How to Make Your Phone Charge Faster

This article offers tips and suggestions for making your phone charge faster when you're in a hurry and low on battery life. The information here applies to most iPhones and Android smartphones.

Put the Device Into Airplane Mode When Charging

One of the biggest battery-draining culprits is your network, including cellular, Bluetooth, radio, and Wi-Fi services. Even if you aren't actively using these services, they continue to run in the background, draining the phone's power.

While you're charging your phone, these services still soak up some of the battery's power, resulting in a longer charging time.

To help your phone charge faster, enable Airplane Mode to halt all network services. Turning on Airplane Mode may reduce charging time by up to 25 percent.

Power Down Your Phone Before Charging

When you charge an active device, background programs might still be running. For example, a Wi-Fi connection, incoming calls, messages, music, and apps continue to drain the battery, preventing the phone from reaching a full charge and slowing down the charging session.

When you shut down your phone completely, all background programs stop, allowing the battery to charge faster.

Charge With a Wall Socket

We're often on-the-go, and it's convenient to charge our phones in cars or through laptops. But charging phones in a car or on a computer is less efficient than charging via a wall socket. Cars and computers give a power output of .5 amps, while wall sockets charge at 1 amp.

For optimum charging speed, plan ahead and charge your phone with a wall socket at home.

Use a Power Bank

If you're on-the-go a lot and have trouble accessing wall sockets, consider a mobile power pack or portable charger, also called a power bank. These devices often provide wall socket-level charging capacity, so you can charge your phone quickly when you're away from home.

Charge With a Quality Cable

The higher amps a cable can carry, the better the charging speed. If you use a third-party cable or a lower-quality standard cable, your phone may not charge as quickly as possible. The two wires inside the cable determine how fast a phone charges. A standard 28-gauge cable carries about 0.5 amps, while a higher-quality 24-gauge cable carries 2 amps.

If you think your default USB cable isn't charging fast enough, get a new, 24-gauge cable. It might be more expensive, but the benefits may outweigh the costs.

Don't Use Your Phone While Charging

If you use your phone while it's charging, even though the device is connected to a power source, you're tapping the battery's resources, slowing down the charging time significantly. Leave your phone alone while it's charging, or better yet, power it down completely.

Explore Fast-Charging Options for Your Device

If your smartphone supports it, explore available USB-C chargers that speed up charging time. For iPhones, instead of using the 5W charger that came with the device, use a 12W or 18W charger instead, if you're willing to spend a little more. Learn how to tell if your iPhone is fast charging. Also, a device like the RavPower Ultrathin charger has an output of 45W, which will make your iOS or Android phone get back to full capacity in no time.