Shutting down your iPhone every night used to be common advice to help prolong battery life and performance. However, with improvements in iOS and iPhone hardware over the years, routinely powering your iPhone off is no longer necessary for most users. There are some potential benefits but also drawbacks to shutting down your iPhone daily, so whether or not you should do it depends on your specific needs and preferences.
Quick Answers
Is it necessary to turn off my iPhone every night?
No, it is not necessary for most users to shut down their iPhone every night. Apple’s iOS operating system and iPhone hardware are designed to properly manage power, performance, and battery life without requiring a nightly shutdown.
What are the potential benefits of turning off my iPhone at night?
Potential benefits include maximizing battery life, giving the phone a ‘clean start’ each morning, and ensuring apps and processes are completely shut down overnight.
What are the drawbacks of shutting down my iPhone every night?
Drawbacks include missing overnight notifications and updates, longer boot up time in the morning, increased wear on the power button, and additional time/inconvenience to manually shut down and restart the device daily.
When might you want to shut down your iPhone at night?
Situations when nightly shutdown could be beneficial include if you don’t need notifications while sleeping, have an older iPhone model with poorer battery life, want to minimize background app activity, or regularly have issues each morning that could stem from apps not properly shutting down.
How Shutting Down May Prolong Battery Life
One of the main claimed benefits of shutting down your iPhone fully at night is to help prolong battery life. By completely powering down the device for hours while you sleep, the battery gets a chance to rest as it is not actively powering the iPhone and all of its processes. This can help slow battery aging and degradation over time.
When your iPhone is fully on and connected to the internet, there are countless behind-the-scenes processes running in the background that consume battery power. They include things like app refresh, document and data syncing, location services, OS tasks, and more. Even if you are not actively using your iPhone, just having it on and connected means your battery is passively draining to keep everything running.
Shutting your phone down completely eliminates any battery drain from background tasks, the cellular radio, screen, etc. This gives the battery extended rest time, which may have minor long-term benefits for its overall lifespan and capacity.
However, thanks to efficiency gains in hardware and software, background battery usage has been greatly reduced in modern iPhones. Many of the persistent drain issues that used to affect older models have been remedied. So for most users, the battery life benefits of a nightly shutdown will likely be relatively small. But it may still provide a bit of extra longevity, especially for those with older iPhones.
Maximizing Battery Health
To maximize your iPhone’s battery health and lifespan:
– Avoid exposing your iPhone to extreme hot or cold temperatures for extended periods
– Prevent the battery level from dropping below 20% or remaining fully charged to 100% too long
– Avoid using high drain accessories like external GPS units or accessories that generate excess heat
– Use Apple’s optimized charging and battery health features in iOS
– Consider turning off background app refresh and reducing fetch frequency
– Shut down the iPhone fully when storing long term and not in use
– Replace aging batteries to maintain capacity
An occasional overnight shutdown here and there in combination with the other tips above may help, but is likely not critical for most modern iPhone batteries.
Giving Your iPhone a ‘Clean Start’
Another potential benefit of powering your iPhone off at night is essentially giving it a clean start each morning when you turn it back on. Like any electronic device, iPhones can sometimes encounter minor software glitches or sluggish behavior, especially if apps are not closed properly or memory is not cleared out. Some users find doing a full shutdown allows their iPhone to start up fresh the next day which may help performance.
When powered on 24/7, your iPhone never fully clears out all running apps, services, memory usage, and cached/temporary data from RAM and storage. So overtime, minor software issues can accumulate. By fully shutting down, all apps and services are closed, the RAM empties, and the iPhone essentially gets a clean slate when you start it up again in the morning. This may prevent minor bugs or lag from persisting across days.
However, iOS and iPhones are generally very good at self-managing these issues, clearing cached data, and freeing up memory without needing a full restart. You can also manually force close any misbehaving apps as needed. So for most users, their iPhones will operate fine without a nightly shutdown and restart. But if you notice your iPhone having frustrating issues each morning that seem to resolve after a restart, fully powering down overnight can be worth considering.
