How to control background refresh on your iPhone and iPad

Background refresh is part of what allows any app for iPhone or iPad to appear to be multitasking all the time. The truth is, they're really multitasking "just in time" by updating in the background whenever they have the opportunity — or right before they figure you'll be launching them.

In spite of how efficient Apple has tried to make background refresh, some apps still manage to consumer a ton of power and resources. Yes, looking at Facebook so hard... Luckily, if either your battery life or your data limit is a concern, you can turn off background refresh all together — or just for those apps you don't consider that important.

How to turn off Background App Refresh on iPhone or iPad

  1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.

  2. Tap on General.

    launch settings app, then tap general

  3. Tap Background App Refresh.

  4. Toggle Background App Refresh to off. The switch will become grayed-out when toggled off.

    tap background refresh, then toggle background refresh to off

How to turn off Background App Refresh for individual apps on iPhone and iPad

The master switch handles Background App Refresh for all apps at the same time. But what if you want to turn it off for some apps only? You can do that by toggling off the switches for each individual app. Here's how to do that/

  1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.

  2. Tap on General.

    launch settings app, then tap general

  3. Tap Background App Refresh.

  4. Toggle Background App Refresh switch to the right of the app for which you wish to disable it to off. The switch will become grayed-out when toggled off.

    Tap Background App Refresh then toggle the switch to off beside the app for which you wish to disable it

That's it for Background App Refresh. If you ever want to turn it back on, simply go back and toggle the switches to on.

iOS

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