All Android phones have Developer Options hidden inside the Settings. While you may not use it often, they can help you eke out longer battery life. Some settings in there let you tweak animations, control background apps, and more, which can help conserve battery life. Here are the useful settings Developer Options to extend your Android phone’s battery life.
To access these options, head to Settings > About phone and tap Build number seven times. You’ll see a confirmation message. When you revisit Settings, Developer Options will appear there (or Settings > System on some phones).
Table of Contents
1. Reduce Animations
Have you ever noticed how smoothly icons slide in and out or apps open with a little bounce? It’s all thanks to animations. While they look cool and add visual appeal, they can drain your battery a little as your phone works harder to make them happen.
Here’s the good news: you can tone them down in Developer Options to tame those animations. That will simplify transitions, save some battery, and make your phone feel more responsive.
For that, head to Developer Options > Window animation scale > Transition animation scale > Animator duration scale. Set each of these scales to a lower value, like 0.5x. You can even turn them off completely, but the interface experience on your Android might feel jumpy without those smooth transitions.
2. Turn Off Mobile Data Always Active
Many Android phones keep mobile data active even when you’re on Wi-Fi. Don’t worry; it’s not a glitch. This feature helps avoid hiccups, like the buffering message when your Wi-Fi drops while watching a YouTube video. Your phone would quickly switch to mobile data, keeping your video playing smoothly.
However, constantly using mobile data (especially on 5G) can drain your battery faster. If you’re mostly in reliable Wi-Fi zones (like at home or work), you can turn this feature off. Head to Developer Options, find Mobile Data Always Active and toggle it off.
Note: If you use Wi-Fi calling, it’s best to keep this setting on. Turning it off might cause call drops if the switch from Wi-Fi to cellular takes too long.
3. Force Dark Mode
If your phone has an AMOLED display, using dark mode can save some battery. However, don’t expect phenomenal results for the Dark Mode doesn’t save ginormous amounts of battery. Purdue University researchers conducted a study of correlation between dark mode and battery consumption to prove that it only saves about 3% to 9% of battery, that too depending on the brightness levels of the screen.
While most modern phones have dark mode in settings, you’ll find an even powerful tool in Developer Options – Force Dark Mode. This lets you enjoy dark themes even in apps that don’t have them yet.
For example, the Amazon Shopping app doesn’t support dark mode, but Force Dark Mode can transform it to save battery. Keep in mind that some interface elements might not appear properly when forced.
4. Set Background Process Limit
Your Android phone’s pretty smart – it handles background apps well on its own. But for low-end or older devices, limiting background processes can be a game-changer. This can save battery and make your phone feel a bit snappier.
Head to Developer Options and find Background Process Limit. Try options like At most 3 processes or At most 4 processes to see what works best. Remember, avoid No background processes as you might miss important notifications.
If you’ve got a newer phone, this tweak might not be a big deal, so it’s up to you whether you want to try it.
5. Turn On Wi-Fi Scan Throttling
Apps on your Android phone are always scanning for available Wi-Fi networks, even if you’re not actively trying to connect. This happens in the background and can be drain your battery.
To fix this, open Developer Options and turn on Wi-Fi Scan Throttling. This setting puts a limit on how often apps can search for Wi-Fi. Think of it like giving them a little timeout – foreground apps can only scan four times every two minutes, while background apps are limited to once every 30 minutes.
6. Put Battery Draining Apps to Standby
Usually, most Android phones have adaptive battery-saving measures. Samsung Galaxy phones, in particular, can automatically put unused apps to sleep to reduce battery consumption.
Developer Options offer a similar tweak called Standby Apps, which helps your phone allocate resources based on how frequently and recently those apps are used. It sorts apps into different categories (like Active, Working Set, Frequent, Rare, and Restricted) based on how often you use them.
While your phone does most of the work automatically, if an app seems like a battery hog, you can check its Standby App status. Then, you can move it to the Restrictive category to limit its background activity and save battery. Just remember, this isn’t ideal for apps you use all the time.
Should You Enable ‘Don’t Keep Activities’ Setting
You might’ve seen Don’t Keep Activities in Developer Options. This setting kills any app the moment you switch from it and the app goes into the background. While it might seem like a battery-saving move, I wouldn’t recommend using it for two reasons:
- Increased Battery Drain: Constantly relaunching apps from scratch actually uses more power than keeping them suspended in memory.
- Choppy Experience: You may encounter app crashes, delays in app switching, and data loss. This makes for an overall less smooth experience on your phone.
Little Tweaks for More Power
Developer Options are a great way to squeeze some extra battery life out of your Android phone combined with traditional battery saving tricks. The ones we discussed above, like Wi-Fi Scan Throttling and reducing animations, can definitely make a difference – I tried them on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra to confirm that.
Just a heads-up, tinkering with other options can get tricky. So it’s best to remember what exactly they do before making changes. But if things ever go sideways, disabling Developer Options will set things back to normal.
