / Additional Settings", which means that charging of the device is stopped at eighty% at night and only completed before you go upwardly. Here, too, usage behaviour and, if necessary, an warning clock setting is included in the planning.

Sony'southward "Battery Care" function is found in the Battery settings for many models. The device learns when and for how long users connect the charging cablevision and adjusts the cease of charging and then that it coincides with the disconnection of the power supply. Sony devices can also be charged with a maximum charge of 80 or ninety%.

Keep the phone battery cool

As you might expect, rut is a battery's enemy. Don't permit information technology get besides hot or too common cold - especially when charging. If a phone gets besides hot, yous will be damaging its battery, so try to go on it cool where possible.

Charging the phone from a power bank on the beach in a deckchair is a worst-case scenario for battery health. Try keeping your telephone in the shade if you need to charge on a hot summer day. Charging by a window can also lead to excess heat. Read how to absurd down a hot iPhone.

The cold is besides not good for batteries either. If yous come in from a long walk in the wintertime common cold, let the phone achieve room temperature before you plug in the cablevision.

Heat and batteries do not belong together. Batteries are a bit like humans, at least in the narrow sense that they thrive best around 20-25 degrees.

Storing battery tips

Don't leave a lithium bombardment lying effectually too long at 0% - if y'all're not using it for a while, leave it with effectually 50% charge.

If you are going to put the phone away for a long fourth dimension, first charge it to somewhere between twoscore-lxxx% and then turn off the phone.

You'll find the bombardment will drain betwixt 5% and 10% each month, and if you let information technology belch completely it might become incapable of holding a charge at all. That'south probably why an old phone's battery life is and so much worse after a few months in a drawer, fifty-fifty when information technology hasn't been used.

More tips for longer phone bombardment life

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

• Try your screen'south Dark Mode, every bit the phone turns off the pixels displaying black, This means you save battery life when the white panels go dark. Or just plow your phone'south effulgence down!

• Turn off background updates for apps yous call back don't need them - it besides reduces power consumption.

• Plough off or put the phone in Airplane Fashion when you don't need it, such every bit overnight - preferably with a reasonable battery level left.

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

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

Boosted reporting by Samuel Nyberg and Steffen Zellfelder.