Find Out Which Apps Use the Most Battery Life on Your iPad

By
Daniel Nations
Daniel Nations
Daniel Nations
Writer
  • University of Texas at Arlington
Daniel Nations has been a tech journalist since 1994. His work has appeared in Computer Currents, The Examiner, and other publications. He is a developer who has published apps in the Apple App Store, Google Play marketplace and Amazon Appstore; he also has worked as a data analyst and DB administrator.
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Updated on April 3, 2020

If you often find your iPad running low on battery, the problem may be with one of the apps you're using. One menu in the Settings section can help you figure out which programs or games are using the most power. With this information, you can take steps to cut down on these apps or identify and delete battery hogs completely.

Here's how to get a report of where your iPad's battery life is going.

These instructions apply to devices using iOS 9 or later.

How to View Battery Usage on Your iPad

  1. Open Settings.

    Settings app icon on iPad Home Screen

  2. Tap Battery.

    Battery setting on iPad

  3. The battery usage screen has two sections. The top one shows activity and usage using a bar graph. The bottom section lists all apps and how much battery they've used.

    You can get reports for either the past 24 hours or the last 10 days by tapping an option at the top of the screen.

    Battery screen on iPad

  4. Battery Usage by App displays the percentage of battery apps have used. Tap Show Activity to switch to another breakdown, Activity by App.

    Show Activity button in Battery Settings on an iPad

  5. Activity by App displays how long apps have been active.

    Activity by App screen in iPad Battery settings

  6. Examining this data will give you a good idea of which apps are using the most battery.

What Does Battery Usage Tell You?

The first thing to note are the graphs showing the battery charge level and activity on the iPad. If you see an excessive amount of battery usage at a time when the iPad isn't very active, an app may be using the battery in the background.

The battery usage by app list below these graphs can help diagnose this problem. Tap on any app in this list to see more details about how much activity the app had while on screen and how much was in the background. Apps can download new data and perform other updates with a feature called background app refresh.

How Can We Reduce Our Battery Usage? 

You can use the information in the Battery menu to get more out of our battery life.

  • Close out of apps when you're done using them. You can do this using the iPad's App Switcher feature by double-clicking the Home button and then swiping up on the program you want to close.
  • Set your iPad to sleep when you're not using it. Generally, you don't want the Auto-Lock setting set to an interval longer than 2 minutes.
  • Look for similar apps that use less battery. Sometimes you can find apps that do the same thing with fewer resources.
  • Turn off background app refresh. Do this by opening Settings, tapping General from the left-side menu, and choosing Background App Refresh. You can turn Background App Refresh off entirely or for individual apps.
  • Lower the screen brightness. A bright screen uses more power.
  • Turn off Bluetooth if you aren't using it. Bluetooth controls headphones, external speakers, and other devices. If you don't use any of them with your iPad, you can turn off the feature and save some battery.
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