Google has a solution for apps causing battery drain on your Galaxy phone

There are several reasons a phone can face excessive battery drain. It could be a bad firmware, badly behaving apps, or a degraded battery. And it could sometimes be hard to know what is causing battery drain on your Galaxy phone. If it is due to bad apps, Google and Samsung now have a solution for the problem.

Google has launched (via 9To5Google) a way to let you know if an app is causing excessive battery drain on your phone. A new metric called ‘excessive partial wake locks' is available for Android app developers. It was co-developed by Google and Samsung, and it uses Samsung's deep expertise and real-world insights into end-user experience with battery consumption.

This metric was launched in beta form in April 2025 and has now been improved to be even more accurate and representative. It is now generally available for app developers. If an app causes non-exempt wake locks for two hours during a period of 24 hours, the app is considered a heavy contributor to battery drain. Things like music playback and user-initiated data transfers are exempted.

Google has also new tools for debugging so that app developers can optimize their apps and reduce unnecessary wake locks on a device. If an app exceeds bad behavior, Google will not surface app in recommendations across the Play Store, reducing its reach to smartphone users.

The Play Store will also show a warning that says, “This app may use more battery than expected due to high background activity.” This warning will start displaying starting March 1, 2026. So, you can see if apps installed on your phone are notorious for causing excessive battery drain and uninstall them.