One UI is quietly killing your Samsung battery — here's which 6 settings to disable

Samsung's OneUI keeps adding useful software features to the phone. As a longtime OneUI user, I like the overall customization that it tries to offer instead of a standard Android experience. But the battery life on my Samsung phone is slightly disappointing. I use a Galaxy S21 FE, a phone with modest hardware and a 4500 mAh battery that drains faster than it should.

Most of the time, it's due to a recent software update, but there are other culprits too. There are several OneUI settings I seldom use, and they continue to drain the already limited battery capacity. Let’s look at the features I turned off to prevent unnecessary battery drain.

Digital Wellbeing Usage Access

No need for 24-hour tracking

Digital Wellbeing is a parental control feature that monitors app usage on your phone. It’s helpful if you want to keep track of which apps you use most and identify problematic ones. However, the problem with this approach is that the feature keeps running in the background, and it's not difficult to identify which apps I use most.

The feature seems relevant from a protection standpoint, especially if you share the phone with a kid and want to monitor the app usage. But for me, it’s pointless. To turn it off:

1. Navigate to Settings->Digital Wellbeing and parental controls
2. Tap on the vertical ellipses button.
3. Select Settings ->Usage Data access >Settings.
4. Toggle off Allow permission.

Digital wellbeing won't log data unless you set it up again.

Nearby Device Scanning and Print

No need for continuous scans

I don’t use any Samsung or other brands' wireless accessories with my phone. I have an old pair of earphones connected to it via a USB-C DAC, and that makes Nearby Device Scanning redundant. It continuously looks for available Galaxy devices and notifies me if it finds something. The feature uses Bluetooth in the background and slowly hurts the battery life. On the same page, there’s a Print option as well, but I never use my phone for printing, so both these don’t need to be active.

1. Navigate to Settings ->Connections ->More connection settings.
2. Toggle off Nearby device scanning.
3. Tap on Printing and turn off all the available print services.

Additionally, you can disable NFC if you don't use Samsung Pay.

RAM Plus

I don’t need an additional memory boost

RAM Plus is a feature that forces the phone to use its fast UFS storage as additional memory. It’s good if your phone has less memory (4–6 GB), but my phone has 8GB, and I hardly use it to its full capacity. I mainly use Chrome, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Slack, and don’t play games or heavily multitask. Dedicating a portion of the phone storage makes little sense to me because my current memory capacity is more than enough for daily tasks. Here’s how to deactivate it:

1. Go to Settings ->Device care.
2. Tap on Memory ->RAM Plus.
3. Toggle off the feature and tap on Restart.

You'll notice a similar multi-tasking performance after OneUI restarts.

App background activity

Only a few apps need it

Once you install an application, it remains active in the background to check for new activity. For example, a social media app might check for new posts and messages, while other apps might check for updates. The problem is that not every app needs such a high level of background access. Some pre-installed and third-party apps continue to drain battery even though I rarely launch them.

OneUI can put unused apps to sleep, but it still allows occasional updates and other background activity. Instead, I manually put unnecessary apps into a deep sleep state that prevents them from any background activity. Repeat the following steps:

1. Navigate to Settings ->Battery ->Background usage limits.
2. Tap on Deep sleeping apps.
3. Tap on + and select apps from the list.
4. Select Add.

Use this option only for apps whose notifications and background activity aren't necessary for you.

Always on Display

Tap to show is more helpful

Always-on display (AOD) is a cool concept because it illuminates only a specific portion of the display rather than the entire screen. There are ample widgets to display time, date, and other information on the screen. AOD can also show incoming notifications without unlocking the phone screen. Despite its power-frugal nature, it still uses some battery to actively display the widget on your phone screen.

So, I use the Tap to show option rather than using an actively illuminated display. The phone screen turns to AOD for a short while after enabling the feature. Navigate to Settings ->Lock screen and AOD->Always On Display and select Tap to show. As the name suggests, you need to tap the screen once to show the AOD view for a couple of seconds.

Persistent app notifications

Incessant nudges and promotions

Notifications are the biggest menace apart from background usage, and even the apps you need tend to show too many. Food delivery apps show new deals, grocery apps display price crashes, and buy now notifications, while some third-party apps bug me with investment pop-ups and other irrelevant ads. It's very rare that these apps show a useful notification, which is why I keep them disabled except for a very few apps like Slack and WhatsApp.

To disable them, go to Settings ->Notifications ->App notifications. Deactivate the toggle next to apps you don’t need. It’ll prevent the apps from showing regular and lock screen notifications, and you won’t notice it even while using the app. Don’t disable notifications for messaging, banking, or communication apps, or you’ll miss OTPs and other critical, time-sensitive information.

Protecting your phone’s battery

There are software optimizations in OneUI to extend your phone’s battery life, prevent overcharging, and reduce faster degradation. But some OneUI settings still keep draining the battery in the background. I prefer the deep sleep option for most of the apps installed on my phone. Setting the AOD option to Tap to wake is a small but useful change, along with turning off the nearby device and other scanning options. The same applies to Digital Wellbeing, which I never bother to look at. Preinstalled Samsung apps also deserve the deep sleep treatment because they’re impossible to remove unless you use ADB tools.