How to use battery share iPhone feature: A step-by-step guide

Did you know that you could use your iPhone 15 or 16 as a power bank of sorts? Supported only on the latest iPhones, Battery Sharing allows you to charge other USB devices with power directly from your iPhones battery. This isn’t reverse wireless charging (we wish it was), but power is instead transmitted via a USB-C cable. Here’s how you use the feature.

Enabling battery sharing on iPhone

By default, you can share power from your iPhone via a single USB-C cable. Connect one end of the cable to the iPhone’s USB-C port, and the other end into the device that needs to be charged.

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Devices that can be charged include other iPhones, wireless earbuds like the AirPods, and many other USB devices such as Android phones and Bluetooth headsets, wireless mice, and more.

It’s that simple! No buttons, no toggles. Your Apple Watch can also be charged in this fashion provided you have the Watch’s wireless charging adapter. There are some caveats, however.

When does battery sharing work?

The iPhone can only charge another device that’s reporting lower voltages than that of the iPhone you’re charging with. If you have two identical iPhones and both are at 50 peer cent, they will not charge. However, if one is at 70 per cent and other is at 60 per cent, then the iPhone with the higher capacity will charge the lower capacity iPhone till both phones level out their charge.

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You cannot discharge one phone fully to charge another iPhone, but it might be possible to have your iPhone discharge significantly when charging certain third-party devices if they don’t properly share their power state.

USB-PD is supported

The iPhone supports the universal and open USB-PD or Power Delivery standard only. Devices that charge via QuickCharge, VOOC, WARP, and other proprietary charging technologies can be charged via your iPhone, but only as long as they support at least the base USB-PD 5W charging spec. These devices will not charge quickly, but at least they can charge via an iPhone.

The iPhone won’t completely drain its battery

When charging another device, an iPhone will only deliver charge until power drops below a certain threshold, usually 20 per cent. This way you can rest assured that there is at least some charge in your device left in case you forgot to unplug your devices.

It’s nice that Apple finally allowed power sharing via an iPhone as it allows us to rely on an alternate power source in an emergency. Do bear in mind that this is a feature best used in an emergency only as frequently charging and discharging your iPhone at a rapid pace can severely degrade your iPhone’s battery over time.