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The One iPhone Setting You Should Turn Off Immediately For Faster Performance

February 13, 2025 by Lisa Cupido

 
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A slow, poor-performing iPhone is almost as bad as no device at all. When our phones stall, it can drive us up a wall as we wait for it to download apps, upload files, send text messages, and load web pages. There are a few reasons why your phone may not be as efficient as it usually is, and the first thing you should consider is the age of your device. If you’re working with a 10-year-old iPhone, it may be time to consider updating your model. Similarly, if your phone battery is old and hasn’t been replaced in a long time (or ever) you could get away with purchasing a new battery.

But if everything else about your phone checks out, giving your attention over to some of the iPhone settings that can slow your phone down is a smart idea. There’s one iPhone setting you should turn off if you’re experiencing issues — it isn’t adding much to your experience and could be taking away in terms of speed, battery power, and efficiency.

Background App Refresh


Background App Refresh is a convenient setting that, when enabled, updates your apps’ content in the background. In other words, when you are working hard doing anything other than checking these apps, this setting refreshes your social media feed, fetches new emails, and other tasks so that the second you click on the app, all of its freshest, most recent content is right at the top.


It’s a nice-to-have setting, but by no means is it a must-have one. And, unfortunately, the amount of battery power and data it can take up isn’t worth what it consumes.

Because this setting is constantly at work updating apps, Background App Refresh can easily drain your battery power. Apps like Facebook or a news app continually update, which means Background App Refresh is continually working to keep them updated. Because this background task uses CPU, this has an impact on your phone’s speed and performance, as well.


You can choose to turn off Background App Refresh for specific apps and only leave it on for others, or disable it altogether to save battery and data. To do this, head to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

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