Background App Refresh is one of the most misunderstood toggles in iOS Settings. Some people turn it all off for battery; others are too scared to touch it. This article explains what it actually does, the real impact of turning it off, and the recommended middle ground.
What it is
Background App Refresh allows apps to update over the network while you're not looking at them: a news app preloads articles, a weather app refreshes the forecast, a podcast app downloads the next episode automatically.
The upside: fresh content the moment you open the app. The cost: silent battery drain, heat, and network usage. Every app active in the background burns CPU and radio — enough apps and it adds up to a meaningful hidden overhead.
The real impact of turning it off
Many people don't dare turn it off, afraid of "missing messages." Let's be clear:
- Push notifications are unaffected — messages and email alerts travel over Apple's system-level push channel, a completely separate thing from Background App Refresh
- Foreground use is unaffected — apps still go online and update when you open them; what you lose is only the "preload before you open"
- Real-time scenarios lag half a beat — for example, you want a navigation app to keep updating your route in the background (walking navigation with the screen locked)
In short: the loss is small, and the battery and heat savings are real.
Recommended setup: the whitelist mode
- Open
Settings → General → Background App Refresh - Keep the master toggle on (or set it to "Wi-Fi" only)
- Turn apps off one by one, keeping only those that genuinely need real-time background updates:
- Chat apps (so messages preload in the background)
- Email (timely delivery)
- Ones you explicitly want working in the background (run tracking, smart home)
- News, shopping, video, and utility apps — turn them all off; you won't feel it
While you're at it, check Location Services
Location is another "background battery hog" — often worse than Background App Refresh:
- Path:
Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services - Switch apps that don't need real-time location to "While Using," and ones that don't need it at all to "Never"
- Watch for abnormal entries marked "recently used / frequently" — if an app you haven't opened in ages is still locating you frequently, that's your battery thief
Taming Background App Refresh and Location Services are the two highest-value moves for "cooler and more battery-friendly without new hardware." If the phone still heats and drains after this, look in the direction of demanding apps and battery aging — the usage list under Settings → Battery covers the last 24 hours and the last 10 days, which is usually enough to name the app at fault; see Why Does My Phone Get Hot? and What Is Battery Health?.
This page is the battery-and-performance case for which apps to keep on. The setting-level questions — what the switch actually controls, what changes when you turn it off, and how to decide app by app — are covered in What Is Background App Refresh?, What Happens When You Turn Off Background App Refresh? and Which Apps Should Keep Background App Refresh On?.