How to check your iPad's battery health

If you want to extend how long a single charge will last, you can enable Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery), reduce screen brightness and activate Auto-Brightness. Turn off Background App Refresh (Settings > General), limit Location Services for apps.

Longer term, a lithium-ion battery’s lifespan is related to its chemical age. The amount of charge that the battery can hold is reduced by chemical aging, which reduces peak performance and battery life.

Chemical aging can be caused by a combination of temperature history, charging pattern and other factors. Recent iPads are designed to automatically works to provide the best possible performance throughout that process of chemical aging by monitoring its power needs and managing performance to address it.

That said, battery aging can still lead to noticeable effects, which can be temporary or permanent. This can include longer app launch times, lower frame rates in video, increased processing times, reduced wireless-data throughput, backlight dimming, or lower speaker volume.

It's recommended to keep charge levels between 20-80% for long-term health. Reducing the time that your iPad spends fully charged reduces the wear on your battery.

With newer iPad models (since 2024), you can choose to limit charging at 80%, which can help prolong your battery's lifespan. To enable or disable this feature go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health.

When you choose the limit, your iPad will charge up to about 80% and then stop. If the battery charge level gets down to 75 per cent, charging will resume until the battery reaches about 80% again.

Even with the 80% Limit enabled, your iPad will occasionally charge to 100% to maintain accurate battery state-of-charge estimates.

Apple recommends avoiding using or charging your iPad in ambient temperatures higher than 35° C / 95° F, which can permanently reduce battery lifespan. On the other hand,

Apple says turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth does little to extend battery life as these are designed to draw minimal power when not connected to a network or accessory.

How long a single charge last varies across models and generations due to the different batteries used. Most models provide roughly 10 hours of consistent, moderate use, such as web surfing. The 13-inch iPad Pro generally offers the longest battery life at up to over 13 hours due to its higher capacity 38.99-watt-hour battery

On all models, how long a charge lasts can decrease by over half when doing heavy tasks like gaming, video editing or using high-power apps. Using mobile data instead of Wi-Fi will also often reduce battery life.

When using your iPad in a very cold environment, you might notice a decrease in battery life. This is temporary, and performance should return to normal when temperature returns to its normal range.

iPad batteries are designed to retain 80% of their original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles, depending on how they're regularly used and charged. In practice, we've found that iPads can retain solid working battery life of up to 80% original capacity for five years.

For new iPads, the battery should last a whole day, meaning that you can leave it to charge at night.

Apple suggests charging an iPad at night even when the battery isn't fully depleted. The tablet will automatically stop charging when the battery is fully charged, so it's safe to leave it connected, but Apple suggests unplugging when possible after it has charged).