Facebook has been accused of using up to 20% of your phone’s battery life. Edward Munn suggests five ways to preserve your juice without abandoning the social network
Stop background refreshing
If recent reports are true, the Facebook app could be responsible for consuming a large percentage of your phone’s battery life. Indeed, even Facebook users who rarely open the app have reported it using large amounts of battery power. On iOS devices, you can stop Facebook constantly refreshing in the background by opening Settings, selecting General, Background App Refresh and turning the appropriate switch to the Off position. While you’re there, it’s a good idea to turn off other apps that don’t need to be refreshed in the background.
On Android phones running version 5.0 (Lollipop) onwards, you should make sure that Facebook is set to be ‘optimised’ for improved battery life. To do this, open Settings and Battery, tap the menu button and select ‘Battery optimisation’. Next, select All Apps from the drop-down menu, scroll down to Facebook and check that it’s set to Optimise.
Switch off location services
On iOS devices, you can also preserve battery power by making sure that Facebook isn’t accessing your Location Services. To do this, choose Privacy from the Settings menu, then select ‘Location services’, Facebook and Never.
On devices running Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) onwards, you can change individual permissions for each app, which means you can stop Facebook using location services. To do this, open Settings, Apps, then choose Facebook. From here, select Permissions and turn Location to Off.
Turn off notifications
Preventing Facebook from sending you notifications can also help to save battery life. At the very least, you’ll waste less time and power scrolling through your news feed if you’re not alerted every time someone invites you to play Candy Crush Saga. To turn off all Facebook notifications on your iPhone, open Settings and Notifications, choose Facebook, then turn off the switch for Allow Notifications.
To do the same on an Android device, open Settings and Apps, select Facebook, then Notifications and activate the ‘Block all’ option. To block only certain types of notification, open the app’s Settings menu and select Notifications and Mobile to choose which notifications you want to block.
Use Chrome or Safari instead
If, after making these changes, the Facebook app still uses too much of your battery, try using the mobile Facebook has been accused of using up to 20% of your phone’s battery life. Edward Munn suggests five ways to preserve your juice without abandoning the social network version of the website (m.facebook.com) instead, because your browser is likely to use less power. When you first log into Facebook with Chrome for Android, you’ll see options to turn on ‘one tap’ logins and to let Facebook send you notifications. If you don’t see these options, try clearing the browser’s cookies by tapping its menu button and choosing History, Clear Browsing Data.
You can add a shortcut for the Facebook mobile site to your Android home screen by opening the Chrome menu and tapping ‘Add to Home screen’. To add a home-screen shortcut in iOS, access Facebook using Safari, tap the share button and choose ‘Add to Home Screen’.
Use a third-party app
If you don’t want to use your main browser for social-media sites, try using a third-party app to access Facebook. Tinfoil for Facebook (bit.ly/tinfoil392) and Metal for Facebook and Twitter (bit.ly/metal392) are both quick, lightweight apps based on Facebook mobile, but the latter is our pick of the two thanks to its menu of helpful shortcuts to help you navigate the site more quickly. What’s more, it also lets you log into your Twitter account and access both social networks in one place.