Top tips for extending the battery life of your laptop

A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.Selecting to use the Balanced or Power saver power plan can help extend your PC’s battery life.

• Balanced – Offers full performance when you need it and saves power when you don’t. This is the best power plan for most people.
• Power saver – Saves power by reducing PC performance and screen brightness. If you’re using a laptop, this plan can help you get the most from a single battery charge

Battery saver extends battery life by limiting background activity and push notifications when your device is low on battery. When battery saver is on, your PC temporarily turns off some things that use a lot of power, like automatic email and calendar syncing, live tile updates, and apps you’re not actively using.You can check the Turn battery saver on automatically if my battery falls below box, and adjust the slider to the battery percentage level you want to have battery saver automatically turn on whenever the battery falls below this level.

To turn on battery saver now and leave it on until the next time you plug in your PC, turn on Battery saver status until next charge.

You can also check the Lower screen brightness while in battery saver box to automatically lower screen brightness while battery saver is on.

The Power troubleshooter will automatically find and fix problems with your computer’s power settings to conserve power and extend battery life.

You can specify how long your PC is inactive before the display (screen) automatically turns off. Using a shorter duration will help extend your PC’s battery life.

Sleep uses very little power, your PC starts up faster, and you’re instantly back to where you left off. Using a shorter duration will help extend your PC’s battery life.You can use sleep when you’re going to be away from your PC for just a little while – like when you’re taking a coffee break. If you are going to be away from the computer for a long period of time, then it would be better to turn off the PC instead.

Get the most out of your PC’s battery by choosing which apps are okay to run in the background. See which apps are affecting your battery life allows you to see a list of apps and how much battery each one is using relatively. This can help you choose which apps to allow (the ones you care about most) versus which apps to disallow (the ones you care about least). Select an app from the list, and then clear the Let Windows decide when this app can run in the background check box. (Note that some apps can’t be changed.)

Many Windows and third party apps and services request and use your device location information to provide you with convenient services, such as maps to help you get where you’re going or a list of restaurants near you. Windows location settings give you control over which Windows apps can use your device location and location history information.Turning off the Location service can help extend your PC’s battery life.

If you have devices or accessories connected to your PC that you don’t use, turn off your PC, unplug the devices, and then turn your PC back on.

By default, Windows will use the index when searching to give you faster search results. If you like, you can enable a policy to pause indexing when your PC is running on battery power to conserve energy, and automatically resume indexing when your PC is running on AC power next.

Increase battery life by changing how frequently your PC syncs email by selecting a longer interval to download new content.