How to extend the battery life of your Lumia

Protect the longevity of your Lumia battery with these tips on how to get the most out of each charge.

While your Lumia’s battery is designed to live a long and happy life, there are ways to increase the span of each charge and prolong the life of your battery overall.

Turn off unnecessary apps

One of your best friends is Battery Saver, a built-in app on your Lumia that manages background app usage. When Battery Saver is on, nonessential features and background tasks are turned off and push notifications are sent less often.

If that sounds too restrictive, you can set Battery Saver to automatically activate when battery life drops below 20 percent.

Swipe to the Usage tab in Battery Saver to see a list of your apps and their relative battery usage. As you can see in my Usage list, my favorite game “Frozen Free Fall” is a battery hog; it consumes a whopping 45.3 percent of my phone’s energy when running. It’s addictive, but I probably shouldn’t play it when I’m running low on power and not able to charge.

From here, you can also disable some apps from running in the background. Be selective: If you don’t use Facebook often, then you probably don’t need it on when your phone screen is off.

Dim your display

Your display eats up power. Here are a few tips to minimize its power consumption:

• Reduce the time before the screen turns off. Set a shorter duration before your screen times out and your phone locks.
• Lower the brightness setting. In Settings under Brightness, turn off “Automatically adjust” and select the level that you want to use.
• Use a dark background. In Settings, go to Theme, then Background, and tap Dark.
• Turn off the screen during calls. If you’re using the speakerphone or a Bluetooth device, press the power button to turn off the screen.
• Turn off the viewfinder after you take a photo. Press the back button to exit the camera viewfinder or press the power button to put your phone to sleep. It’s easy to forget and leave the viewfinder running, which eats up energy.

Reduce syncing

• Sync email less often. In Settings, go to Email + accounts and tap the account that you want to change. From there, tap “Download new content” and choose a longer interval.
• Choose which contacts are synced to your phone. Email and social media contacts don’t have to sync with your Lumia unless you want them to.
• Limit what you pin to Start. The more Live Tiles you have on your Start screen, the more battery life is used.
• Check social media less often. Each time you visit “What’s new” in the People Hub, your phone uses extra power to sync and update.

Reduce Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use

• Use headphones. If you’re listening to music, try using wired headphones instead of a Bluetooth device.
• Turn off Bluetooth connections you’re not using. If you’re not using a Bluetooth accessory, you can turn off Bluetooth entirely.
• Turn off Wi-Fi. Disable Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Sense if you don’t need it. Otherwise, your phone will waste battery life hunting for Wi-Fi networks.

More tips 

• Manage your passwords for email and social media accounts. Out-of-date or invalid passwords can affect battery life. Delete and recreate your account profiles by long pressing the relevant account profile in Settings under “Email + accounts.” Do this for all your stalled account profiles.
• Restart your phone. If you notice that your phone is losing battery life quickly, restarting your phone can sometimes fix the issues causing it.
• Don’t let your Lumia’s battery run all the way down. Lithium batteries are designed to be charged early and often, so letting them discharge completely can damage them over time. Prolong your battery life by charging it frequently.

For more information on getting the most out of each charge, see our story on how to make the most of battery and data usage on your Lumia.

What tips do you have for extending the battery life of your Lumia? Let us know in the comments below.