Use iPhone’s hidden ‘yellow mode’ for instant extra battery life – you’ll struggle to run out of charge
YOUR iPhone has an easy-to-miss “yellow” mode that can instantly give you extra battery life.
The often-overlooked trick should mean that you’ll run out of iPhone charge far less often.
It’s officially called Low Power Mode, but it’s notable for turning your battery icon indicator yellow.
When you see the battery switch to the yellow colour, it means Low Power Mode is active right now.
By activating Low Power Mode, you’ll limit the power your iPhone uses to preserve battery life.
This means it’ll work slightly differently from normal – but with big battery gains.
Apple explains: “Low Power Mode reduces the amount of power that your iPhone or iPad uses when the battery gets low.
“Low Power Mode temporarily reduces background activity like downloads and mail fetch until you can fully charge your iPhone.”
Apple says that some features might take longer to update or complete.
And “some tasks might not work” at all until Low Power Mode is off.
Here’s a list of the features that Low Power Mode will reduce or affect:
- 5G (except for video streaming) on iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 models
- Auto-Lock (defaults to 30 seconds)
- Display brightness
- Display refresh rate (limited up to 60 Hz) on iPhone and iPad models with ProMotion display
- Some visual effects
- iCloud Photos (temporarily paused)
- Automatic downloads
- Email fetch
- Background app refresh
HOW TO USE LOW POWER MODE
There are several ways to turn on Low Power Mode.
First up, you can just go into Settings > Battery and then toggle the Low Power Mode option on.
Another great option is to add it to your Control Centre.
Just go to Settings > Control Centre > Customise and then add Low Power Mode if you’re using an older version of iOS.
WHY DOES YOUR BATTERY GET WORSE?
It's inevitable: your iPhone battery will get worse over time...
- Most gadgets run on lithium-ion batteries
- Over time, the amount of charge this type of battery can hold gets smaller
- That means you need to charge your device more often because they hold less charge
- Batteries have two electrode points – the cathode and the anode
- To charge a battery, the ions inside the battery are forced from the cathode to the anode
- When you use a battery, it moves in the reverse direction
- This process wears away at the structure of the anode, reducing its ability to function correctly
- But the process also builds up a kind of salt on the cathode when charging
- As this build-up grows, the battery will accept less charge over time
- It’s estimated that between 500 and 1,000 full charge-cycles will reduce a battery’s maximum capacity by roughly 20%
With iOS 18, you can edit the Control Centre directly by holding down on blank space when it’s open.
Then you can swipe into the Control Centre from anywhere on your phone to add it.
To get to Control Centre, swipe down from the top-right corner on an iPhone with Face ID.
If your iPhone has a Home Button, swipe up from the bottom instead.
And a third way to activate it is simply by asking Siri.
You might also find that your iPhone prompts you to activate Low Power Mode if your battery life drops to as low as 20%.
When it comes to turning Low Power Mode off, you can repeat the above steps to deactivate it.
It’s also worth noting that Low Power Mode will deactivate automatically once your iPhone reaches 80% charge again.