Fixing iPhone Morning Issues
If you regularly experience sluggish performance, app crashes, or other problems when first starting your iPhone up each morning, try these troubleshooting steps:
– Check for and install any pending iOS software updates
– Force close any problem apps before shutting down
– Clear browser history and website data
– Turn off and restart your iPhone morning to clear memory
– Shut down your iPhone fully overnight
– As a last resort, backup and restore or erase all content and settings
Ensuring Proper App Close
One of the main causes of iPhone sluggishness over time is apps not properly shutting down in the background. When you open an app and then return to the home screen, that app is not fully closed. It keeps running in the background which consumes system resources over time and can cause problems. These issues compound when you repeatedly switch between many different apps during the day.
By fully shutting down your iPhone overnight, you ensure that any apps lingering in the background from the day’s use are completely closed out of the RAM. This prevents half-open apps from accumulating day after day. Then each morning you get a clean start with no apps running in the background right away.
However, properly closing background apps is also possible without fully shutting down the iPhone. You can force quit apps when done using them or use iOS features like Offload Unused Apps to fully close apps that are not actively running. Apps also do get terminated from the background after a period of inactivity. So app close is not solely dependent on a full shut down.
Missing Notifications and Updates Overnight
One of the main drawbacks of fully shutting down your iPhone each night is that you will not receive any notifications or updates while powered off. For some users this is desirable, allowing you to disconnect fully from work, social media, news, and other sources of notifications while asleep. However, others may not want to miss certain overnight alerts and updates by powering their phone completely down.
Important or time sensitive notifications you may miss by shutting down your iPhone at night include:
– Text messages or calls from family or friends
– Emails from work colleagues, especially if working across time zones
– Application notifications and updates
– News alerts and breaking stories
– Smart home device malfunctions or security alerts
– Software, app, and OS updates installing overnight
– Calendar, reminder, or alarm notifications scheduled overnight
– Delivery updates and tracking notifications from services like Amazon
The hassle of having to manually update and check apps each morning after a full shutdown is another disadvantage for some users.
Types of Notifications You May Miss
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Communication | Text messages, phone calls, emails |
| Work Related | Emails from colleagues, work chat messages |
| News & Information | Breaking news alerts, traffic updates |
| Smart Home | Security system alerts, device malfunction notices |
| Software Updates | App updates, iOS updates, cloud backup status |
Longer Boot Up Time
When you shut down your iPhone fully at night, it will take longer to start up in the morning compared to devices left on overnight. This is because powering on from a fully shut down state means the iPhone has to completely reload the operating system and reboot rather than quickly waking from sleep mode.
The boot up process on modern iPhones typically takes between 30-60 seconds when powered on from shut down. That may not seem overly lengthy, but it is slower than the near instant wake from sleep all iPhones normally experience when not powered off. Some users may find the extra boot time each morning annoying.
However, Apple has made start up time much faster over the generations of iPhones. Older models could take several minutes to start from a powered down state. So while you do sacrifice a bit of convenience for the full shut down method, the boot delay may not be a major issue, especially if you build the extra time into your morning routine.
iPhone Boot Up Time from Shut Down
| iPhone Model | Boot Time from Shut Down |
|---|---|
| iPhone 14/14 Pro | 25-35 seconds |
| iPhone 13/13 Pro | 30-45 seconds |
| iPhone 12/12 Pro | 45-60 seconds |
| iPhone 11/11 Pro | 1-1.5 minutes |
| iPhone XS/XS Max | 1.5-2 minutes |
| iPhone XR | 1.5-2 minutes |
| iPhone X | 1.5-2 minutes |
| iPhone 8/8 Plus | 1.5-2 minutes |
Increased Wear on Power Button
Fully powering your iPhone on and off daily can add extra wear to the side or top power/standby button over time. This button is one of the most frequently used physical controls on the iPhone. It already gets pressed multiple times per day by most users just while locking and unlocking their phone.
Having to press and hold the power button for 5+ seconds to manually shut down, followed by another press to turn it back on adds considerably more cycles each day. After years of repeated use, this can potentially cause the power button to wear out or become faulty.
However, power and volume buttons on modern iPhones are generally very sturdy and rated for thousands of presses over their lifetime. So the amount of extra wear from nightly shutdowns may not be severe enough to impact button reliability before other components age or you upgrade your iPhone. But it is still an added stress factor on the power button compared to just letting normal sleep/wake functions manage overnight.
