20 Tips to Maximize Battery Life on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro
So how do you improve your iPhone 16 battery life and ensure it stays healthy from day one? I have some handy tips on reducing power consumption on the iPhone 16 series and extending battery health in the long run.
The iPhone 16 series features the latest A18 and A18 Pro chipsets, which are both powerful and power-efficient. In our testing, the iPhone 16 delivers about 20% more screen-on time compared to the iPhone 15. Additionally, while thewired charging speeds remain the sameas last year,MagSafe charging is noticeably faster.
We’ll focus on the things that drain the most battery and how you can manage them in a way that minimizes their impact without compromising on your experience. Read on.
1. Use Low Power Mode
Setting your iPhone to Low Power Modereduces the screen brightness, limits the refresh rate to 60Hz (on Pro models), minimizes visual effects, and controls CPU and GPU performance. This can help extend your iPhone 16’s battery life by about 20-50% depending on your usage.
Go toSettings>Batteryand enable Low Power Mode. you may also turn it on from the Control Center or automate it using shortcuts.
2. Turn Off Live Activities
In addition to adjusting power settings, managing apps and their background activity can significantly improve battery life. Live Activities on the iPhone 16, useful for real-time updates can drain your iPhone’s battery. To conserve battery power, you can disable Live Activities for specific apps or remove them from your Lock Screen.
To disable Live Activities for specific apps:
For some apps, Live Activities isn’t a toggle but a menu containing two options:Allow Live Activities(disabling this option turns off Live Activities) andMore Frequent Updates.
If you can’t disable Live Activities entirely, choose the latter; this will reduce how often the status updates, meaning you may not always receive real-time information, but it will help save some battery.
3. Tweak Background App Refresh
Some iPhone apps automatically run in the background and update their contents even when you’re not actively using them. For example, the Mail app automatically updates your inbox while you’re not using the app, and social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram preload new posts so they’re ready when you open them.
This can significantly drain your iPhone 16’s battery. To avoid this, I suggest turning off Background App Refresh for apps you don’t use frequently. Here’s how:
4. Turn Off Proximity AirDrop Sharing
Ever noticed that youriPhone automatically connects to other iPhoneswhen touched or brought into proximity? This occurs because of NameDrop and proximity AirDrop sharing. When you hold two iPhones running iOS 17 or later (or an Apple Watch running watchOS 10.1 or newer), your iPhone automatically connects and triggers a proximity-based AirDrop protocol.
If it’s on all the time and keeps connecting and disconnecting with other devices, it could drain your battery. To turn it off, go toSettings>General>AirDrop. Here, toggle offBringing Devices Together.
5. Disable Push Delivery in Mail App
Your Mail app automatically checks for emails every few minutes, which uses up battery in the background. If you don’t need to check emails constantly and are fine with manually refreshing them, I suggest disabling push delivery and setting the fetch frequency to about an hour.
You can also set the fetch frequency to manual for Gmail and iCloud accounts if needed. This would save a good amount of battery on your iPhone 16.
6. Stick with Auto-Brightness
Your iPhone automatically increases and decreases its brightness based on the surroundings. Over time, it adjusts its sensitivity according to your typical usage. For example, if you frequently adjust the brightness manually in certain situations, the iPhone will gradually learn to adjust the brightness accordingly.
However, if you disabled this feature earlier, it’s time to turn it back on, as you may not always remember to tone down the brightness, but your iPhone will. This is important, considering that the display is one of the highest battery-draining components on your iPhone.
Thankfully, the entire iPhone 16 series can now reach a minimum brightness as low as 1 nit, which can save more battery than last year’s iPhone 15 series in dark environments. Here’s how to turn Auto-Brightness back on:
7. Reduce White Point
Reduce White Point makes the screen dimmer by applying a black filter over the content. It lowers the maximum brightness without affecting the colors, which helps save battery power and makes it easier to use your iPhone in dark environments.
You can turn on Reduce White Point and adjust its intensity inSettings>Accessibility>Display & Text Size. I generally keep it at 30-40% but you can experiment to see what suits you the best. You can also set it to toggle with a triple-tap on the Power button in Accessibility.
