How to Extend Laptop Battery Life

1. Open Settings, then System, then Power and battery.
2. Under Power mode, select Best power efficiency.
3. Turn on Energy saver on the same page. It dims the screen slightly and limits background activity.
4. Lower the screen brightness. The slider is in Quick Settings, open it by selecting the battery, Wi-Fi, and volume icons in the taskbar, or in Settings, then System, then Display.
5. Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you are not using them, from Quick Settings.

1. In Settings, then System, then Power and battery, select Battery usage to see which apps used the most power in the last 24 hours.
2. For a heavy app, open Settings, then Apps, then Installed apps, select the three dots next to it, then Advanced options.
3. Under Background apps permissions, set it to Never if you do not need it running in the background.
4. Close browser tabs you are not using. Each open tab, especially video and social media, uses power.

1. Open System Settings, then select Battery in the sidebar.
2. Turn on Low Power Mode. It reduces performance slightly and dims the display to stretch the battery.
3. Lower the brightness from Control Center, and close apps you are not using.

• Let the laptop sleep instead of leaving the screen on. Set a short screen timeout in the Power and battery settings.
• Use Hibernate for long breaks: it saves the session and uses almost no power.
• Keep the laptop cool. Heat makes the battery drain faster and wear out sooner.
• Check battery health on Windows by opening Terminal and running powercfg /batteryreport, then opening the battery-report.html file it saves in your user folder.

Is it bad to leave a laptop plugged in all the time? Modern laptops stop charging at full and manage the battery themselves, so it is not harmful in the short term. Some makers offer a charge limit, such as 80 percent, for laptops that stay plugged in for months.

Should I drain the battery to zero before charging? No. Lithium batteries prefer partial charges. Draining to zero regularly wears the battery out faster.

How do I know if my battery needs replacing? If a full charge lasts under an hour with light use, the battery is likely worn. On Windows, the battery report from powercfg /batteryreport shows design capacity against full charge capacity, and a large gap means wear.

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