Soon, Android will finally let you monitor which apps use the most battery life on your phone. If you’re confused and thought you already had this functionality, you might be right! Some Android skins, such as the one on the Galaxy S8, and some apps, such as Greenify, already make it possible to detect which applications are draining your phone’s battery. However, in the next release of Android Oreo, that feature will at last come standard on Google’s mobile OS.
Image: Sam Rutherford/Gizmodo
As part of the update to Android 8.1, there will be a new section in Android’s battery settings that will call out abusive apps with a little red warning icon. The new battery drain monitoring will even provide you with information such as how much juice the offending app has sucked up and more specific info on what’s actually causing the drain.
The battery “app” on my pixel Xl on 8.1 is telling me which app is draining the battery @ArtemR @AndroidPolice pic.twitter.com/AsWRDb722f
— israel legault (@israel_legault) November 8, 2017
From there, you will be able to kill the app, or change its permissions to prevent the app from drawing excess power in the future. However, if an app is a habitually killing your battery, the best course of action may be to straight up delete it and find a replacement.
But really, it’s still just surprising that this functionality isn’t already a part of Android. A number of Android phones and even iOS have had this capability for years! It’s better late than never I guess. However, there’s no official ETA on when this feature will roll out to the general public, as the battery life monitor is still in beta, along with the rest of the Android 8.1.