Charging your iPhone 14 Pro Max quickly isn’t as simple as just plugging it in. Learn these tips and tricks to charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max faster.
Is there anything worse than waiting for your iPhone 14 Pro Max to charge when you have somewhere to be? Even if you’re doing all that you can to make your iPhone 14 Pro Max battery last longer, it’ll eventually hit zero and you’ll need to wait around for it to charge.
While waiting for your iPhone to charge can feel like forever, that seemingly long charge time isn’t entirely psychological. There’s no magic trick that will have your phone’s battery going from zero to 100 percent in 10 minutes, but there are a few things you can do to charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max faster.
Without further ado, here are helpful tips on how to charge iPhone 14 Pro Max faster:
1. Use a Wall Socket to charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max faster
Using a USB port on your computer or in your car leads to a much more inefficient charging experience.
There’s nothing wrong with receiving a lower amperage—it won’t damage your iPhone—but you’ll definitely be twiddling your thumbs for a lot longer.
As a rule of thumb, only use your car or computer for a top-up, not for a full charge.
2. Avoid Wireless Charging
Wireless charging is amazing it’s very convenient, and it entails fewer cables, which is something I’m sure we can all get on board with.
However, if you want to charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max faster, you should avoid it. It offers a considerably slower charging experience than its wired counterpart. In fact, testing suggests it could be as much as 50% slower.
Why? There are two reasons. First, it’s more efficient to transfer energy through a cable than via simple contact. Second, the wasted energy manifests itself as excess heat.
3. Use a fast charger
The iPhone 14 Pro Max supports “fast charging,” which should take your device from zero to about 50 percent battery in around 30 minutes.
That sounds lovely, but Apple has never included a charger with a high enough wattage to support fast charging. That free charger from your older model is probably a slow 5W one and you need at least a 20W charger to fast charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max. And Apple doesn’t even include a charger with its iPhones anymore.
A higher wattage charger will charge your iPhone a lot faster, but know that there’s a limit. It’s not like you can simply buy a 100W charger and juice up your iPhone in a handful of minutes. For example, the iPhone 14 Pro Max has a charging ceiling of 27W; it won’t charge faster than that with a compatible charger.
4. Enable Airplane Mode
One of the biggest draws on your battery is the network signal. As a general rule, the worse your signal, the faster your battery will drain.
Consequently, if you live in an area with a poor signal, charging your iPhone takes longer than if you reside in a place with a strong signal—the signal is eating through your power as you charge.
The quick solution? Put your iPhone in Airplane Mode before you plug it in. Testing suggests it could reduce the amount of time needed for a full charge by as much as 25%.
To put your iPhone into Airplane Mode, simply swipe down on the top right and tap the Airplane mode icon. Alternatively, you can go to Settings and turn on Airplane mode.
Just make sure you turn it off again once your battery is full!
5. Turn Your iPhone Off
Simple, obvious, but often overlooked. If your iPhone 14 Pro Max is turned off while it’s re-powering, it’s going to charge a lot faster. Nothing will be drawing on the battery while you fill it up.
Of course, turning your iPhone off while it is charging has its downsides—you will not be able to receive urgent calls or messages. But if you’re looking to give your iPhone a quick 15-minute boost before you leave the house, powering it down is definitely the way to go.
6. Limit Your iPhone Usage While It’s Charging
If you can’t turn your iPhone off to charge it faster because you wish to stay on top of notifications, try not to use it too much while it’s plugged in. Using your phone while it’s charging slows down the process. In particular, using intensive apps such as games will heat up your phone, slowing the charging process and damaging your battery in the long term.
Prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures is one of the common mistakes that could damage your smartphone. So, in other words, resist the urge to play games, watch videos, or scroll through social media while your handset is tethered to the charger—it will charge faster if you leave it alone.
7. Turn On Low Power Mode to Charge Your iPhone 14 Pro Max Faster
While this won’t bump up your charging time more than shutting your iPhone off completely, enabling Low Power Mode shuts down a lot of background functions that can tax the battery.
You can turn on Low Power Mode in your battery settings.
To turn on Low Power Mode, open up your Settings app and find the “Battery” menu. The Low Power Mode toggle is at the very top of the menu. If you really want to watch your battery, you can set Low Power Mode to turn on automatically when your iPhone hits a certain battery percentage.
8. Turn Off Optimized Battery Charging to Charge Your iPhone to 100%
In a bid to increase the battery life of iPhones, Apple now stops your iPhone from charging past 80% when it is connected to a charger for long periods of time. So, if you need to charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max to 100% faster, you can disable a feature called Optimized Battery Charging.
To turn off the Optimized Battery Charging feature on your iPhone, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health and tap the slider next to Optimized Battery Charging. You will then see a pop-up warning you that this feature helps reduce your battery, so you should only choose to enable the feature briefly.
From here, you can also see information about your iPhone’s battery health, including its current Maximum Capacity. This tells you how much power your battery can store compared to when it was new. You might also see additional warnings on this screen if there are issues with your iPhone’s battery.
9. Remove Your Phone’s Case
iPhone 14 Pro Max currently rely on lithium-ion batteries. The chemistry behind the way they work dictates that the charging process works much more efficiently when the battery is cool.
For optimal charging, the battery temperature (not the air temperature) should be between 41 and 113 F (5 and 45 C). Obviously, the battery temperature is in part controlled by the ambient surrounding temperature, and removing your case will help lower it.
And in case you’re thinking of putting your iPhone in the fridge to recharge it: don’t. The efficiency drop-off is even more severe at temperatures below the ideal range.
How to charge iPhone 14 Pro Max fast? Now you know!
These were some tips on how you can charge your iPhone 14 Pro Max faster than usual, with or without a fast charger. I personally use these tips in my daily usage to charge my iPhone 14 Pro Max as quickly as possible. Anyway, try them and let me know if they make any difference for you in the comments.