Month: August 2025

Own a Samsung phone? Changing these 7 settings will drastically improve the battery life

Your Samsung phone may already hold a solid charge, but with a handful of smart setting changes, you can make that battery last even longer.

Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones are some of the best Android phones available today, thanks to their responsive and feature-rich software. But most Samsung phones — especially the flagships like the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold 7, and Z Flip 7 — come with over-the-top features that you might not use daily. 

If your new Galaxy phone isn’t lasting an entire day on a single charge, there are ways to make the most of what you have without hindering the user experience. 

Here are seven ways to maximize the battery life on your Galaxy phone. Fret not — I won’t be Captain Obvious over here and recommend reducing the screen resolution or using your phone at a lower refresh rate. The recommendations on this list should bring quality-of-life improvements while maximizing your handset’s efficiency. 

1. Use Dark Mode

Most Samsung phones feature AMOLED displays, which can control individual pixels. So, when you use a dark theme or dark wallpaper, the part of the screen that needs to stay black won’t turn on those pixels. This, in turn, reduces screen power usage and makes your battery last slightly longer. 

How to: Open the Settings app > Display. You’ll get two cards for Light and Dark. Tap on the Dark option. Alternatively, you can change the system wallpaper and continue using the light theme, but this will not have the same effect on battery as turning on the Dark mode.

2. Toggle on Adaptive Brightness

This setting ideally comes activated out of the box, but some people turn it off because it’s not always accurate. However, over the years, Samsung‘s ambient light sensor has improved in quality. Your Galaxy phone can reliably detect the lighting in your environment to automatically adjust the screen luminosity. This ensures your display is more efficient and isn’t brighter than needed.

How to: Go to the Settings app > Display and toggle on Adaptive Brightness. It should work in most environments, but if need be, you can adjust the brightness with a swipe down from the Quick Settings panel.

3. Locate and force stop or uninstall power-draining apps

Samsung phones come with a lot of pre-installed apps like Facebook, Microsoft 365, OneDrive, and a bunch of Samsung and Google apps. Identify the ones you don’t need, and uninstall or force disable them so they don’t run in the background. 

For example, not everyone needs the Samsung Smart TV app or OneDrive. When I set up a new Galaxy phone, I uninstall those two and others, including Facebook, Outlook, Microsoft 365, Tutor, and more.

How to: Tap and hold the app you want to uninstall. A pop-up menu will appear. Tap Uninstall. As a result, none of these non-required apps will use your battery.

4. Identify power-draining apps

Certain apps consume more power depending on your location, 5G connectivity, and background usage. Samsung lets you identify these power-hogging apps to help you minimize non-essential battery usage.

How to: On your Galaxy smartphone, you can identify power-draining apps by going to Settings > Battery and device care > Battery > Background usage limits and choose which apps you want to turn off. 

5. Download offline content before travel

If you take the same route every day or listen to the same playlists and podcasts, downloading that content offline is a good idea. Most streaming apps and Google Maps consume a lot of battery over 5G and LTE. When outdoors, it could also make your handset warm to the touch. You can tackle this with a bit of pre-planning: Download your favorite music or maps over Wi-Fi before you leave home.

How to: Go to the streaming apps you want to download content from and follow the in-app steps. For instance, YouTube has a download button on videos, and Spotify lets you download complete playlists.

6. Use scheduled Always-On Display

I love the Always-On Display (AOD) on my Galaxy S25 Ultra. It has an LTPO display that goes down to 1Hz for efficiency, which is handy for features like AOD. If you have a midrange Galaxy phone with a minimum refresh rate of 60Hz, using AOD might not be as efficient. However, you can be smart with it by scheduling AOD for when it’s needed.

For instance, I have it scheduled for 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., so I don’t miss any important notifications and have the needed info at my disposal at a glance. 

How to: Go to Settings > Lock Screen and AOD > Tap on Always On Display > When to show > As scheduled. While you’re at it, also turn off the Show lock screen wallpaper within AOD settings.

7. Use Performance profile

Samsung allows you to choose a performance profile according to your usage. If you don’t play games and use your phone primarily for regular tasks like browsing, calling, and the like, you should choose the Light Performance profile over Standard. It will prioritize battery life and cooling over processing speed.

How to: Open the Settings app and go to Device care > Performance profile and select Light. This is ideal for average phone users.

What to do when my Galaxy phone is low on battery?

The seven settings above will not hinder your user experience and will retain the best Galaxy phone features. However, if you’re out and your phone is low on battery, you should:

Turn on Power Saving

Toggle off data roaming

Turn off location services

Switch off AOD altogether

Also: I love my Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro – but I wish I had Apple or Google earbuds instead. Here’s why

I recommend turning on these settings when your phone’s battery level is under 15% but you’re still a few hours away from the charger. The above-mentioned Samsung settings will also help you maximize the battery on your Galaxy phone.

