Get the most life from your Pixel phone battery

You can help your phone’s battery last longer throughout the life of the phone by taking care of the battery and reducing battery drain. 

Important: Some of these steps only work on Android 11 and up. Learn how to check your Android version.

Get the most from your battery life (UK) | Pixel

Choose settings that use less battery

Change screen display

Reduce screen brightness

1. Swipe down with two fingers from the top of your screen.
2. At the top of the screen, move the slider left.

Turn on Dark theme

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Display  Dark theme.

Turn off live wallpapers

To save some battery life, turn off live wallpapers. Find out how to change wallpapers.

Turn off your screen when you're not using it

1. Open your phone's settings app.
2. Tap Display  Advanced  Lock screen.
3. Turn off your screen when you're not using it:
   • Pixel 4: Tap Idle lock screen  Off.
   • All other Pixels: Turn off Always show time and info.

Let your screen turn off sooner

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Display  Advanced  Screen timeout.
3. Pick a time, such as 30 seconds.

Tip: If you have a Pixel 4, you can choose a short screen timer, and also get your screen to stay on when you look at it. Open your phone’s Settings app and tap Display   Advanced Screen attention, then turn on Screen attention.

Turn off Smooth Display (Pixel 4 and later)

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Display  Advanced Smooth Display.
3. Turn off Smooth Display.

Have screen brightness change automatically

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Display  Adaptive brightness.
3. Turn on Adaptive brightness.

Turn off keyboard sound and vibration

1. Open your phone's settings app.
2. Tap Sound  Advanced.
3. Turn a sound or vibration on or off.

Turn on Adaptive Connectivity (Pixel 4a (5G) and later)

Important: In the United States, some operators may limit Adaptive Connectivity. Contact your operator for details.

1. Open your phone's settings app.
2. Tap Network and Internet Advanced Adaptive Connectivity.
3. Turn Adaptive Connectivity on or off.

Learn more about Adaptive Connectivity.

Reduce background battery drain

Turn off Motion Sense (Pixel 4 only)

To save battery, you can turn off your Pixel 4’s ability to sense what’s going on around it. Find out how to turn off Motion Sense.

Stop identifying songs

You can save battery by turning off Now Playing, which automatically recognises songs playing near your phone. Learn how to turn off Now Playing.

Restrict apps that use more battery

Restrict apps with high background battery use

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Battery.
3. If you see a card with advice to restrict an app, tap the card  Restrict.

Restrict apps with high overall battery use

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Battery   Battery usage.
3. You can see a list of apps with the percentage of your battery used for the past 24 hours. Or you can also see system usage by tapping System usage for past 24 hrs.
4. To see or change how a listed app uses battery, tap it.​
   • For some apps, you can turn on Background restriction.
   • For all apps, we recommend keeping Battery optimisation on.

Keep Adaptive Battery on

Keep adaptive battery on for your phone

1. Open your phone's settings app.
2. Tap Battery  Adaptive Battery.
3. Turn on Adaptive Battery.

Turn off high-drain features

• Turn off tethering and hotspots when you’re not using them. Learn about tethering.
• Set your Wi-Fi to not turn on automatically near saved networks. Learn about advanced Wi-Fi settings.

Find out more about what drains a battery most.

Delete unused accounts

Having fewer accounts on a phone can save battery. The phone's owner can delete accounts and user profiles.

Find out how to remove accounts.

Find out how to delete users.

Take care of your battery

Use the power adaptor that came with your phone

Other power adaptors and chargers can charge slowly or not at all. They can also damage your phone or battery.

• See what came in the box with your phone.
• Find out how to charge your phone.

Keep it cool

Avoid situations where your phone can overheat.

Your battery will drain much faster when it's hot, even if you're not using it. This kind of drain can damage your battery.

Find out why a phone can get warm and what to do about it.

Tip: Your phone warms up when it's plugged in, so don't keep it charging more than needed.

Charge as much or as little as needed

You don’t need to teach your phone how much capacity the battery has by going from full to zero, or zero to full charge.

Charge steadily overnight (Pixel 4 and later)

Important: When you charge your phone between 9.00 p.m. and 4.00 a.m. with an active alarm set for 3.00–10.00 a.m., your phone uses adaptive charging. Learn how to set an alarm.

To help preserve long-term battery life, you can charge your phone steadily overnight. Adaptive charging uses your alarm’s settings to completely charge your phone just before you wake up.

To turn off adaptive charging:

1. Open your phone’s Settings app.
2. Tap Battery Adaptive preferences.
3. Turn off Adaptive charging.

Tip: When adaptive charging is on, the always-on display will display 'Adaptive charging' and the time that your battery will be fully charged.

'Optimising for battery health' (Pixel 3 and later)

Important: 'Optimise for battery health' is only available on Android 11 and up. Learn how to check your Android version.

To help preserve battery health, your phone automatically limits charging to about 80% under certain conditions:

• Continuous charging under high battery drain conditions, like game play.
• Continuous charging for four days or more.

The temporary feature automatically turns off when the phone no longer meets the conditions listed above. You'll know that the feature is no longer active when the phone starts to charge to 100%.

When this feature is on, a notification that says 'Optimising for battery health' appears on the 'always-on display' and in the Settings app under 'Battery'.

To stop using 'Optimising for battery health':

1. Unplug your Pixel phone from its charger or remove it from Pixel Stand.
2. Either restart your Pixel phone or wait about 10 minutes.
3. When the feature is turned off, the notification disappears and the phone can charge to 100%.
   • Tip: The next time that your phone meets the above conditions, the feature automatically turns back on.

Related resources

• Fix battery drain problems
• Use Battery Saver
• Check battery level
• Stretch a low battery’s power