Time and Inconvenience
While only taking about 5 seconds, fully shutting down and then rebooting your iPhone is an added chore each night and morning. Some users may not want to bother with the minor time and inconvenience of manually powering their phone on and off daily compared to just letting it sleep and wake as needed.
You have to make sure to shutdown your phone before bed, remember to restart it when you wake up, and the iPhone is unusable during the 30-60 second boot up time in the morning. Setting a daily reminder and building the shutdown process into your nightly routine can help make it more habitual if you choose to do it. But many see it as annoying micromanaging of their phone.
The lost convenience may be worth it those who notice real benefits from the overnight shutdown. But users who rarely experience issues with standard sleep/wake functions may see the manual shutdowns as unnecessary work.
When Nightly Shutdown May Be Useful
While shutting down your iPhone fully each night is not critical for most modern devices, there are some situations where it could be beneficial:
You have an older iPhone model – Older iPhones are more prone to battery degradation, sluggish performance, and OS/app issues that may benefit from a periodic clean start.
You need to maximize battery life – Fully shutting down at night provides extended resting time for your battery which can help prolong its lifespan over years of use.
You want to minimize background activity – If you have privacy concerns, shutting down stops all network access and background app tasks completely while asleep.
You have morning performance problems – If you regularly struggle with a sluggish, crashing iPhone each morning, a shutdown may help provide a fresh start.
You don’t need notifications at night – If you want to be fully disconnected overnight with no chance of notifications disturbing you, a shutdown ensures you miss nothing.
So in summary – a nightly full shutdown offers some benefits but is likely unnecessary maintenance for most modern iPhone users. However, it can be a useful troubleshooting trick or habit for certain situations and preferences.
Other Options for Overnight iPhone Care
If you decide a full shutdown each night is overkill for your needs, but still want to optimize your iPhone’s overnight behavior, here are a few alternatives to consider:
– Enable Optimized Battery Charging to reduce wear from overcharging
– Use a timer to automatically enable Do Not Disturb overnight
– Manually force quit any problem apps before bedtime
– Turn on Airplane Mode overnight to eliminate network access
– Disable unnecessary background app activity options
– Enable Low Power Mode or turn down screen brightness at night
– Use a smart power plug to cut charging current after hitting 80%
Frequently Asked Questions
Does fully shutting down my iPhone help the battery?
Shutting down your iPhone overnight allows the battery extended idle time which can help slow aging, but modern power management minimizes the need for this. Performing a full shutdown about once per week is sufficient for most users.
Will shutting down my iPhone improve performance?
Restarting your iPhone helps clear out memory and ensures apps are fully closed, providing a ‘clean start’. But iOS is very capable of managing this automatically without requiring a daily full shutdown for most users. Only do it if you regularly notice problems each morning that improve after a restart.
What about just restarting my iPhone instead of fully shutting down?
Restarting (powering down then back up without a full shut off) can provide some of the same fixes as a full shutdown if you do it regularly. But background apps and services may restart in the background, so shutdowns provide maximum reset of the OS and RAM.
What are the downsides to shutting down my iPhone each night?
Fully shutting down means you miss overnight notifications and updates. It also takes more time to shut down and boot up each morning. And repeatedly powering off/on adds wear to the physical power button over years of use.
Should I be worried about wearing out my iPhone’s power button?
Power buttons are robust, but shutting down daily does add extra clicks. The shutdown habit mainly just needs to be convenient and beneficial enough to be worthwhile for you despite the slight added wear and tear.
The Bottom Line
While shutting down your iPhone completely each night was once recommended, doing so is no longer necessary for most modern iPhone models and iOS versions. The latest hardware and software is designed to properly maintain performance and battery life during normal daily use without full shutdowns.
However, there are some potential benefits in terms of battery longevity, app close, and a fresh start each morning. If you have an older iPhone, regularly deal with performance issues on wakeup, or simply want maximum battery maintenance, a nightly full shutdown may be worthwhile. But also weigh annoyances like missing notifications and longer boot ups.
Consider your own needs and troubleshooting experience. A weekly or occasional shutdown can split the difference. But if you see no real benefit, letting iOS manage your iPhone overnight and saving yourself the shutdown hassle is generally fine. Monitor battery life and test different approaches to decide what works best for you.