How to change app icons on any Android phone

App icons are a little bit difficult in stock Android. You can’t change them natively, so you’ll need a third-party tool along with an icon pack in order to do it. Once you have everything ready, it’s not terribly difficult to switch up your icons. Here’s how to change icons on your phone on Android.How to change app icons individually

Changing icons individually isn’t a difficult task. However, most Android phones don’t have this capability natively. For most folks, you’ll need a third-party launcher like Niagara, Action Launcher, Lawnchair, or something similar. We have a list of the best launchers if you need suggestions.

The below tutorial uses Nova Launcher, but really should work for any third-party launcher.

  1. Install the icon pack of your choosing along with Nova Launcher.
  2. Set up your Nova Launcher home screen as needed.
  3. Once ready, find the app icon on your home screen you want to change.
  4. Long press the app and tap the pencil icon.
  5. Tap the icon image on the left side of the window.
  6. Select your icon pack.
  7. Finally, select the icon you want.
  8. Once finished, press the Done button.

We use a third-party launcher in the tutorial above, but you can also use a shortcut maker app from the Google Play Store to theme individual icons if you’re using your stock launcher. However, the ones we tested add an extra shortcut graphic to the icon, so it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

How to change all of the app icons with an icon pack

It is much faster and much easier to simply apply a whole icon pack. Unlike the previous method, you’ll want a third-party launcher for this. Once again, we’ll use Nova Launcher for this example, but any launcher with icon pack support should be able to do this.

  1. Install Nova Launcher, set it up, and install the icon pack of your choice.
  2. On your home screen, long-press a blank spot and tap Settings.
  3. Navigate to Look & feel.
  4. Tap Icon style.
  5. Next, tap Icon theme and select your icon pack.
  6. When you return to the home screen, your icons will be themed with the whole icon pack.

Most icon packs also have the ability to apply themselves, provided that you have a phone or a launcher installed that can take it. Typically, you can open the icon pack once downloaded, find the apply button, and apply it directly from the icon pack app.How to theme icons with Material You

Starting with Android 12, Material You has been the design language of Android. One of the benefits of that is the ability to theme icons. The icons change color based on your wallpaper, and it’s all handled in the Wallpapers and style section of your phone.

  1. Long press a blank space on your home screen and select Wallpaper and style.
  2. Find the Themed icons option and tick it on.
  3. That’s it. When you return to your home screen.
  4. On some devices, like Samsung, you may need to manually navigate to the color palette section before you find the themed icons option.

This isn’t a hardcore theme, but it does match the icons to your wallpaper, color palette, and whether or not you have dark mode enabled. It’s a quick and dirty way to match your icons immediately.How to change icons on a Samsung phone

Samsung users have an extra way to get icon packs without third-party apps. You can browse and purchase icon packs in the Samsung Galaxy Theme Store. These work with Samsung’s One UI launcher, so there is no need for a different launcher. You can even use icon packs from the Google Play Store using Good Lock’s Theme Park module. We’ll show you how to do both.

Samsung Theme Store

  1. Long press a blank space on your home screen and select the Themes option.
  2. Once the Theme Store opens, select the Icons option at the bottom.
  3. Find and download whatever icon pack you want.
  4. Once done, tap Menu at the bottom right, then My Stuff at the top left. Select Icons from the row along the top.
  5. Select the icon pack you want to install.
  6. Tap the Apply button.
  7. Once done, your icons will be themed.

Remember that Samsung Theme Store icon packs don’t theme every icon in your app drawer. Thus, this is not the best option.

Good Lock via Theme Park

Good Lock is not available on all Samsung phones in all regions.

  1. Download Good Lock along with the Theme Park extension from the Samsung Galaxy Store.
  2. Open Theme Park and navigate to the Icon tab.
  3. Hit the Create New button. This takes you to the main icon-theming screen in Theme Park.
  4. Using the options, select your general icon shape, icon color, and tray color.
  5. Optionally, you can click where it says Icon pack and select a third-party icon pack.
  6. Finally, to change individual icons, tap the 3-dot menu button at the top right corner and select Change icons.
  7. Select the icon you want to change, and then select the icon you want to change it to.
  8. Once you’re done configuring, go back to the aforementioned main icon-theming screen and tap the Save button at the top right corner next to the 3-dot button.
  9. Enter a name for your new, custom icon pack.
  10. Once done, you can apply the icon pack directly through Theme Park or through the Samsung theme store.

Theme Park has a bit of a learning curve, so take your time when you first go in there and familiarize yourself with its various functions. It’s quite powerful once you get used to it.