8. Reduce Auto-Lock Time
I once set the Auto-Lock time to Never so the screen would stay on while myGoogle Drive uploads completed without any hindrance. I forgot about it afterward, and it wasn’t until my battery started draining much faster than usual that I realized what was causing it.
If you’ve increased the Auto-Lock time on your iPhone, I’d suggest reducing it to 30 seconds or 1 minute. You can do this by going toSettings>Display & Brightness>Auto-Lock. This will save you a ton of battery, especially if you often leave your iPhone on a desk or slide it into your pocket without locking it.
9. Turn On Dark Mode
iPhone 16 series has OLED displays that turn off pixels to show black in a particular area consuming almost no power. You can enable Dark Mode in your iPhone settings to save some extra battery while also making the display easier on your eyes.
OpenSettings>Display & Brightnessand chooseDark. You can also enableAutomaticswitching between light and dark modes, set a custom schedule, and even automate it using the Shortcuts app we talked about earlier.
10. Use Static or Non-Animated Wallpapers
You can choose from a plethora of wallpapers on your iPhone—some of which are animated. However, animated wallpapers like weather drain more battery than static ones. If your primary goal is to improve battery life and you’re willing to compromise on visuals, I recommend choosing a wallpaper without any moving elements.
11. Disable AOD (On iPhone 16 Pro Models)
The iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and the older iPhone 15 Pro models support the Always-On Display feature. It keeps your iPhone display on, though dimly lit, so you can easily glance at the time and notifications. While it may seem convenient, it can drain about 12-18% of your battery.
Todisable Always On Display, go toSettings>Display & Brightness. Here, toggle offAlways On.
12. Disable Notifications for as Many Apps as Possible
Every time you receive a notification on your iPhone, a small portion of the app may be activated to handle it, which consumes power. It may also turn on the display momentarily. Turn off notifications for apps you don’t need to save battery.
I generally keep notifications on for essential apps like messaging and social media, while turning them off for shopping apps, games, or anything that would spam me or send ads.
To turn off notifications for apps:
13. Prevent Lock Screen From Waking up for Notifications
Message on Instagram, iMessage, or a snap on Snapchat makes your iPhone screen light up to notify you visually. This happens for all apps that can show lock screen notifications and can be detrimental to your iPhone’s battery, as it activates the screen for a few seconds now and then.
To avoid this, you can do two things—use Focus modesor turn off lock screen notifications for apps. Here’s how to do the latter:
You can do this for travel, social media, and messaging apps for example.
14. Prevent Weather Widget From Excessively Using GPS
While convenient, it drains the battery in the background by frequently refreshing the weather for your current location. The best solution would be to avoid using any widgets at all, but I understand that’s not feasible for everyone, and no one wants to compromise on such a basic feature.
As a workaround, you can do two things
To turn off weather alerts for current location:
To turn off location access for Weather app:
15. Limit How Often Apps Can Access Your Location
Many apps ask for your location, which can drain your battery. While it’s necessary for some apps like food delivery, ride-sharing, and navigation, you might want to deny location access for other apps, such as shopping or note-taking apps. Here’s how to do it:
ChooseNeverfor apps you don’t want to have access to your location, andWhile Using the Appfor apps that need your location only when you’re actively using them.
16. WiFi > Mobile Data for Better Battery Life
Wi-Fi consumes less power than mobile dataon your iPhone. When connected to Wi-Fi, your device has a stronger and more stable signal, allowing it to transmit and receive data more efficiently, which leads to lower battery consumption.
In contrast, using mobile data can drain the battery faster, especially in areas with weak reception, as the phone works harder to maintain the connection. You’ll notice this more when streaming videos, watching reels, or downloading large files. To extend battery life, stay on Wi-Fi whenever possible.
17. Turn Off Keyboard Haptic Feedback
When Apple first introduced the Haptic Feedback feature for the keyboard with iOS 16, they mentioned that it would increase battery consumption. This is because every time you press a key, the internal Taptic engine generates a vibration, which consumes a minuscule amount of power. However, when combined with frequent keyboard usage and a lot of typing, you may notice that your iPhone’s battery doesn’t last as long.
