How To Disable Background Apps on Your iPhone to Preserve Battery Life

Ever noticed your iPhone battery tanking even when you’re not actively messing with it? Normally, you’d think shutting apps from the switcher helps, but surprisingly, it doesn’t actually save much power. Sometimes, force-quit apps and then see your battery drain faster when you reopen them — kinda counterintuitive, but that’s how iOS is wired. So if the goal is to make your charge last longer, just closing apps isn’t the magic trick. Instead, it’s about understanding what really gobbles up the juice and changing a couple settings.

Here’s what works in reality — and what you’ll actually want to do to keep your iPhone healthy without going crazy closing apps every time.

Closing Apps from the App Switcher Doesn’t Save Battery

When you swipe up (or double-press the Home button if you’ve got an older iPhone), you can force-close apps by flicking them away. You might do this with multiple fingers to clear out several apps at once. It feels like you’re “closing” everything up, but in practice, this doesn’t really help with battery life. When apps are in the background, iOS is pretty good at managing them efficiently — unless they’re frozen or acting weird.

On some setups, force-quitting might even backfire — because when you reopen an app, the system has to load it again from scratch. That uses more power than just letting iOS handle it in the background. The only time it really makes sense to force-close is if an app’s glitching or totally frozen. Otherwise, just ignore it, and save yourself some trouble.

What Actually Drains Your iPhone Battery?

The main vampire isBackground App Refresh. Basically, it’s a feature that keeps certain apps updating stuff in the background — like your email fetching new messages or social media scrolling in the background before you even tap on them. Not all of us need constant updates, and disabling this tiny thing can seriously stretch out your battery.

But yeah, figuring out what’s running in the background can be confusing because it’s built into iOS. Luckily, there are some tidy ways to cut down without affecting your day-to-day use too much.

How to Turn Off Background App Refresh on iPhone

This one’s a classic power saver. Disabling Background App Refresh stops apps from updating without your knowledge, which is super handy if you’re trying to squeeze every last bit of battery life out of your device. It’s kind of weird that this setting is so hidden, but here’s how to get to it:

First, open the Settings app, then tap General.
Tap on Background App Refresh.
Here, you can toggle it off completely by selecting Off. On some iOS versions, you’ll see an option at the top to disable it for all apps.
If full turn-off sounds too drastic, scroll down and turn off Background App Refresh for individual apps that don’t need to update all the time.

On some older iPhones or based on your iOS version, you might see options like “Wi-Fi” only, which restricts updates to Wi-Fi networks — saving data and battery. It’s a small tweak but makes a difference.

Better Ways to Reduce Background Activity (Without Closing Apps)

Instead of going on a quiting spree every few hours, try these smarter tricks:

Enable Low Power Mode: Head over to Settings > Battery and activate it. This downs the background activity, disables Background App Refresh, and even dims the screen a bit. Works wonders when your battery’s not playing nice.
Set up Automation for Low Power: Use the Shortcuts app to create a shortcut that turns on Low Power Mode automatically when your battery dips below 20%, so you don’t have to remember to do it manually every time.
Disable Unnecessary Location Services: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and turn off for apps that don’t need your GPS all the time, like games or weather apps. Location services can be surprisingly power-hungry.
Use Airplane Mode in Poor Signal Areas: If you’re in a dead zone, your iPhone keeps searching for a network, which chews through power. Pull down the Control Center and switch Airplane Mode on, just when you need to stretch that last bit of juice.
Turn Off “Hey Siri”: If you don’t really talk to Siri all day, disable Always Listen for Hey Siri in Settings > Accessibility > Siri. It’s a tiny mic drain that most folks forget about.

Final Words

The bottom line? Don’t bother force-quitting apps unless they’re totally frozen or glitching. Your iPhone’s OS is pretty good at handling background processes, and closing apps over and over can sometimes do more harm than good. Instead, focus on disabling Background App Refresh, turning on Low Power Mode when needed, and managing location and Siri settings smartly.

Those steps should help squeeze more battery life out of the device and keep it running longer throughout the day. Because of course, Apple’s design makes it a bit annoying to do this, but it’s worth it in the long run.

Summary

Force-closing apps doesn’t save battery; it might even waste more power when reopening apps.
Background App Refresh is the main culprit in draining battery — turn it off if you want longer life.
Use Low Power Mode and tweak location/Siri settings for extra juice.
Resist the urge to keep closing apps for no reason, mostly let iOS handle background stuff.

Wrap-up

Hopefully, these tips help keep that battery from dying too fast. It’s kind of weird that Apple makes things so hidden, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty straightforward. Just don’t overthink it — most of the magic is in turning off stuff that’s secretly running in the background.