According to Tim Cook at Apple’s Special Event on September 9, the iPhone is the move beloved smartphone in the world. That’s a pretty bold statement… if it weren’t so darn true. Alas, our love for our tech isn’t perfect, because, well, the phone itself isn’t perfect. One of the biggest complaints iPhone users have is that fact that the battery life on our handsets is… not always awesome.

Apple has tried to remedy this by including a “Battery” setting into iOS 9 and even incorporating a “Low Power Mode” that’ll give you up to one extra hour of power. But here’s one crucial step: turning off “Background App Refresh.” Yep. Closing all your open appsmight help, but more importantly, turning off this option will save you some battery.

Many argue that most apps go into a suspended state when it’s open in the background and don’t drain your battery, but the truth is, when you have 100 apps on your phone (hey, some of us really like downloading stuff, okay?) and it’s not crucial to have anything constantly refreshing and updating in the background, go ahead an turn it all off. In case you only need one or two apps to always be up-to-date (like a Mail or Hangouts) turn those on, and everything else off. Here’s how to do it.

app1

Go to your “Settings” app and select “General.”

app2

From “General,” tap on “Background App Refresh” to take you the page that shows you all your apps that are eligible for background refresh.

app3

You can see it right there. It reads, “Turning off apps may help preserve battery life.” Set “Background App Refresh” to off and voilà! Battery life improved.

Do you have anything tricks to improving your phone’s battery life? Tell us in the comments below!

Kimberly Wang
Kimberly Wang writes about all things pop culture, tech, style, and beauty. She's a Bay Area transplant and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. On a sunny New York day, you can find her hanging out with her mini schnauzer Isabelle Jellybean on a blanket in Central Park.