Battery Draining Quickly: Improve Battery Life (iPhone, Android, Laptop) (On a laptop)

The higher the brightness level is, the faster the battery drains. This means that if you dim the display you will prolong the battery's duration, and minimize the effects of the "battery draining quickly" issue. Every OS (operating system) offers manual adjustment of brightness level and it can be done in a pretty easy way.

To learn how to dim the display, check out the don't know how to dim the display solutions.

Note: You may also enable an option to show battery percentage, to keep a close eye on the battery, following the steps below:

Android (taken on a Samsung Galaxy device - steps might vary from one device manufacturer to another):

iOS:

When people use their computers for hours and decide to take a break, they leave their computers running instead of shutting them down and save energy.

Windows and Mac OS offer Sleep mode as a way to save energy and prolong the life of the laptop's battery and what is more important, it saves all the things you've been working on. Use Sleep mode only if you intend to take a two-hour break or less, because sleep mode uses a very small amount of battery power.

The easiest way to put a computer into sleep mode is to close the lid, but if you don't want to close the lid you can put your computer into sleep mode via the operating system:

• Windows:

Start -> In the lower right corner of the Start menu, next to the Shut Down button, is a button labeled with a small, right-pointing arrow -> Mouse over the arrow -> click on Sleep

• Macbook:

Apple menu -> Sleep or press the Command and Media Eject keys in the same time.

Note: there are any number of ways that your laptop can be accidentally woken out of sleep mode, for instance, a scheduled task for an application that pulls your laptop out of sleep mode to do backups, or an external device that triggers the laptop to wake up.

If you have a Bluetooth adapter, Wi-Fi adapter or if you have a portable HDD (Hard Disk Drive) that you aren't using at the moment, disable or unplug them. These components consume power just by being enabled, and if you aren't using them, you may as well disable them to save battery. 

If you're using your laptop on the plane, train, or on places without a wireless hotspot, you don't need the Wi-Fi adapter enabled, and use the hardware button (Fn + network-icon key) to disable it, or just disable it manually:

• Windows:

 Control Panel -> (Network and internet) / Right click the Wireless network icon in the taskbar -> Network and sharing center -> Change adapter settings (on the left side of the window) -> right click the Wireless network connection icon -> select Disable

• Mac: 

Right-click the Network icon (in the upper right set of icons) - Turn Airport Off

To disable the Bluetooth adapter (If your laptop has one):

• Windows:

Right-click the Bluetooth icon (in the taskbar - the lower right corner) -> Turn adapter off

• Mac:

Right-click the Bluetooth icon (the upper right set of icons) -> Open Bluetooth Preferences -> Untick the "On" checkbox.

As for the other components (Portable HDD, USB, CDs, DVDs and etc.) the best way is to unplug them. 

To remove USB drives:

• Windows: 

Click the Show hidden icons button (A small vertical arrow) in the taskbar -> Click the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media button (an usb icon) -> and eject the component you don't need.

• Mac:

Click and hold the device you want to remove -> Drag the device to the Trash, which will become an eject icon as you drag.

If you need to step away from your laptop and you don't want to turn it off or put it to sleep or hibernate mode, set your display to turn off automatically, because it consumes power and drains your battery quickly.

To set your display to turn off automatically:

• Windows:

Start -> Control Panel (or type control panel in the start menu search box) -> (System and Security) -> Power Options -> Choose when to turn off the display (on the left side of the window) -> select the drop-down menu on the right side of Turn off the display -> Choose when the display should turn off (eg. If you set 5 minutes, that means that the display will turn off after 5 minutes of INACTIVITY) -> Save changes.

• Mac OS:

System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> move the Display sleep bar to choose when should the display turn off (eg. If you set 5 minutes, that means that the display will turn off after 5 minutes of INACTIVITY).

The LED displays used on most modern laptops spend less energy displaying black pixels than when displaying those pixels that show colors.

To improve battery life and even make text more readable when sunlight is hitting your screen you can enable the high-contrast mode:

• Windows:

Hit the key combination Left Shift + Left Alt + Print Screen and click Yes when asked to confirm.

You can turn off high-contrast mode by hitting the same keys. High-contrast mode will affect your desktop and most Windows programs, including the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. However, if you use the Chrome browser, you will need to install the Change Colors extension, which is available for free from the Chrome Web Store. 

Once the extension is installed, it will show an icon in the right side of your address bar. Click that icon and select Apply override on all pages to enable high-contrast mode.

