If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, there are a few ways to disable background app refresh.
- Open the Settings app and select General > Background App Refresh.
- Scroll down and select Disable Background App Refresh on iPhone or iPad.
- Toggle off Background App Refresh on iPhone or iPad.
By default, your iPhone (or iPad) lets apps check for new data in the background. It can reduce loading times when switching back to an app, but it also reduces battery life, takes a bit of cellular data, and could allow some apps to spy on you. Here’s how to turn “Background App Refresh” off.
First, open the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
In “Settings,” tap “General.”
In “General,” tap “Background App Refresh.”
Next, you’ll see the “Background App Refresh” settings. If you’d like, you can disable Background App Refresh on an app-by-app basis here. Just tap the switch beside each app you’d like to disable to turn it off.
In 2019, the Washington Post discovered that some apps use the Background App Refresh feature to send data about your activities through the internet when you don’t suspect it, so unless you completely trust an app vendor and think the refreshing is likely useful to you, it is probably best to turn the feature off for most of your apps.
Luckily, Apple also makes it easy to completely disable Background App Refresh. To do so, tap “Background App Refresh” at the top of the page.
On the next screen, select “Off” from the list.
After that, exit Settings, and you’re all set.
Interestingly, Background App Refresh is one of the features that gets disabled when you enable Low Power Mode on your iPhone. Your iPhone will use less battery power in idle mode from now on.
RELATED: How to Use Low Power Mode on an iPhone (and What Exactly It Does)
