How To Make Google Maps Consume Less Battery

Avoid Running Out Of Battery Along The Way With These Eight Tips For Google Maps

Google Maps consumes too much battery. If you don’t want it to drain quickly, we’ll show you eight tricks to save battery with Google Maps. This way, you can arrive at your destination with a good load. They’re easy to activate, but we’ll walk you through each of them anyway. You can enable all, some of them, or just one, depending on your needs.

Limit Its Location Permission

This app must know where you are to guide you to your destination. To do this, we need to grant it location permission. However, we can grant it permission to know our location all the time or only when we use it. We recommend the latter option if you use Google Maps sporadically and not for driving every day. Thus, it will consume less energy. To change the location setting to Use only when we use it, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Select the Applications menu.
3. Tap Manage apps.
4. Find and go to Maps.
5. Tap Location permissions and choose Allow only when an app is in use.

The procedure for finding this command may vary depending on the make and model of your phone but is generally similar. The same goes for some of the following tricks, like stopping Maps from running in the background, but don’t worry. The changes usually come down to menu names.

Prevent It From Running In The Background

The second trick to prevent Google Maps from consuming too much battery is to prevent it from running in the background. An application may seem closed, but it continues to perform processes. This is called the background. It may be useful to restrict its activity in the case of Maps. 

Just like location permissions, this has its pros and cons. It will consume much less energy and mobile data but will not notify us of traffic alerts or weather changes. It all depends on what you’re using it for, but if you’ve already restricted its location permissions, it’s best to restrict its background functionality because it won’t know where you are unless you use it. Here’s how you can stop Maps from running in the background :

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Select the Applications menu.
3. Tap Manage apps.
4. Find and go to Maps.
5. Go to Power saving.
6. Select Limit background activity (or Restrict background apps).

Activate Dark Mode

One of the smartest actions to save battery is to activate the dark mode. If your phone has an OLED or AMOLED screen, the pixels in that area turn off when parts of the screen are black. This indicates that your device will consume less battery because it will not need to light up all the pixels. If you want to know more about screen types, here are the differences between AMOLED, OLED, and others. Enable Google Maps dark mode :

1. Go to Google Maps.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Select Theme.
4. Choose Always dark themes.

Remove Widgets

Widgets are small programs that are usually part of an application. You can recognize them because they take up part of the home screen and are not app icons. They display weather information, a music bar, or, as with Google Maps, information about nearby streets and traffic.

The problem is that widgets consume battery and run constantly, so deleting them saves a respectable charge. Just hold down the widget to bring up the delete option. If it doesn’t work that way, which is normal, go to the Settings app and select Widgets, where you can do it.

Update Google Maps

It’s rare, but sometimes a version of an app malfunctions, like consuming too much battery. By updating it, you can fix it. To do this, go to Play Store or App Store, depending on whether you have an Android or an iPhone, and check if an update is available.

Install The Go Version

You have Google Maps on your phone, the normal version we all know, but there is another one called Google Maps Go. This one has fewer features but also consumes less battery. It was designed to be downloaded on entry-level smartphones, common in developing countries, but has spread to the rest of the world due to its lower power consumption, storage, and performance.

Clear Cache

Clearing the Maps cache won’t save battery life, but it will free up storage space on your phone. This will allow the app to run more smoothly; indirectly, it should consume less charge. Deleting the cache is not something you have to do constantly because the app you delete it from will run slower. However, this is temporary until a new cache forms. Here’s how to clear Google Maps cache :

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Select the Applications menu.
3. Tap Manage apps.
4. Find and go to Maps.
5. Tap Clear Cache (this may appear as Delete Data or a similar term).

Use Maps Offline

As is logical, using the Internet on the phone consumes more battery than not using it. So you can use Maps without using data. It is true that the functions related to routes, traffic, and even location, will be limited, but you will still be able to see the map, with its roads and streets. This is an option to consider if you are very low on battery. To do this, turn off mobile data when using the app.

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