It doesn’t matter how much you baby your iPhone—or if you’ve always kept it in a case. Eventually, your battery will wear down. Batteries are consumables. You use them up. But a bad battery doesn’t mean you have to buy a whole new phone.
iPhone batteries are good for at least 500 full charging cycles before they’re really toast. How quick you run through those cycles depends on usage. I’m only moderately addicted to my phone—so my iPhone 5s battery made it over two years before it really started to crap out. By that time, a fully charged battery got me through about half the day—even with minimal use. The battery indicator would jump from 30% to pretty much nothing. Or the whole phone would just shut off in the middle of a battery-intensive task.
Of course, there are lots of short-term measures you can take to save on battery life—like switching to low power mode, turning down screen brightness, turning on airplane mode, etc. But that’s kind of annoying—and no one wants to live that way forever.
Good news: You don’t have to. Here are a few things you can try that can fix battery-drainage problems, so you don’t have to run out and buy another phone.
Some apps can be real battery hogs—and you may not even know it. Go to Settings > Battery, and scroll down to Battery Usage. Check which apps have been taking the lion’s share of your battery’s life in the last 24 hours or the last few days. Are there apps that you can delete from your phone or use less frequently?
Tap on the list of apps to see how they’re using your battery. A quick scan of my usage shows me that I spend way too much time on Facebook. In the past two days, Facebook—running on the screen and in the background—accounted for 37% of my battery consumption. So that’s a good place for me to practice a little battery discretion.
Check your iPhone’s battery usage stats to see where your battery’s been using most of its power.
If your Mail app is eating up a bunch of battery in the background, change how often your iPhone fetches new data. Just go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > Fetch New Data. You can also turn off server “push” updates from here.
While you’re in Settings, navigate over to General > Background App Refresh. Here you can check to see which apps are nibbling away at your battery life when they’re not even open. Lots of apps hijack your WiFi to refresh their contents when they’re running in the background. To save on those battery percentages, you can either turn off Background App Refresh all-together, or just be more strategic with which apps are allowed the privilege of a background refresh.
Check to see which apps are allowed to refresh in the background. Being more exclusive with refresh permission could help save you some battery power.
You pull your iPhone out of your pocket and check the battery: it’s at 65%, but a few minutes later you check again and your battery dropped to under 10%. If this sounds familiar, try calibrating your battery. Lifehacker explains:
“More and more batteries have a digital calibration tool built into them. These “smart batteries” supposedly reduce the need to calibrate, though it’s still recommended when your battery behaves oddly. If you see the battery percentage on your phone jump around a lot (like you could have sworn it was fully charged, and now it’s at 20%,) it’s time to calibrate it.”
Calibrating a battery is easy. Let your iPhone’s battery drop to 0% until it shuts off automatically. Then let it charge uninterrupted back to 100%. That’s it. The process doesn’t magically free up any extra battery life—it just gives you a more accurate estimation of remaining battery percentage. “You don’t want to do this too often though,” Lifehacker warns. “It’s actually bad for lithium-ion batteries to be regularly drained all the way to 0%. That counts as a full charge cycle, which in turn decreases the battery’s total life.”
If your battery is aging and you need extra life, you can always opt for a battery pack. Sure, they can be a little bulky—but they’re good in a pinch. And lots of them are pretty affordable. Apple makes its own battery case for the iPhone (we’re not massive fans of the design, though). Our friends over at the Wirecutter also tested 28 different battery cases—and they recommend Anker’s $40ish Ultra Slim Extended Battery Case as the best option for the iPhone 6 and 6s.
Whatever battery case you choose, look for one that’s specific to your model and Made for iPhone (MFi) certified. Cheap, knock-off charging accessories can do far more damage to your phone than they’re worth.
Or, you can just …
Back when my iPhone 5s started acting up, I went through most of the less invasive tactics listed above. But, ultimately, the root issue was a worn-out battery. So, instead of buying a smart case—I decided to grab life by the battery and replace it myself. iFixit has iPhone Battery Fix Kits and battery replacement guides for every model of iPhone. You can also find battery kits on eBay and Amazon—just check the seller reviews, so you know you’re getting a good kit.
If you’re not comfortable swapping out a battery on your own, no worries. You can always go to an Apple Store or pretty much any independent iPhone repair shop. They’ll have your phone back on its feet in no time.
