Windows 10 is a friendly enough operating system for laptops. There are some features offered by Windows 10 to make your laptop battery lasts longer, including the built-in Battery Saver. In addition, you can also make some adjustments and settings to get an even longer battery life.

There are some factors affecting the battery life of a laptop. All hardware components installed on your laptop require a power source to work and they rely on the laptop battery to operate. The simplest way to improve the battery life on your laptop is by disabling the installed hardware — like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and so on — when not in use and lowering the brightness level of the monitor.

In addition to hardware, software also consume battery power. There are even some software that power-hungry enough. Windows 10 itself comes with a feature that allows you to figure out which apps consume more power.

Here are some tips to improve the battery life in Windows 10.

1. Disable UI animations and shadows

Windows 10 comes with a very nice user interface. When you perform certain action regarding the app window like maximizing and minimizing, you will see a pretty animation effects. There are also shadows to make the interface of Windows 10 looks cooler than other Windows versions. However, the animation effects and shadows can make your laptop battery run out faster although not too significant. You can disable the animation effects and shadows to extend the battery life.

Open System Properties (Windows+Pause/Break) and click Advanced system settings on the left panel.

Move to Advanced tab and click Settings on the Performance section.

Select the Adjust for best performance option on the Visual Effects tab and click OK. This will disable all the animations and shadows.

2. Disable background apps

Some Windows apps like Calendar, Mail and Microsoft Store run in the background to keep information updated and give you some notifications. Every app running in Windows 10 consume power, including the ones in the background. If you don’t want apps like Windows Store, Calendar and Mail to run in the background, you can turn them off to save your battery. Turning off the background process affect nothing to the associated apps. They will work fine when you open them.

Open Windows Settings and select Privacy.

Click Background apps on the left panel.

Select the background apps you want to stop by sliding the button. To turn off all of the background apps, simply slide the button on Let apps run in the background.

3. Disable unnecessary startup apps and services

Some apps and services run immediately as the computer turned on. For security apps like antivirus, it is cool. But, having too many startups and services is not too good for your battery life as well as your RAM. You can disable unnecessary startups apps and services to extend the battery life.

• Disable startup apps.

Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and move to Startup tab. Select an app you want to disable the startup of and click the Disable button on the bottom-right corner.

• Disable startup services

Open System Configurations. You can do so by pressing Windows+R and typing msconfig on the Run dialog.

After hitting enter, the System Configurations will open. Go to the Services tab and check the Hide all Microsoft services option at the bottom-left corner. You should now see all startup services. Simply uncheck the services you don’t need and click OK to apply the changes.

You need to restart your laptop before this changes apply.

4. Turn off some of the CPU processors

Modern processors have more than one cores. If you just need to browse the web, it’s okay to only use two or three cores to save the battery. You can use all cores if you want to perform a more complex computing. You can turn off the CPU cores via System Configurations. Press Windows+R and type msconfig on Run dialog.

System Configurations window will open once you hit enter. Go to Boot tab. With the current OS selected, click Advanced options button.

Check the Number of processors option and select the number of cores you want to use from the drop-down menu and click OK.

You need to restart your laptop to apply this change.

5. Decrease the brightness level of the monitor

Decreasing the brightness level of monitor is the common method to save battery life. This is a simple theory that the brighter your your monitor, the more power it takes. There are some ways to decrease the brightness of your monitor. Nearly all current laptops have a brightness key on the keyboard. Commonly, the key works by pairing it with the Fn key. Alternatively, you can open the Windows Settings and select System. Click Display on the left panel and use the slider to adjust the brightness level.

6. Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when not in use

Nearly all current laptop models have these two wireless connectivity features and you don’t need to use them all the time. Given that they consume battery power when working, turning them off when not in use can extend the battery life of your laptop. You can turn them off by going to Windows Settings -> Devices. Or, you can also click the icons on the system tray.

7. Figure out which running apps consume more power

Windows 10 allows you to figure out the power consumption of the running apps. If you really care about your battery life, you can try several alternatives to the apps you use on your daily basis. For instance, many say that Microsoft Edge is about 36 to 53 more efficient at consuming power than Chrome and Firefox. To figure out the power consumption of each app in Windows 10, go to Windows Settings -> System. Select Battery on the left panel and click the See which apps are affecting your battery life link.

8. Turn off keyboard backlights when you don’t need it

If your laptop has keyboard backlight feature, you can also turn it off to help your battery life longer. You won’t definitely use this feature all time. Same as monitor brightness, you should also find a key on your keyboard to turn off the backlights. If you don’t find the key, you can turn off the keyboard backlights via Windows Mobility Center. Open Windows Settings and type “mobility” on the search box to access Windows Mobility Center.

Conclusion

Windows 10 is basically a laptop friendly operating system. It has some built-in features to help your battery laptop last longer. You can also make some tweaks to get the most out of the available features to improve the battery life. There might some third party apps out there to help you improve the battery life. Before installing one, you can try applying the tips above.