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How to check your iPhone's battery health

I feel the need, the need for iPhone battery juice.
By
January 9, 2023

The most important component of any smartphone is the battery. A phone with a kaput battery is like a car with an empty gas tank. It may look good on the outside, but on the inside, all the cool features in the world are useless without its source of power. If you have an iPhone, you must constantly check what’s called Battery Health to ensure it doesn’t dip below a certain level. If it does, you’ll end up with charging issues and the eventual need to have the battery replaced. Here’s how to check your iPhone’s battery health and what it all means.

Read more: Is your iPhone battery draining too fast? Try these tips

QUICK ANSWER

The iPhone's Battery Health section displays important key information about your battery's capacity, peak performance, and whether or not your battery needs to be serviced. You can locate it at Settings > Battery.


JUMP TO KEY SECTIONS

What is Battery Health on an iPhone?

People using an Apple iPhone stock photo 20
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Battery Health is a section in your iPhone settings that tells you how healthy the battery is, compared to when the phone was brand new. New iPhones obviously start off with a brand-new 100% healthy battery. Over time, as the iPhone is used and various features are enabled and disabled, the battery’s overall health and performance will start to decline. However, as long as the battery remains at 80% or higher, Apple still considers that to be an optimal peak level.

How to check your iPhone’s battery health

  • Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.
  • Here, you will see the Maximum Capacity, which is the maximum charge the phone can hold. Mine is 100% as it’s a new phone. It shouldn’t go below 80%; otherwise, you will begin to experience charging issues.
  • You should always enable Optimized Battery Charging. This ensures that the phone is not charged right up to 100%, which will impact the battery faster.

If you go back a screen (Settings > Battery), scroll down to see the performance of the battery since you last charged it. It will tell you the last time the battery was fully charged and what has been eating away at that charge since then. You can view how much battery charge each app has been using, with the worst offenders at the top.

So if you’re experiencing battery issues, maybe try uninstalling or offloading the really big battery suckers. That Sudoku game at 38% of the battery charge really needs to come off.

ios battery health app usage

How do I know if my iPhone’s battery needs replacing?

iPhone 13 Pro taking a phone call
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority

Once the battery dips below 80%, you will gradually start to experience charging problems with the iPhone, and that battery percentage will begin dropping faster than usual. At this point, you should seriously consider getting the battery changed or even getting a new phone if your current one can’t hold a charge for very long.


Read more: How much does Bluetooth actually drain your phone battery?

FAQs

It depends on how long Low Power Mode is on for. If you only have it enabled for short periods of time, then it shouldn’t really affect the battery all that much. However, if you have it enabled 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, then yes, it will damage the battery in the long term. Low Power Mode is merely a bandaid to solve a temporary problem.

Although there are many ways to speed up the charging of your iPhone, battery degradation is generally non-reversible. Once the battery has degraded to a certain point, the only course of action is to get a new battery inserted or buy a new phone.

Apple considers anything over 80% to be in optimal condition. A bad battery level is generally 70% or lower. At that point, you either need a new battery or a new phone. You can try to keep it at 80% or higher for as long as possible by doing things like not charging the phone overnight to 100%. Also, turn off the Always-On display.

Any background processes, a brightly lit screen, iOS Location Services, and the strength of your Wi-Fi and cellular service. Anything that makes the phone work harder is going to impact the battery.

No. You should always follow the 80/20 rule for maximum battery performance. Never charge higher than 80%, and never let it drop below 20%. Thankfully, Apple’s Optimized Battery Charging feature takes care of this for you.

Currently, a new iPhone battery for the newest models is $69. Other than going to Apple to get them to do it, you can also replace the smartphone battery yourself under the right-to-repair program.