How To Make Your Android Phone Battery Last Longer

In this post we will be looking at ways to make your Android battery last longer, by using both manual methods and the best battery saving apps from the Play Store.

Manual Methods To Save Battery On Android Phones

1. Lower Screen Brightness

The screen is usually the biggest power hog in your smartphone. By lowering display brightness, you ensure that the screen uses as less power as it can. Do not set your phone’s display brightness to automatic if you want to make your Android battery last longer, as this means the phone will set the brightness level according to the ambient light rather than to the lowest brightness possible.

2. Turn off Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth and Mobile data when not in use

By turning off hardware radios not in use, you can save a lot of that precious battery juice. In any case, you would not need both WiFi and Mobile Data switched on, unless you were running a mobile hotspot. Keeping Bluetooth switched on for a long time even poses security risks. It is always better to switch off these services when not in use.

3. Turn off Auto-Sync

Android Auto-sync runs as a background process which constantly saps your phone’s battery. While turning it off can be an annoyance, if you wish to save battery, switch of syncing when you think you do not need your phone uploading your data to the server, every time you click a photo, browse something on the web, or change some device settings.

Note: Turning off Sync may pose some problems with immediate e-mail and Facebook notifications as you will have to refresh your data manually.

4. Kill useless app processes

Kill unneeded app background processes as these constantly eat up your charge.  Be careful though, killing system processes may  causes your phone to become unstable. Do not attempt this step unless you know what you are doing.

5. Set screen off (sleep) time to minimum

Set your phone to turn off the display at the lowest possible time setting. This allows you to squeeze a few extra minutes out of your phone’s battery, by turning off the display as soon as it becomes idle. This setting can cause annoyance when reading, browsing or performing similar activities on your phone.

6. Switch on Airplane mode when needed

Airplane mode switches off the hardware radios mentioned in step 2. When you do not need to send or recieve calls or messages, or use any connectivity options, but still use your phone (eg. When you are reading on your device, or listening to music stored on your Sd Card) turn on Airplane mode to make your Android battery last longer.

7. Determine what consumes the most charge

Go to the Battery section of the Android settings menu. Here you will see a full list of all your Apps and System Services as well as how much battery they have consumed.

8. Use the ‘power saving’ mode if you have the option

Unless you are using a Nexus, most probably your phone comes built in with special power saving options. In depth information on OEM specific power saving options are given in the last section of this article.

Top 5 Battery Saving Apps To Make Your Android Battery Last Longer

1. DU Battery Saver丨Power Doctor

DU Battery Saver comes in free and Pro versions. DU claims that it can save upto 50% battery life for your phone and that its Pro version can save upto 70% of your phone’s juice. Its main features include a one-click ‘Optimize’ button that automatically finds and fixes Android battery problems.

DU Battery Saver also has a widget for this which you can include on your home screen. It also gives useful tips when charging your phone. It offers the largest UI customization, compared to the rest of the apps on this list, with different downloadable skins for your battery icon.

DU, like most of the apps on this list has different battery ‘profiles’ which you can set, depending on what you are currently doing on your phone, such as ‘Long’, ‘Sleep’ and ‘General’. It also allows you to create your own Battery profiles and set custom options. DU claims to accurately tell you the status of your phone’s battery – how much longer it will last for – but the predictions do not always work out correctly, even if you follow all the tips suggested by it.

Availability: Free on Google Play

2. Battery Doctor (Battery Saver)

Battery Doctor is one of the apps on this list that is fully free. No in-app purchases, no Pro versions. It provides a task killer that kills all running app processes with one click, and even lets you kill processes when the phone screen is turned off.

Battery Doctor provides a widget that allows for easy toggling of WiFi, Data and Bluetooth. It too has several Battery ‘profile’ options, and offers tips when charging your phone. Battery Doctor also fares slightly better in measuring how long your phone’s battery is going to last.

Battery Doctor has a beautiful, laden interface and is definitely a very well designed app. For those of you with rooted devices, Battery Doctor has built in CPU management, in case you want to take battery conservation to the next step.

Availability: Free on Google Play

3. Qualcomm™ Battery Guru

Qualcomm™ Battery Guru takes a radically different approach to conserve battery. It is, in essence,  the Google Now of battery saver apps. With Battery Guru, there is no need for profiles or hardware toggles. It automatically detects how you use your phone and adjusts different settings accordingly.

Its greatest feature, is how it can reduce the sync and background refresh rates of your phone apps, conserving charge in the process.

If you like doing your own thing, Battery Guru also provides widget toggles for different phone controls like WiFi, Bluetooth and Data and also toggles for different power saving modes.

Note :

• This app may not work on devices without Qualcomm processors.
• As of now, Battery Guru is not compatible with Android L.

Availability: Free on Google Play

4. JuiceDefender – battery saver

JD is one of the oldest, among the popular battery saver apps. Its interface – unfortunately – has not been updated for quite some time. Juice Defender comes in four ‘flavors’:

• JuiceDefender – battery saver
• JuiceDefender Plus (Paid)
• JuiceDefender Beta
• JuiceDefender Premium (Paid)

This is probably the most feature-rich app in this list. JuiceDefender boasts of location-aware WiFi management (eg. Turning WiFi on at home, and disabling it otherwise), automatic reconnection of Bluetooth devices, scaling down the CPU when your phone is idle (Root Feature), weekly/nightly/peak scheduling, as well as home screen widgets  for easy toggling of hardware controls and power options.

Note: JuiceDefender is a great app with amazing features, but it was last updated in 2012. Unless you have a pre jelly bean OS on your phone,  all features may not work great on your device.

Availability: Free on Google Play

5. Greenify

Greenify is unlike the rest of the apps on this list, in that it is more similar to a glorified task killer than a battery manager. However, Greenify can actually help you generate massive battery saving, by keeping a check on greedy apps that take up too much of your system resources.Greenify originally needed Root access for most of its features to work, but with the recent versions, even non-rooted phones can use Greenify to increase performance.

To use Greenify after installation, just select any app that is a resource-hog, and ‘Greenify’ it.  Greenify limits apps when they are running in the background, but still lets them perform normally when you start using them. This also beats Freezing or Disabling useless apps which you do not want to delete.

Greenify gets lots of updates, and also has a very modern, simple interface. Greenification of system apps maybe dangerous, as they can destabilize your phone. Click here for the full list of tips for using Greenify.

Availability: Free on Google Play

Phone Manufacturer Specific Methods To Save Battery On Android

Some Android phones come pre loaded with Power saving options. Here at some OEM-specific ways to make your Android battery last longer. These features depend on phone model as well as the manufacturer. Your phone may not support all the features included in this table.

SEE ALSO: How To Find A Lost or Stolen Android Device

Healthier is your phone’s battery, the most optimal will be its performance.