In this fast-paced modern world, smartphones have become indispensable for communication, business, entertainment, and other activities. As they become more powerful, the faster their charging has become now nearly criminally prolonged, nothing is more torturous when it comes to charging than waiting interminably. If your phone is charging slower than usual, you are not alone. Slow charging will frustrate virtually all users, and fortunately, most of them are quite salvageable.
As this slow charging could be a software issue or hardware damage, it can happen on both an Android phone and an iPhone. In this manual, we explain some common reasons for slow charging and inform you how to counteract them. By the time you finish reading, you will have everything in your arsenal to fix charging issues on your phone.
What Causes My Phone To Charge Slowly?
Before rushing into solutions, it is important to deliberate when it comes to causes of slow charging: Identifying the underlying cause is bound to save you time and brainwork as you try to correct issues. A few common causes for slow charging are:
- Outdated Charging Cable: A charging cable is among the biggest factors to be taken into consideration when it comes to charging. A frayed cable, damaged wiring, or poor quality will drastically lessen charging speed.
- Quality of the Charging Adapter or its Damage: Like the cable, the adapter, or wall charger also plays an important role in the speed your phone will charge. A malfunctioning adapter or an incompatible adaptor could mean your charge with the very same cable does nothing to hasten the process of charging.
- Dirty or Clogged Charging Port: Over time, dust, lint, and other particles may accumulate in a phone’s charging port, impeding connection between the charging cable and the phone.
- Battery Degradation: Over time, as the phone becomes older, the battery may degrade, which may hamper efficient and effective charging. An old battery would probably take longer to accept a charge, resulting in slow charging.
- Background Apps and Processes: If there are too many apps or processes running simultaneously on the phone while it is charging, the charging speed will greatly dwindle, as its resources are shared with other activities.
- Temperature: Hot conditions will contribute to charging your phone and will cause your phone to heat up when you are using it. Slow charging will take place subsequently or the phone will start throttling itself to protect itself from damage.
- Old Software: The phone’s operating system is an additional culprit in certain instances of software errors that could delay charging. Therefore, ensure that your phone’s software is also updated.
- Night-Sleeping Mode: Some phones are fitted with a battery-saving mode. As a result, it curtails the charging speed to minimize wear and tear on battery life, thus creating an illusion of slow charging.
Ways to Fix a Phone with Slow Charging
Now that we understand the possible causes of why a phone is charging slowly, let’s explore the solutions. Outlined are the complete solutions that could help you speed up the process and restore charging efficiency.
1. Rethink your charging cable and adapter
Faulty or cheap and shoddy charging cables have for long posed as the perfect traitor behind slow charging. Cheap, off-brand cables often are unable to support the heightened charging demands of today’s handsets. If you are using an off-brand or a third-party charger, just switch to the original one that came with the phone.
Steps to take:
- Examine the cable for torn or frayed spots. If there are any such signs, change the cable for a newer one.
- Test with a different adapter and check if the problem persists. Use an alternate charger if you have access to it to see whether charging speed improves.
- Use a fast-charging cable, specifically designed for your phone model. For instance, if you have a USB-C phone with fast charging support, use a USB-C cable that conforms to certain fast charging standards, like USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) or Qualcomm Quick Charge.
2. Clean the Charging Port
A dirty or obstructed charging port can also be among the causes of slow charging. Dust, lint, or some other form of blockage may be interfering with the connection of the charging cable and the phone. Without reconnecting, the phone may be impeded from charging as expected.
Steps to take:
- Switch off the phone and turn it upside down.
- With a small soft brush or a toothbrush, clean the port using a light touch, ensuring not to damage the internal connectors.
- Make use of your mouth to blow air gently into the charging port.
- If need be, utilize compressed air for cleaning the port.
3. Update Phone Software
Charging issues sometimes occur when software is out of date or buggy due to some problems with the operating system. Software updates usually come along with bug fixes and performance optimizations that can speed up the charging process.
Steps to take:
- Go to your phone settings.
