Here’s How to See Which Apps Are Draining Your Phone Battery

Constantly having a low battery is a pain, and your apps might be to blame. Here's how to find out which apps suck the most life our of your phone.

There are a lot of different reasons your phone battery seems to constantly be below 20%. Your phone’s brightness could be too high or you might be in an area where the service is bad and your phone has to work harder to find a signal, but the most common battery-draining culprits are the apps you have on your phone.

Luckily, your phone lets you see what is using up the majority of its juice in the settings. From there, you can choose to delete apps that use a lot of battery, limit your use of them, or adjust the app’s settings so it doesn’t continue to collect data and drain your phone when you’re not actually using it. You’ll also want to fix these things that are killing your phone battery.

How to see which apps are draining your iPhone battery

  • Go to Settings
  • Select Battery
  • Scroll down to see Battery Usage by App
  • Click on each app to see how many minutes you use it and how many minutes that app uses to refresh on its own in the background

You can also check the overall health of your battery by clicking on Battery Health. If it says that your iPhone is at “Peak Performance Capability,” your battery is healthy. If the Maximum Capacity is anywhere below 90%, your battery is not working at peak performance and you may want to consider purchasing a new battery.

How to see which apps are draining your Android battery

  • Open the Settings app
  • Expand the Device or Device Care section
  • Click Battery. You’ll want to check when the battery on your Android is fairly low to get an idea of what apps are draining it.
  • Scroll down to see which apps are using up the most battery
  • Tap on each app to see more details about how long the app was active for in the background

Of course, apps aren’t the only thing that affect your phone’s battery life. When you’re tackling the problem, you should know about these common phone battery myths to stop believing. In addition to seeing which apps could be draining your phone battery, you should also see which apps are secure. For instance, if you’ve ever wondered “is WhatsApp safe?”, read up on it to make sure your private information is secure if you have that app on your phone.

Morgan Cutolo
Morgan Cutolo is a former senior production editor at Trusted Media Brands. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2016, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. In her free time, she likes exploring the seacoast of Maine, where she lives, and snuggling up on the couch with her corgi, Eggo, to watch HGTV or The Office.