Brandon has been involved in tech journalism since the year 2000 and was part of the OG team of XDA and Pocketnow. He’s currently a staff writer for MakeUseOf, covering mobile and consumer tech. Brandon likes to help people take full advantage of their technology.
He lives outside of Philadelphia, PA, with his wife and three kids. When he’s not writing, Brandon plays drums and enjoys listening to music.
He’s a graduate of the Villanova School of Business where he got a bachelors degree in finance.
Starting in 2019, Apple introduced a feature that prevents your phone from reaching a full battery to slightly improve battery longevity.
If you care more about enjoying your phone now versus battery health years from now (upgrading your phone every two years mostly renders this moot anyhow), there’s a setting you should disable. Doing so will increase your battery life and give you all the juice you paid for.
Your iPhone isn’t fully charging
But it’s intentional
Modern lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, and keeping the battery at 0% or 100% for prolonged periods accelerates this degradation. Also, the more charge cycles it undergoes, the less charge it can hold at “100%”.
The thinking behind the Optimized Charging setting (which is turned on by default on all iPhones) is that the phone will keep the charge at 80% or less until it thinks you’re ready to use it, like in the morning. That way, it spends less time in a fully charged state—in theory, this should improve battery longevity. However, when you need to use your battery’s full capacity, you’ll want it to charge to 100% rather than 80%, and disabling Optimized Charging allows that.
The problem is that Optimized Charging only works well when charging overnight, because it can predict when you’re going to take it off the charger. If you have an alarm set for the same time every day, your phone knows when it needs to be at 100% in the morning.
However, using Optimized Charging during the day often means you can only charge up to 80% unless you turn off this setting. That means you’re missing out on the precious last 20% of battery capacity, which can make a big difference in some situations.
How to turn off Optimized Charging and reclaim your battery
Fully charge to 100%, plus some other charging tips
To disable Optimized Charging so your phone doesn’t stop charging to 80%, go to Settings > Battery > Charging and turn off Optimized Battery Charging. That’s it—your phone will now always charge to 100% as quickly as possible whenever you plug it in.
Another point to double-check is that your Charge Limit is set to 100% on this screen. This option allows you to cap your iPhone’s maximum charge percentage at 80%, 85%, 90%, or 95% instead of 100%. As we’ve discussed, it depends on how you value the trade-off between daily battery life and long-term health.
Speaking of which, be aware that turning off Optimized Charging might make your battery degrade slightly faster over time. If you’re like me and upgrade your phone every 1–2 years, the trade-off of having better battery life while wearing your battery out slightly faster is worth it. You won’t have the phone long enough to worry about the long-term issues.
If you care about battery longevity, there are tips to be aware of. First, avoid heat. Lithium-ion batteries don’t like heat and degrade much faster when exposed to high temperatures (one of the main reasons your phone isn’t charging as fast as possible). That means you shouldn’t use a fast charger for every charge. As appealing as it is to use a higher wattage power brick, this causes more heat.
Consider only using a fast charger for quick top-ups, and default to a slower 5w charger for overnight charges. You should also avoid charging in a hot car or in direct sunlight.
Next, avoid draining the battery to 0%. When you drain the battery to zero, the phone will charge as fast as possible from 0-20%, often leading to a lot of heat. Instead, try to keep your battery above 20% regularly.
Finally, you may wish to recalibrate the battery a few times per year. However, this is only necessary if you see your battery level jump suddenly, like from 15% to 1%. Modern batteries don’t require calibration to work properly, but calibration can be useful if the display of their charge level is consistently wrong.
To do this, occasionally let your battery drain down to 5% (not zero), then charge it all the way to 100%. This will “reset” the battery management system so it can better track your true level of charge.
What about Android?
Some Android phones also limit charging
If you have an Android device, it most likely has a similar setting that puts an 80% limit on charging. Depending on the manufacturer, this setting could go by a different name. On Samsung, it’s called Battery Protection. On Pixels, it’s Adaptive Charging.
You can usually go into Settings > Battery and find the option that limits your charging ability and turn it off if you so choose.
Get all the electrons you paid for!
I realize that manufacturers are trying to make batteries last longer. Battery chemistry (which could be changing with new battery technology coming soon) is such that you need to be cognizant of how you’re charging, especially when it comes to avoiding heat and not using a fast charger for every charge.
In my experience, and again with the caveat that you upgrade your phone every year or two, it’s a much better experience to have your battery charge up all the way whenever you want it, versus limiting it to 80%.
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