Since swapping out my iPhone battery, my phone has been as good as new. Added bonus: replacing my battery cost me about $25—which is a whole lot cheaper than buying a new phone. Plus, replacing my own battery makes me feel like a bit of a badass. Either way, (barring catastrophic accident) I’m extending this phone’s life by a few years—and that’s good for the environment and my wallet. Double win.
Check out more iPhone repair guides here. (PS, the Wirecutter also has a top-notch article with a lot more ways to better manage the battery life on pretty much any phone here.)
I recently replaced my iPhone 6 Battery using a kit I bought on Amazon. I prepared by watching several youtube videos showing battery replacement for my model phone. The kit I purchased included the battery plus screwdrivers, suction cup, prying tools, and proper replacement glue strips (not just double stick tape). This is the way to go if it is your first time.
During the process, I had a friend help by holding the screen steady at right angles so that I didn’t have to completely remove it, which would have required detaching and reassembling more screws and several ribbon cables (screen, touch sensor, etc). This really made things go quicker.
There is a special trick to removing the old glue strips from underneath the old battery easily and in one piece by grabbing the end, and pulling it s l o w l y straight parallel to the battery while prying up the battery slightly. Be patient. Not every video showed this done well, so do your research. Keep track of which tiny screw goes where. They are not all the same length. Don’t drop them or they could be lost forever. Work slowly and carefully . Pretend that you are disarming a bomb.
My phone was over two years old and was quitting prematurely after a few hours of use. Now it works like new again. Not only did I save a few bucks, but I feel quite proud. So if you you are considering a DIY battery replacement, I say go for it.
Wow! Appreciate the detailed report on what you did!
I’m no tech DIY, so it told me, clearly, that I would need to have Apple replace mine, even if it costs more!
Tried replacing my Iphone 5S battery and in the blink of an eye touched a connector with tweezers only to see a tiny arc. It’s a brick now.
I hope I can keep my iPhone 6 Plus as long as possible. It’s doing well now after two years I believe. I am not a proponent of the iPhone seven without the headphone jack which I happen to like. So as long as Apple keeps taking away things that I like, I will try to keep my current equipment as long as I can. I hope someday that Apple will listen to what some of us consumers would like to keep and have in their devices. Thank you for a very interesting article. I’m probably one of those will have somebody else replace my battery if it comes to that. In the past several years I have never had a battery ran out because I upgraded the phone before I got to the point; however,I spent a lot of money on this iPhone 6 Plus and I hope to keep it as long as possible.
The Apple Store would have replaced my iPhone 5c battery for $75 but when they looked in the side of the phone with a little light they could see that there had been water damage on one of the sensors and would not be able to warranty the battery. The phone still works fairly well after being charged 475 times. I have considered purchasing a battery online but am not sure how this will work in the long run. Has anyone else had this issue?
About that water damage on your 5c: You’re out of warranty, now that they’ve seen a red sensor. You’re on your own now: you have nothing to lose. *When* the battery dies, and not *before*, replace it. When you buy the battery, get it from someone reputable, because if you get a wimpy or mislabeled battery, it’s very of disheartening to replace it *again*.
I bought a replacement battery from iFixit and replaced the battery in my used iPhone5s. While it’s ‘way better than the one that was in there (I had about 20 minutes life per charge: really bad), it’s still seems to be pretty short lived. I’ve calibrated the battery, and I’m still running tests. I live in a fringe reception area for cell service and that could very well be part of the problem. I’ve purposely avoided updating the software to avoid getting the “you need a new iPhone!” app (ios 10.x).
An even better way to “fix” it…don’t buy Apple’s iCrap in the first place! Buy a Samsung! (or other Apple competetor) I have a Samsung, the back piece comes off, the battery is right there for easy replacement!
Stop supporting Apple’s jerkwad actions like making their battery compartments inaccessible to users to get them to buy a new phone every time the battery goes flat!
Get a phone with an easy to change battery design, then write to Apple and say “I didn’t buy your iPhone because I couldn’t change the battery, if you made your phones repair-friendly I would buy one.”
Ha! That’ll teach ’em!
(seriously, if everyone stopped buying iProducts because of the intentionally hard to repair designs, Apple would either start making repair-friendly designs or they’d go out of business…”adapt or die” as they say…)
I just had a conversation about an Iphone 6 battery, going from about 40% to nil, in less than an hour. Usage wasnt an issue at the time, because my buddy had his phone face down during our meal. I tend to forget the manage power tips. There are many sub functions that use extra power. Like location services, and such. Thanks for the post.