- Scroll down to Software Update or About Phone, depending on your device.
- Search for available updates and install them if available.
- If the phone is updated already, restarting it out after an update does help in ridding any temporary glitches.
4. Restart Your Phone
Sometimes, a simple restart may be a miracle worker for a minor software glitch slowing down your charging process. This can remove any background running apps or unnecessary system processes that are draining your phone’s resources.
Steps to take:
- Press and hold down the power button on your phone.
- From the menu options, choose Restart or Reboot.
- Wait until your phone has restarted, then check to see if the charging speed has now improved.
5. Charge in Airplane Mode
Airplane mode may speed up charging quite simply because it disables features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular data. With these services off, your phone uses less power, thus it can charge faster.
Steps to take:
- Pull down your screen from the top to get the Quick Settings menu.
- Tap on the Airplane Mode icon to enable it.
- Plug in the charger and let the phone charge under Airplane Mode.
Otherwise, without using the airplane mode, you could turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth manually.
6. Do Not Use Phone While Charging
Using your phone during charging slows things down. Gaming, watching videos, or running heavy apps consumes significant resources, which are responsible for diverting energy away from the charging process.
Steps to take:
- Avoid the use of an intensive task involving your phone charging.
- If it’s absolutely necessary to use your phone, limit it to lighter tasks like browsing or reading.
7. Always Wall Charge rather than USB
While using a USB port on a computer seems convenient, it’s by no means fast. Charging speed via USB ports is usually considerably less than that offered by a wall charger.
Step to Try Out:
- Use a wall adapter and plug it directly into a wall outlet for faster charging.
- Use a USB port only if absolutely necessary, like when charging from a car USB port, and check that the port delivers enough power for fast charging.
8. Check Battery Health
If your phone is several years old, it might have had its runtime recently degraded with factors such as charging and temperature. This ultimately affects the charging speed at which the phone receives a charge too.
Step to try:
- On iPhones, navigate to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. Check whether the battery’s maximum capacity is lower than 100%. If it is, replacement is necessary.
- On Android phones, while some devices include a Battery Health option within their settings, an alternative solution is to install third-party apps like AccuBattery or GSam Battery Monitor, which can help diagnose battery health.
If it’s not good, then probably you should take it to the service center for a change.
9. Disable Battery-Saving Features
Most modern smartphones come with features embedded in the system to save the battery. This is practical regarding saving the juice of your phone longer, but invariably ends up slowing the charging speeds by restricting power consumption for the purposes of certain apps and functions.
Steps to follow:
- Turn off any forms of Battery Saver or Power Saving Mode.
- Disable any low-power settings that could hinder the phone’s charging capacity.
10. Try a Different Way of Charging
Some newly introduced phones support fast charging technologies, for example, Qualcomm Quick Charge, USB-Power Delivery (USB-PD), and Warp Charge. If your charger does not support these technologies, it could be blaming for the inferior charging speeds.
Steps to take:
- Go for a fast charger compatible with your phone model.
- Confirm that the charging cable also supports quick-charging speeds.
- Use a fast wireless charger if your phone supports wireless charging (though note that wireless charging is typically slower than wired charging).
11. Factory Reset (Last Resort)
If all else fails, factory resetting your phone sometimes fixes slow charging issues caused by malfunctioning software or corrupt settings. A factory reset wipes out all information saved on your phone, so ensure you back up everything before proceeding.
Steps to take:
- On your phone, open Settings > System > Reset Options.
- Select Factory Data Reset and complete all the prompts.
Check if fast charging has been restored.
Conclusion
Charger forgets to charge your phone slowly which is frustrating, but there is good news: Occasionally that is amendable. Once you detect the reason for slow charging, you can fix it sooner without replacing your device. Give your port a good cleaning. Go with the correct cable and adapter. Disable battery-saving modes.
When in doubt, go through the previous troubleshooting tips and if that did not help, it is possibly time to replace the battery or go seek professional help. Staying vigilant to bad charging practices extending therapy will extend both the lifespan of you and your device.