• MacOS:

System Preferences-> Accessibility -> Displays -> Adjust the display contrast

While you’re browsing the net, checking email or watching a movie, messaging apps such as Hangouts and Skype are using the Internet connection constantly, in order to update the contacts list and check if you’ve received new messages.

Also, automatic-updating applications such as Adobe, Chrome, iTunes and others may also be using the Internet connection to see if there are updates to Adobe Reader, Chrome browser or iTunes.

When you don't use Skype and other messaging applications, close them, and run them only when you need them. As for automatic-updating applications, you can disable them from starting when Windows starts in MSconfig.

To access msconfig (Windows):

Start -> Type msconfig into the Search programs and files text field -> right-click on msconfig.exe and Run as Administrator -> Select the Startup tab and untick the applications you want to disable.

On MacOS, press the Command-Option-Esc keys, to open the Force quit menu (which is an equivalent to msconfig.exe), find the messaging software and the applications and close them.

If you use programs that require more effort of your CPU, your CPU will use more power and your battery will drain faster. Run less programs in the background so that the CPU doesn't use too much power, and select programs which don't demand too much of the CPU. The less your laptop has to process, the more power it will save.

Every operating system offers a utility which allows you to check what is draining your battery.

To check what is draining your battery:

• Windows (Windows 10 only): Settings -> System -> Battery saver (or just type Battery saver in the search box, and click on it once it's found)
  
  * On older versions of Windows you check how much battery a software consumes through Task Manager: right-click the taskbar and select Start Task Manager -> Select the Processes tab. Pay attention to the numbers in the Memory (Private Working Set) column. If you see a number greater than 70.000 K and if you don't need the application, close it. If you notice an application that you are not familiar with and it has strange name (eg. asdw.exe) than it's most likely a virus (click here to learn how to remove viruses from your computer)
  
  
  
• Mac OS (latest versions): Click on the battery icon (in the upper right corner). If you detect an application under Apps Using Significant Energy
  that means that that application consumes more energy than it's supposed to and if you don't use it, quit it.

A hard disk drive uses metal plates, which spin all the time when your computer is on, to store and access data. The hard disk drive requires energy to spin the plates.

Solid-state drives, on the other hand, use flash memory instead of a spinning disk and there are no moving parts, which means that they don't require too much energy. It (Flash memory) also removes the problems associated with fragmentation, which is a larger problem with hard drives. Upgrading to an SSD will both improve your battery life, and shorten the time your system takes to boot.

Upgrading your RAM will also be a good to save the battery from draining quickly. RAM stores data for short term use in flash modules, much like an SSD. The more data that can be put into RAM, the less reliant the system will be on pulling that data from the hard drive.

Going from 2 to 4GB or 4 to 8GB or 8 to 16GB of RAM should allow your computer to use more physical memory and less virtual memory, which means fewer hard drive accesses, and less battery drain.

If your battery drains faster and you don't have access to power outlets, you can turn it off if you don't intend to use it. You will save battery and your device will have enough power when you need it the most.

Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology that allows your laptop to connect with other devices. Via bluetooth you can send and receive files, connect to your car's sound system, use a bluetooth speaker or headphone and etc, and bluetooh is also one of the battery drainers.

Turn the Bluetooth off when you don't use it, in order to save energy. To learn how to turn off the Bluetooth feature, check out the don't know how to enable/disable Bluetooth solutions.

It might surprise you but the volume setting affects battery life too, so if you are playing music or other audio from your mobile device, turn down the volume using the volume buttons.

You could save battery power by not playing music, or you could switch to headphones, which won't require as much power as the internal speakers.

Avoid placing your laptop or mobile device near a radiator or on the dashboard of your car (mobile devices), or near other electronics that are radiating heat.

If a battery gets too hot all the time, it can degrade faster and extreme temperatures can even cause the electrolytes in the battery to ignite and start a fire (though this is an extremely rare situation).

Note (laptop users): You can reduce the temperature of your laptop by placing it on a cooling pad.

Avoid exposing your device to extremely low temperatures because they increase the internal resistance of a lithium-ion battery (used by every mobile device and laptop), by slowing down the electrochemical reactions, causing it to work less efficiently. As such, batteries that are especially cold are likely to see a decrease in performance, i.e they drain quickly.

Luckily, cold conditions have no real long-term effects on a battery, so it should return to normal state once it gets warm.