It’s 3 p.m., you’re out and about, expecting an important phone call, and your battery is at 5%. It’s a terrible feeling, but with a few quick tweaks, you can make sure it never happens again.

1) Check for battery hog apps and decide whether you really need them. Navigate to Settings > Battery, and find a breakdown of what’s using your battery. See something you don’t really need using too much? Delete it.

2) Turn off unnecessary features like parallax (iOS), animated wallpaper (Android), or the vibrate feature when your phone rings. These things can be neat, but they certainly aren’t worth having to charge your phone at 3 in the afternoon.

3) Keep your phone’s software updated. Sometimes software updates decrease apps’ battery usage. Always keep your phone updated to ensure you aren’t wasting battery life without even doing anything.

4) Turn on Low Power or Power Saving Mode manually if you know you have a long day in front of you. These options limit some of your phone’s functions, but if you just need to make it through a few more texts or calls, you probably don’t need the extra little things.

5) Don’t let your screen drain battery – lower the brightness and make sure your screen shuts off relatively quickly when you aren’t using it (Settings > General > Auto-Lock on iOS, Settings > Display and Wallpaper on most Androids.

6) Turn off push notifications. If you don’t need to know immediately, turning off notifications for email or social media apps can save tons of battery life. And any time you need to know, just check manually!

7) Not using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth? Turn them off!

 

8) If all else fails, buy a battery case. They may add a bit of bulk, but if your phone is dead, it’s all bulk.

If you’re still having problems, bring your phone into Fix It Fast. We’re happy to make sure you’re doing everything necessary to get the most out of your phone’s battery.