iPhone Battery Savings

This content was last updated on 2025 March 15th

General iPhone info

When off is not off

If you have an iPhone 11 or newer, you have a U1 chip (an airtag) in your phone that can never be turned off, even if you power off the phone.

When your phone is on, you can manually turn off some tranceivers (Cell, Wifi, Bluetooth), but the GPS receiver is on as long as the phone is on. The good news is that you can control when GPS is actively looking for satellite signals.

Temperature is critical

If a litium-ion battery gets too cold or too hot it can discharge very quickly. Don't let the phone get too warm or too hot. An Li battery has a comfort zone similar to yours, ideally 70-75F . Keep your phone and batteries near your body heat whenever the air temp is below about 50F, and keep your phone out of the direct sunlight. Sleeping with all your Li batteries to keep them warm is an excellent idea.

Before you disconnect from the Internet

  • Battery > Battery Health & Charging > Optimize Battery Charging=off (Turning this off ensures your phone will charge to 100%)
  • Optimize data storage as desired (move all the photos, videos, podcasts, audio books, music, etc off your phone that you do not want on your trip.)
  • Install any OS updates.
  • Open every app you plan to use on your trip.
  • Ensure you are loged in to the app and give it time to update itself.
  • Power the phone off, then back on again.
  • Check all relevant apps one last time.

iPhone Settings to optimize power savings while on trail

Optimizations for when in Airplane Mode

Be sure Bluetooth and Wifi are both off and the phone is in Airplane Mode. It is possible to be in airplane mode and still have those turned on. Note, you will need Bluetooth on if you are using Garmin Earthmate for texting with your inReach. Best to keep it off when not needed.

  1. Personal Hotspot=off. Low Power mode is not really relevant if you use these other settings, and it only kicks in at 20% battery anyway.
  2. Cellular > Cellular Data=off (this is for when you come out of airplane mode).
  3. General/Background App Refresh=off (or wifi only) for all apps you won’t be actively using on trail.
  4. Cellular/iCloud Drive=off
  5. General/Airdrop/Receiving=Off
  6. Siri & Search > Turn everything off
  7. Turn off Notifications for all apps that you won't be using while on the trail. Other settings here will reduce the notifications as well, but its good to disable them explicitly.
  8. Turn off the Home and Lock screen - it consumes a lot of power.
  9. Display & Brightness/Auto Lock=off
  10. Display & Brightness/Raise To Wake=off
  11. Turn off any lockscreen animation or animated wallpapers.
  12. Make your Wallpaper black. (Just take a photo of something black, then edit the photo on the phone to be pure black, then make it my wallpaper.)
  13. Display & Brightness/Dark Mode instead of Light Mode, or at least use Automatic Dark Mode and Auto-Brightness Also manually Dim the screen brightness to the minimum you need to read it as you are using your phone.
  14. Remove all the Widgets that you don't need (pull from the left of the home screen)
  15. Face ID & Passcode/Preferably turn of Passcode altogether, or at least set Require Passcode = After 1 hour.
  16. Privacy & Security/Location Services, turn it off for any applications, and system services, that you won't be using on-trail while in airplane mode. Remember that GPS is always on, even when you are in Airplane mode, so this is an important setting.
  17. Privacy & Security/Location Services/System Services/ Turn off everything except: • Compass Calibration • Find My Phone • Motion Calibration (Only leave this on if you want your steps counted) Note, many of these services have very misleading names that give the impression that you are disabling core functionality like SOS calling, or WiFi calling. They do not. All these services only add extra location features to those services, extra features you do not need on trail. Tip: Status Bar Icon puts a blue arrow in the upper left corner of the home screen whenever an app is using Location Services. If you have the right location services turned off here, then you should only see that icon when you are actively using an on-trail app.
  18. Privacy & Security/Tracking/Allow Aps to Request to Track=off
  19. Privacy & Security/Analytics & Improvements/All features=off
  20. Privacy & Security/Apple Advertising/All features=off
  21. Privacy & Security/App Privacy Report=off
  22. App Store/In-App Rating & Reviews=off
  23. Location/Significant Locations=off (this feature is spooky)
  24. Location/iPhone Analytics=off
  25. Location/Routing & Traffic=off
  26. Location/Improve Maps=off
  27. Sound&Haptics/Haptics=Never Play
  28. Sound&Haptics /Keyboard Feedback/Sound=off
  29. Sound&Haptics /Keyboard Feedback/Haptic=off
  30. Sound&Haptics/System Haptics=off
  31. Accessibility/Motion/Reduce Motion=on (this turns off transition effects and animations).
  32. Accessibility/Motion/Limit Frame Rate=on
  33. Accessibility/Motion/Auto-Play Message Effects=off
  34. Accessibility/Display/Reduce White Point=on, 50% (How you set this depends on your eyes and your preference)
  35. Accessibility/Touch/Tap to Wake=off
  36. Accessibility/Touch/Shake to Undo=off
  37. Accessibility/Touch/Vibration=off

Preparing for when you come out of Airplane Mode

The goal here is to enable voice calls and texting but disable all data usage as well as all MMS. This is so no photos, videos, emojis, text effects, or group chats can be sent to you until you specifically choose to allow them (Like when you are near a power source and perhaps a wifi hot spot). It can be very frustrating to come out of Airplane Mode only to see the last of your battery drained by a storm of data downloads you do not want or need.

  1. Cellular Data=off
  2. Voice & Data/ turn off all 5G support (only works within 1000 ft of the tower anyway). This may be specific to each carrier. Looks like Verizon does not allow me to turn off 5G any longer.
  3. Messages/Send as SMS=on (this allows texting to work when there is no cellular data)
  4. Messages/MMS Messaging=off (this blocks non-text from downloading)

Preparing for when you turn on Cellular Data

The goal here is to use cell data only for the apps you need, and minimize the data used.

  1. Mail/Cellular Data=off (Unless you want to use email, of course). You can also just reduce the email fetch frequency if you want to.
  2. Settings//iCloud/Disable all iCloud features (Unless you want them enabled, like to upload photos.)

A note about privacy

Turning off Location Services (GPS) does not prevent "the man" from tracking you. By definition, if you are not in Airplane Mode and can make a call, "they" already know exactly where you are via cell tower triangulation. Location Service is a service you enable or disable for your apps. Every carrier (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc.) is forced to share your location logs with the goverment and always has been. In fact, if you have an iPhone 11 or newer, the carrier can track you far outside the range of service, retroactively, using that U1 chip: If you pass another hiker in the backcountry who has Bluetooth turned on, then when they connect to the Internet later, the location of that encounter is uploaded without either of you knowing. There is no avoiding any of this.

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