I restricted background data for 90% of my apps; it doubled my standby battery

My phone used to lose close to half its charge overnight just sitting on my nightstand doing absolutely nothing.

At least, that's what I thought.

I started looking at what my phone was actually doing and found plenty of apps checking in, syncing, refreshing, and using data in the background.

Granted, I have some apps installed from outside the Play Store. So I went through my app list and cut background data for almost all the apps.

I didn't plan on restricting 90% of the apps on my phone, but that's where I landed after I started asking which apps actually need it.

Restricting apps wasn't the only source of the problem, as some people have traced their background drain to Google's services doing their regular check-ins, not only third-party apps.

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Posts By  Faith Leroux

Background data is different from restricting an app's battery

It's less impactful than a full battery toggle

The first thing to clear up is that restricting background data isn't the same as putting an app's battery on Restricted.

Android treats them as separate controls.

Background data prevents an app from using mobile data or Wi-Fi when you're not actively using it.

On many phones, you can find the option under Settings > Apps > then the app > Mobile data & Wi-Fi.

There's also a Data Saver mode under Network & internet that does the same thing, but the impact stretches to the entire system instead of per app. Plus, it doesn't let me pick exceptions.

The data synced in the background is typically tiny, but waking the radio from a low-power idle state to send that data can be costly. The power required to send that little packet is disproportionate, which the battery has to spend.

Google isn't hiding this either. Android's Doze and App Standby systems are already in effect, trying to defer this automatic activity. But they don't catch everything.

This is where manually restricting apps to use the radio comes into play.

I started with the worst offenders, not everything all at once

Social apps led the list

First, I had to analyze which apps were the culprits in background battery drainage. To do that, I went to Settings > Battery > Battery Usage.

I sorted the apps, and to no one's surprise, social apps, free apps with tons of ads, and apps using location were at the top.

I was also surprised to see utility apps I barely opened near the top of the list. After I learned the pattern, restricting the next batch was easier and faster, since most apps fell into one of two obvious buckets.

Location access turned out to be one of the biggest reasons my Pixel's standby battery was taking a hit. Background data is a different story.

Cutting background location access for the apps that didn't need it added real hours to the battery life, more than the data restriction.

Notifications mostly still came through, but not everything made the cut

Firebase Cloud Messaging apps were a bit reluctant to follow

I found something interesting in my experiment.

Most messaging and social media apps use Firebase Cloud Messaging, which runs through a shared connection that Google Play Services keeps open irrespective of an app's background data setting.

That means restricting an app's background data wouldn't necessarily kill its notifications, as long as it runs on that shared system.

That's different from full battery restriction, which is more likely to delay things since it also blocks wake locks and scheduled jobs.

A few things also needed manual refreshing, including the weather widget, which stopped updating on its own. A couple of niche apps also used proprietary sync, not built on Firebase, which ended up noticeably behind.

Cloud backups paused behind the scenes, which contributed to better standby time until I opened the app.

There was a delay, but nothing slipped through the cracks permanently. It just waited for me to show up so it could refresh itself.

The 90% number sounds a bit aggressive, but it wasn't

Most of what got cut off was stuff I never touched anyway

After I saw what needed background data, the number that were restricted gradually stopped intimidating me.

Messages, Maps, and Calendar stayed untouched, and everything else lost permission that most of them barely used anyway.

Since I deleted Instagram about two months ago, the permissions have been easier for me to deal with.

The standby battery went from losing half overnight to losing a quarter, which is a win for me.

Some of that came down to smaller fixes, like a change one person made after their phone kept overheating because of a single background setting.

90% sounds like a lot until you realize that most apps never needed constant background access in the first place. Restricting access feels a lot easier if you focus only on the 10% of apps you need; the rest would stop meaning anything. You're not compromising on stuff, just making the obvious move.