The Surprising iPhone Settings To Turn Off Because They’re Killing Your Battery Life: Screen Brightness & More

1. Screen Brightness

Keeping your screen brightness turned up all the way is one of the fastest ways to drain your iPhone battery — especially if you’re frequently on your phone throughout the day. A bright screen demands more power, plain and simple. To conserve battery, lower your brightness manually in Control Center or enable Auto-Brightness by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and toggling it on. This will prompt your phone brightness to adjust based on lighting conditions in your environmement.

2. Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh lets apps update their content even when you're not using them — which sounds convenient, but it’s a battery killer. Apps like email, social media, and news platforms constantly checking for updates in the background use both battery and data.

To limit this battery drain, head to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and switch it off or select Wi-Fi only. You can also disable it for specific apps that don’t need to run in the background. 

3. Push Notifications

Push notifications might seem harmless, but every alert forces your phone to light up, make a sound, and connect to servers in the background — all of which drain your battery. When too many apps are sending constant updates, it adds up fast. To take control, go to Settings > Notifications and scroll through your apps. Turn off notifications for any apps that aren’t essential, or at least disable sounds and banners. Your battery will thank you.