To improve battery backup time and preserve battery life, you can turn on the battery saver mode in Windows 10. Here’s how to do it.
For Windows 10 laptop users, there is a simple and accessible setting called Battery Saver that limits the overall battery usage to improve its backup time. Some call the Battery Saver as Power Saver mode. So, don’t get confused if someone uses both these words interchangeably.
When the power saver mode is turned on, Windows reduces the screen brightness, limits background activity, and disables all notifications.
By default, Windows 10 automatically enables the battery saver mode when your battery is at or below 20% percent. That way, you will get a bit more time before the laptop shuts down completely due to low battery. If you want to, you can manually enable it whenever you want to extend the battery life. For example, if your laptop has 8 hours of battery backup, the battery saver mode can extend it to around 10 hours provided that you are not doing any heavy work on the laptop.
In today’s article, let me show you the steps to turn on battery saver in a Windows 10 laptop.
Table of contents:
How to turn on battery saver mode
Time needed: 1 minute
You can turn on the battery saver mode from the Windows 10 Settings app. The option is located in the Battery tab on the System page. Here’s how you can find and turn it on.
- Open the Windows 10 Settings app
The battery saver option is in the Settings app. So, open the Settings app with the “Windows key + I” shortcut. Alternatively, press “Windows key + X” and select the “Settings” option.
- Go to “System” and then to “Battery”
In the Settings app, select “System” on the main page and then select the “Battery” tab on the sidebar. All the battery settings are in the Battery tab.
- Turn on battery saver option
Under the battery saver section, turn on the switch to enable battery saver in Windows 10.
- Close the Settings app
All the changes are saved automatically. You can close the settings app by click the “X” button to the top right-corner of the window.
That is all. With that, you’ve successfully enabled the battery saver mode in Windows 10.
Turn on battery saver automatically
You can turn on the battery saver automatically when the battery reaches a certain percentage.
To do that, enable the battery saver option and select a percentage from the dropdown menu under it. There are 7 options to choose from. They are as follows:
- Never: Battery saver never turns on automatically.
- 10%: Turns on automatically when the battery is at or below 10%.
- 20%: Turns on automatically when the battery is at or below 20%.
- 30%: Turns on automatically when the battery is at or below 30%.
- 40%: Turns on automatically when the battery is at or below 40%.
- 50%: Turns on automatically when the battery is at or below 50%.
- Always: Battery saver is always turned on regardless of how much charge is left in the battery.
The default setting is 20%. When the laptop battery reaches 20% or less, the battery saver turns on automatically.
Disable battery saver mode
- Open Windows 10 settings.
- Go to the “System → Battery” page.
- Turn off the “Battery saver” option on the right page.
- Close the Settings app.
With the above steps, you’ve successfully disabled the Windows 10 battery saver mode.
Battery Saver option is grayed out
On some occasions, the battery saver option can appear grayed out. A grayed out battery option means the laptop is running on AC power. i.e, the laptop is connected to a wall plug. When connected to the wall plug with active power, the battery saver option is disabled as the laptop is no longer running on the battery.
To fix grayed out battery saver option, unplug the laptop from wall power. As soon as you do that, the battery saver option will appear normally.
What is battery saver mode
The battery saver mode in Windows 10 is designed to improve the battery backup time and extend the time you can use your laptop. For example, when traveling or on long journeys, you might not have quick access to charge the laptop. In those cases, you can turn on the battery saver to extend the battery life.
Some laptop manufacturers offer their own software like Lenovo battery saver mode but they work pretty similarly to the built-in tool. So don’t worry about using a third-party program to extend battery backup time.
When the battery saver is turned on, Windows 10 will limit the background processes, disable all notifications, and lowers the screen brightness (optional). In addition to that, Windows 10 also limits the overall power usage by your laptop CPU and GPU. As such, depending on your CPU and GPU, the laptop can be a bit slower than when connected to AC power.
Wrapping up: Turn on battery saver mode
As you can see, Windows 10 makes it quite easy to turn off and turn on the battery saver mode. Though there is a performance penalty to turning on the battery saver mode, it is worth it if you want to extend the battery backup time as long as possible.
As of now, there is no way for you to fine-tune the battery saver settings. For example, you cannot control how much CPU and GPU power to limit. Hopefully, Microsoft will add those options in the future Windows 10 versions.
That is all. I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible.
