The other day, I noticed my Android phone was losing power fast and I wanted to figure out what was draining the battery. Thankfully, the Android OS has some helpful tools to figure that out. I’ll demonstrate using my Galaxy S8 phone. The settings on your phone may vary a bit.
First, I swiped down from the top of my home screen to get my settings icon. Then I tapped on it.
Then I scrolled down to Device maintenance.
Notice that I have a notification about a battery draining app and the option to Fix now. I’m going to tap on Fix now.
This screen opens.
You can tap Fix Now to close apps that are using too much power. Or just scroll down to take a look at the troublemakers and close them individually yourself. Once an app is put to sleep, you’ll see this notice.
Let’s check out the rest of this screen for more battery-saving options. At the top, it shows how much estimated battery life is left in the phone.
I also see an option to switch to Battery saving mode which can really extend the life of the phone battery.
Choosing MID gives me an extra 2 hours of battery life. It prevents apps from running in the background, limits the speed of the CPU, and decreased screen brightness and resolutions.
Maximum can add up to 22 hours to my phone’s battery life.
However, no apps can run in the background. That means no notifications or messages from apps you aren’t currently using. You won’t see the clock on your screen, the speed of your CPU is limited, the screen brightness decreased, and the screen resolution lowered. If you’re in a position where you’re running low on battery life, this can be a good option.
Once you put battery-draining apps to bed, your screen should look something like this.
There’s a lot more you can do to improve your phone performance with these settings. I’ll talk about that tomorrow.