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Six easy ways to maximize your Windows laptop’s battery life when you’re working on the go
There’s nothing worse than opening your laptop when you’re ready to start work and discovering that you've actually been lugging around a powerless brick all day. You might be able to plug it in for a quick boost if you’re lucky, but as someone who regularly logs in to work from trains, planes, cafes, and even sometimes from the back seat of a car, I know all too well that that’s often not an option.
Charging before you leave the house for any trip is practically a necessity, but taking proactive steps to maximize the battery life of your Windows laptop is also important as it helps you squeeze out as much juice as possible when you’re away from the socket.
It’s especially vital if you’re an on-the-go content creator trying to squeeze in some work on power-intensive programs such as editing software, where a few extra hours of use could make the difference between having a video or image ready to go out on time and not.
That’s why I’ve put together this list of handy battery-saving tips and tricks for TechRadar's Content Creator Week. They're all ones that I personally use to make sure that my own Windows laptop stays powered up for as long as possible.
1. Change your power mode ASAP
I’m starting off with a very easy fix. One of the simplest and most effective ways you can level up your battery performance is by changing your laptop’s power mode in Windows settings.
On Windows 11, you can find this option by opening the settings menu (simply search “settings” in the task bar) and then navigating to the system tab. From there click on power & battery and then select power mode.
A recent Windows update added a new energy saver setting in the power & battery menu. It reduces the performance of your CPU and GPU more aggressively than the power mode options and automatically adjusts other settings such as screen brightness, so consider using it if you need the longest possible runtime.
You should be greeted by three options to choose from: best power efficiency, balanced, and best performance. Select best power efficiency and you should start to notice better overall battery life. On my personal machine, I manage to get an extra hour or two of use with this setting enabled.
There are some caveats to be aware of, though. Depending on the kind of tasks that you’re working on, you might also experience decreased performance. One of the ways this setting works is by ‘parking’ some CPU cores in a low-power state, which can cause hitches in high-intensity tasks such as video rendering. If this is an issue for you, keep reading, as there are still plenty of other tips that won't slow you down.
2. Crank down the refresh rate
If you purchased a laptop specifically for content creation, then there’s a good chance that it boasts a fancy high-refresh-rate screen. Unfortunately, running your display at 90Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz, or higher increases battery drain compared to the standard 60Hz refresh rate. To lower your refresh rate, open up settings once again and then select system, display, and advanced display in that order.
You should see an option that says "choose a refresh rate" and an associated dropdown menu with a range of possible options. The lower you go, the better your battery life will be, though you may start to miss the smoothness if you turn it down too much.
If your display supports it, you can also turn on dynamic refresh rate, which allows the operating system to lower the refresh rate below your selected number when it’s not needed to help save battery.
3. Keep the brightness low while you’re at it
Display brightness is another important setting if you’re trying to reduce power draw.
Most of the time I notice my laptop battery life ticking down quickly, it’s because I’ve accidentally left the screen brightness on max. You can adjust it in settings by clicking on system and then display, but the quickest and easiest method is heading to the action center on your taskbar (that’s the little module with the WiFi and volume icons in the right-hand corner).
Open it and you will be greeted by a brightness slider, which you can adjust to your liking. Turn it down as much as possible, though obviously not so much that you can't clearly see the display. If you’re working in an environment with harsh lighting or sunlight, try to turn your laptop away from light sources in order to reduce glare and make it easier to read what's on screen when your display is dimmed.
4. Turn off Bluetooth and WiFi if you can
Although modern Bluetooth standards are much more power efficient than those of the past, turning it off can still help eke out some extra battery life. To do it, open the action center on the taskbar and click the little arrow next to the Bluetooth tile. Now simply set the slider to the off position. Only turn it back on when it’s actually needed and, if possible, try to avoid using Bluetooth accessories such as headsets, as they increase power draw more than wired alternatives.
If, like me, you’re able to work offline then you can turn the WiFi off while you’re at it for even bigger battery gains. With the action centre open, click the arrow next to the WiFi tile and then set that slider to off. If you’re struggling to connect to a public WiFi spot, I would strong advise against constantly trying to reconnect as that can use considerable battery life very quickly.
If you do need to be connected to WiFi, make sure that there aren’t any unnecessary downloads running in the background as that can have a massive impact on your battery level, too.
5. Check which apps drain the most and close them down
If you find that your battery life has suddenly started dropping faster than usual, then sometimes rogue power-hungry apps can be the culprit. To find out which are consuming the most charge, you’ll need to head into settings one last time. Click the system, then our old friend power & battery. Now select battery usage, and then look for battery usage per app.
On my machine, Google Chrome is the biggest battery drainer followed by Slack. That’s not exactly helpful information as I can’t do my job without those programs but the third offender, Copilot, is something that I personally never use and can easily live without. Clicking the three dots next to an app will take you to its permissions page, where you can prevent it from running at log-in and stop it from ever running in the background.
Do this for all the programs that you don’t recognize or use from time to time, and you could notice some serious battery gains.
6. Make sure you’re shutting down your laptop between uses
I understand how tempting it is just to slam the lid of your laptop the second you’ve finished your task, but not taking the time to properly shut it down can do more harm than good. Shutting most laptop lids generally puts them into sleep mode, which isn’t the same as shutting it down.
Sleep mode keeps the system in a low-power state but, importantly, that’s a “low” power state, not a “no” power state. I find that my device can lose as much as up to 10% charge if I carry it around in sleep mode for a few hours, compared to a 0% loss in the same period when shut down.
It can be a little annoying to have to do this if you're in a rush, but it’s still a no-brainer to take the extra few seconds to go through the whole shut down process if you want your battery to last as long as possible.
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