Pareesa Afreen 
Nov 11, 2025
Google is taking serious action against Android apps that secretly drain your phone’s battery. The company has announced a new policy for the Play Store targeting apps that use excessive “wake locks,” a technical behaviour that keeps your phone awake even when the screen is off.
Under the new rules, applications found to be excessively holding wake locks, starting March 1, 2026, will be penalised on the Google Play Store.
Such applications may no longer appear in recommendations and discovery sections, whereas, to avoid any sort of interaction, the users will see a warning label on their Play Store page regarding high battery usage.
According to the tech giant, the wake locks are useful for tasks such as music playback and file downloads, but carelessly used, they prevent devices from resting, which in turn accelerates battery drain.
Starting now, battery performance will be a key metric of the company's new technical quality guidelines, in addition to existing checks for app crashes and unresponsiveness.
Google has clearly set thresholds to flag excessive battery drain. On a smartphone, for example, if an app keeps the device awake for more than two hours in a 24-hour window without a valid reason, it will be flagged.
Currently, for wearables, the system already flags apps that use over 4.44% of battery per hour during active use.
Google says it worked in collaboration with Samsung to develop this new battery metric, aiming to make apps more power-efficient and transparent.
