3 Hacks to Boost your iPhone’s Battery Life

This article originally appeared on TheAdamOBrien.com

You’re starving and fast approaching the dreaded hangry meltdown. You need to get directions to the nearest Taco Bus but you can’t because your iPhone’s battery is at 1% so you have to settle for a plain, generic taco from Taco Bell.

It’s a nightmare and it’s happened to all of us at one point or another.

You would think that in the age of technology we live in today, someone would have invented a phone battery that lasts 8 weeks — or, better yet- one that recharges itself. Since neither has happened yet, we are stuck with figuring out the best way to cheat our iPhone batteries out of every possible second of usage. (preferably while avoiding situations that cause us to miss the fun because we couldn’t stop using Periscope.)

This could have been yours…

Here are 3 quick battery hacks that I have come across throughout my years of attempting (and often times failing) to prolong my iPhone battery life:

1. Turn off your location services: One of the quickest and easiest ways to get a little more time out of your iPhones battery. Navigate to ‘Settings->Privacy->Location Services’. You can adjust how each app on your phone uses location services here. My suggestion: start with setting each apps usage of location services to ‘While Using’. That way, your apps won’t be constantly trying to utilize location services when your’e not using the app. (Don’t forget to check out the system services sub-menu as well!)
2. Turn Your Screen Brightness Down: Yes, it may be a bit harder to read your phone but even reducing your normal screen brightness in half can really give your phone’s battery the extra charge it needs (pun intended). Don’t be surprised to get at least 2 extra hours out of a charge!
3. Push Settings for Exchange: Have an Exchange mailbox on your phone? You may be unknowingly chewing up battery (and data) if your inbox is set to ‘push’ emails. If you get a large amount of emails through your Exchange account it may be worth setting your inbox to check for new mail manually so that you only get emails when you want to.
4. Bonus Tip — Pay Attention to the Cellular Menu Options For Your Apps: This one is not so much a battery conservation, but it helps with data management. You can choose to limit high data consuming apps to only use data when connected to wi-fi.
5. Double Bonus Tip — Get Rid of The FaceBook App: I decided to remove my FB app completely and just leave it up in my Safari browser. I immediately saw an increase in battery life AND a major drop in data consumption.

These tips, along with a few other ones, have helped me go as long as 2 1/2 days without charging my iPhone 6s + (intermediate use). Not all of these points will work for everyone, but at least 1 will help with the battle to squeeze every last bit of usefulness out of your phone’s charge.