Android apps are required to ask for permission to access your photos, track your steps, read notifications, and much more. Some Permissions have a bigger impact on your phone’s performance than others. There are three, in particular, that shouldn’t be granted willy-nilly.
There was a time when Android apps could access quite a lot of stuff on your phone without needing to ask for permission first. Those days are behind us, but the frequent permission requests can become easy to skip through. However, there are several reasons why you shouldn’t do that, and it’s not just about privacy and security.
A brief rundown of Android permissions
Let’s start with an overview of the most common permissions that Android apps can request. Here’s Google’s official descriptions:
- Calendar: Access your calendar.
- Call logs: Read and write your phone call log.
- Camera: Take pictures and record videos.
- Contacts: Access your contacts.
- Files: Access all files on your device.
- Health, Wellness, Fitness (formerly “Body Sensors”): Access health data, records, and sensor info about your vital signs.
- Location: Access your device’s location.
- Microphone: Record audio.
- Music and audio: Access music and other audio files on your device.
- Nearby devices: Find, connect to, and determine the relative position of nearby devices.
- Notifications: Send notifications.
- Phone: Make and manage phone calls.
- Photos and videos: Access photos and videos on your device.
- Physical activity: Access your physical activity, like walking, biking, driving, step count, and more.
- SMS: Send and check SMS messages.
These permissions are mainly for when an app is trying to access something from your phone. There are other permissions that pertain to how an app behaves. While the permissions above are important, you won’t find the biggest battery offender on the list. So let’s do some digging.
Which permissions impact battery life the most?
Many of the permissions listed above are for “on-demand” tasks. For example, when you’re sending a photo to your friend, that’s when the “Photos and videos” permission kicks in. However, it’s the permissions that often allow apps to constantly be doing something in the background that can drain your battery.
You can find a full list of permissions and the apps that have been granted access by opening the Settings app on your Android phone and searching for “Permission Manager.”
Location
You know that the Location permission is responsible for allowing an app to access your device’s GPS location. The nice thing about it is that there are multiple options for just how much location access you want to allow. The problem is that people often give too much, and battery life suffers for it.
First of all, there are two accuracy options when an app asks for Location access: “Precise” and “Approximate.” The “Precise” option uses GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other sensors to pinpoint your exact location. All of that work requires more power than the “Approximate” option, which only relies on an internet connection.
Apps will also ask you to decide how often they can grab your location. The “Allow all the time” option is the biggest battery killer. Some apps legitimately need this—like Google Maps for navigation or a weather widget. However, plenty of apps that ask for it do not need it. In those cases, “Allow only while using the app” is your friend.
Nearby Devices
Here’s a fun fact: turning off Bluetooth does not guarantee that apps aren’t still looking for devices nearby. This is where the cryptic permission called “Nearby Devices” comes in. Essentially, it allows apps to access devices that are physically nearby but not physically connected.
Wireless headphones are a big one, but they also include things like smart plugs, routers, fitness trackers, smart speakers, and more. You’ll probably be surprised by how many apps on your phone have the Nearby Devices permission granted. These apps are allowed to constantly scan for known and unknown devices to connect to. Whether or not any of those devices are actually nearby is irrelevant—the scanning doesn’t stop.
Background Activity
Some permissions don’t appear in the “Permission Manager,” and there’s one in particular to know about. Android apps are allowed to run in the background by default—it’s what makes multitasking on Android work so well. However, you may not want every single app on your phone to have this ability. Thankfully, you can take it away, which will essentially kill the app when you’re not using it.
Depending on your device, this process can be very different. On a Google Pixel and many other Android phones, go to Settings > Apps > Select an app. On the App Info page, scroll down and select “App battery usage.” There will be a toggle called “Allow background usage” that you can turn off.
For Samsung Galaxy devices, you’ll need to go to Settings > Battery > Background usage limits > Deep sleeping apps. Tap the “+” icon in the top corner and select the app that you don’t want to run in the background. Galaxy phones will automatically put apps you haven’t used in a long time on this list.
The difference in battery life after revoking these permissions will depend on how many apps were overusing them. Even if you don’t notice a huge change, it’s never a bad thing to take inventory of app permissions and make sure no one is going rogue. Just because an app asks for permission doesn’t mean you have to grant it.
