It’s safe to say that battery life is a major concern for smartphone users. While many manufacturers are equipping phones with bigger batteries, some apps are simply energy vampires that will drain devices dry. To address this problem, Google will begin flagging such apps on the Google Play Store.
In a blog post, the search giant announced that starting from 1 March 2026, the offending apps will feature a warning label. This label will notify users that the app may cause excessive battery drain due to high background ability.
Of course, adding a warning label is part of a broader strategy to deal with battery drain issues. Earlier this year, the company introduced an “excessive partial wake lock” metric, which it developed with Samsung. After some refinement, the metric is now available for all Android app developers.
One of the improvements is a defined “bad behavior threshold”. Basically, an app can prevent a device from going into sleep mode, so it can work in the background. In a user session, if the app keeps the device awake for more than two hours in a 24-hour period, then Google considers it to be excessive.
If 5% of user sessions in a 28-day period are excessive, then the app crosses the established threshold. Google will then notify the developer of the issue, so changes can be made. Aside from that, the app may be excluded from Google Play Store recommendations.
(Source: Google [blog])