If haptics aren’t very important to you (I understand that many of you love them, so you can keep it enabled), you can turn it off by going toSettings>Sounds & Haptics>Keyboard Feedbackand toggling offHaptic.
18. Turn Off Music Haptics
Music Haptics is an iOS 18 featurethat allows iPhone users to experience music through vibrations, textures, and taps synchronized with the song’s audio. While it enhances your listening experience, it activates the Taptic Engine for those vibrations, which drains the battery.
If it’s not essential, you may want to avoid using Music Haptics when you’re on the move and want your iPhone to last as long as possible. you’re able to simply tap the Music Haptics option in the Apple Music app to pause it or turn it off from the Lock Screen or Control Center.
19. Use Power Saving Automation Shortcuts
The Shortcuts app on iPhone lets you automate tasks like enabling Low Power Mode, turning off Background App Refresh, and disabling Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Location, and Mobile Hotspot when the battery drops below a certain level. Use it to automate battery-saving on your iPhone 16.
Here are a few examples:
1.If –Battery percent below 25%Then –Enable Low Power Mode, Disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Personal Hotspot, reduce screen brightness to 50%, etc.
2.If –Time between 11 pm to 7 am (set your bedtime)Then –Enable Low Power Mode, Disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Mobile Data, and Personal Hotspot, switch to a darker wallpaper, reduce screen brightness to 20%, and so on.
To create these shortcuts:
Here are someiOS shortcuts you’d love using every day.
20. Protect Your iPhone’s Long-Term Battery Health
Your iPhone comes with a lithium-ion battery, which loses its maximum charge-holding capacity over time as you charge and recharge it, leading to wear. Typically, an iPhone’s battery is designed to hold 80% of its original charge capacity after 500 complete charge cycles. I explained this in my article onwhy battery cycle count matters.
To sum it up:
You can check your iPhone’s battery health inSettings>Battery>Battery Health & Charging. While you cannot completely stop or reverse battery degradation, you can delay it and ensure your iPhone’s battery lasts longer by following certain best practices.
a) Turn On Optimized Battery Charging
With Optimized Battery Charging turned on, your iPhone observes your charging habits and regulates charging automatically. For instance, if you charge your iPhone overnight, it will learn what time you typically wake up and delay charging to reach 100% right before you wake up, rather than staying at 100% all night.
This helps preserve battery health in the long run. To turn Optimized Battery Charging, go toSettings>Battery, tap onBattery Health & Charging, and toggle it on.
b) Set a Battery Charging Limit
As mentioned earlier, charging all the way to 100% isn’t always good for your iPhone’s battery. Thankfully, iOS now lets youmanually limit the chargingto a certain percentage. Setting a charging limit tells your iPhone to stop charging at a specific percentage. This overrules the iPhone’s automatic decision about when to stop charging.
Navigate toSettings>Battery>Chargingto set a charging limit between 80% and 100% using the slider. I’d recommend keeping it at 80%, 85%, or 90%, depending on how you use your phone.
Note:you may only set the charging limit when Optimized Battery Charging is disabled. Otherwise, iOS automatically manages the charging limit.
c) Adopt Healthy Charging Habits
Make Your iPhone 16 Last Longer!
These are some tips you can use to extend and maximize your iPhone 16 battery life. They should work on almost all iPhones running iOS 18. Adjust settings like Low Power Mode, background app refresh, Dark Mode, and turn off unnecessary notifications. You can also use automation shortcuts to reduce battery drain. To keep your battery healthy over time, enable Optimized Battery Charging or set a charging limit.
Ritik Singh
With over 7 years of experience in tech, Ritik currently heads content at Techwiser.com. His journey started by sharing knowledge and helping others in online communities. That passion soon turned into a career in tech journalism, backed by a formal education in Electronic Media. He’s held editorial roles at GadgetsToUse and PC-Tablet, and has contributed to popular publications like HowToGeek and TheWindowsClub. With over 2,000 how-tos, reviews, and in-depth guides under his belt, Ritik has helped millions of readers get more out of their tech—from smartphones to smart homes.
