How to Drain the Battery on Your Phone

Quickly drain the battery of your Android or iPhone

Co-authored by Luigi Oppido and Nicole Levine, MFA

Last Updated: September 27, 2024 Fact Checked

Want to drain the battery on your phone? If you want to get your phone's battery down to 0% before giving it a charge, you can turn on the flashlight, disable auto-locking, boost your screen brightness, or do a number of other tricks that are guaranteed to drain your battery. No matter the reason, this wikiHow article will teach you the fastest ways to drain your phone battery without ruining it forever.

Things You Should Know

The fastest way to drain your phone battery is to turn on the flashlight.
Disable automatic screen lock and boost your screen's brightness to the maximum.
You can also use graphically intensive apps and games, launch lots of apps that use your location, and enable sounds and vibrations.

1

Turn on your flashlight.

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Your Android or iPhone's flashlight uses a significant amount of battery power due to its brightness. Leaving the flashlight on is sure to deplete your battery in no time.

2

Disable automatic screen lock.

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If your screen is always on, your phone battery will drain quickly. If your screen automatically turns off after a short period of time, increasing the amount of time it stays on will help drain the battery faster. You can completely disable automatic screen locking on all iPhones, but most Android phones will only let you increase the screen-on time to 10 minutes.
- On an iPhone, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-lock and tap Never .
- Some Androids, including Samsung Galaxy models, don't allow you to set the auto lock feature to Never, but you can increase it to keep your phone screen on longer. Go to Settings > Display > Screen timeout and choose the longest amount of time (or Never , if it's an option). ^{[1]
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- Some newer phones, like the iPhone 14 and the more recent Samsung Galaxy models, have an Always-On Display feature that keeps the screen on at all times. To turn on this battery-draining feature, go to Settings > Always On Display (Android) or Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On Display (iPhone) and make sure the switch is toggled to the On position.

3

Raise the screen brightness.

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Boost the display brightness up to the maximum. The higher the brightness, the more battery power your phone will use—especially if you've turned off or extended automatic screen locking.
- iPhone; Go to Settings > Display & Brightness and drag the slider all the way to the right. Additionally, turn off the "Automatic" switch to ensure that your phone doesn't try to adjust the brightness based on lighting. ^{[2]
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- Android: You'll need to disable Adaptive Brightness to raise the brightness, which you can do in Settings > Display > Adaptive Brightness . Then, drag the brightness slider all the way to the right for maximum battery drain. ^{[3]
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4

Open and use graphically intensive apps.

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You can also try using an augmented reality app, or anything that's 3D, to put a serious strain on your battery. The more you play and interact with the game or app, the faster your battery will drain.

5

Make a video call.

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These apps use your microphone and camera, as well as displaying video and playing audio. Video chatting is a surefire way to decrease your battery power in no time.

6

Turn on location services.

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Disabling your phone's GPS saves precious battery life in a pinch. But if your goal is to drain your battery, you'll want to make sure location services are on, and that plenty of apps are able to access your location in the background.
- iPhone: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services . Then, scroll down and reenable location access for any apps you've blocked. ^{[4]
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- Android: Go to Settings > Location and turn on Location. Then, select App permissions and allow apps to use your location. ^{[5]
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- Once location services are on, start a bunch of apps that use your location in the background—for example, Apple Maps, Google Maps, Lyft, Uber, Weather, dating apps, and some social media apps.

7

Turn on vibrations and haptics.

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Enable vibrations for notifications. This will be especially effective if you get a lot of notifications!
- iPhone: Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and enable both "Play Haptics in Ring Mode" and "Play Haptics in Silent Mode." Then, tap Text Tone , Ringtone , and all the other alert types and choose the longest vibration pattern you can find.
  - Also, check out this trick for making your iPhone vibrate continuously .
- Android: Go to Settings > Sounds and vibration > Vibrate . Also, tap Vibration pattern to choose a particularly long or recurring vibration pattern for best results. ^{[6]
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8

Turn on Wi-Fi (but don't connect to a network).

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Your phone battery will drain fast if it's trying to find a Wi-Fi network. If you're not using the internet right now, disconnect from Wi-Fi if you're connected, then let your phone keep searching for networks to join.
- Of course, disconnecting from Wi-Fi will prevent you from playing a lot of games or video chatting. So, you'll have to choose one or the other!

9

Don't use dark mode.

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Switch to light mode if you're in dark mode. Studies show that dark mode saves a little bit of battery life, though not as much as previously thought. ^{[7]
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- iPhone/iPad: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness and select Light . ^{[8]
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- Android: Go to Settings > Display and tap Dark . ^{[9]
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10

Watch a movie or TV show in high-definition.

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Fire up an app like YouTube or Netflix and stream a movie or TV episode at the highest quality available. Keeping your streaming video on, especially while connected to Wi-Fi, is a surefire way to drain your phone battery.

11

Back up your phone (or restore from a backup).

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If you haven't backed up your phone in a while, start a backup now. You may also delete your current backup and replace it with a new one just for a quick battery-draining boost. ^{[10]
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12

Get turn-by-turn directions.

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Even if you're not leaving the house, using Apple Maps or Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation will drain your battery in no time. You can even minimize the app and run it in the background while you play a game or stream a movie to speed things up.

13

Start a social media conversation.

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Start a conversation with a friend on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or any other social media app. Make sure it's somebody who can respond right away. Send some pictures and animated GIFs , and keep the conversation flowing and the notifications rolling in. This will be especially effective for draining the battery now that your phone is set to vibrate and make sounds!

14

Scroll through your TikTok For You page.

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Even if you're not that into TikTok , the constant swiping through videos is sure to put a drain on your battery. Just keep swiping through the feed until your battery gets nice and low.

Community Q&A

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Question

How can I restart my phone if it froze?

Community Answer

Open up the back and take out the memory card. Leave it out for a few seconds. This might help speed up the process of the phone shutting down and get it out of its frozen mode,

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How can I use my phone as a hand warmer?

Community Answer

You can charge your phone; when it's on the charger it gets hot. You can also get a portable charger to take on the go. Make sure it doesn't get too hot, otherwise you could damage your phone. Also, don't leave your phone charging on a bed or other flammable object because it may start a fire.

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Question

How do I stop my phone from getting so dirty if I don't want to use a stylus?

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You could use a screen protector to cover your phone, or get a wallet phone case.

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Tips

These tricks may not drain your battery very quickly if you only do a few of them, so make sure to do as many as possible. The more steps you take to consume battery power, the faster your phone battery will drain.

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Tips from our Readers

The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

I've found that turning your volume up all the way and playing music super loud drains my phone battery really quickly.
Turn bluetooth on, but don't connect to anything. This will also help drain the battery super fast!
Apps that use your location (Google Maps, Pokemon Go, etc.) are great at draining battery.

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Warnings

If your phone gets too hot while draining the battery, it's better to close some apps and give your phone a break than to proceed. Otherwise, your phone could overheat and crash.

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How to Drain the Battery on Your Phone

Things You Should Know

Steps

Turn on your flashlight.

Disable automatic screen lock.

Raise the screen brightness.

Open and use graphically intensive apps.

Make a video call.

Turn on location services.

Turn on vibrations and haptics.

Turn on Wi-Fi (but don't connect to a network).

Don't use dark mode.

Watch a movie or TV show in high-definition.

Back up your phone (or restore from a backup).

Get turn-by-turn directions.

Start a social media conversation.

Scroll through your TikTok For You page.

Community Q&A

Video

Tips

Tips from our Readers

Warnings

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