Google has announced that starting March 1, 2026, Play Store will display alerts for apps that may drain your phone’s battery faster due to excessive background activity.
In a blog post, Google explained its new “excessive partial wake lock” metric, first introduced in beta earlier this year to address battery drain issues. Developed in collaboration with Samsung, the metric is now available to all Android app developers.
Google stated that it has established a new “bad behavior threshold” to identify apps that keep devices awake for too long through excessive wake locks. If an app doesn’t meet the threshold, it may be excluded from Play Store recommendations, and Google could display a warning on its listing indicating potential battery drain.
As per Google, an app crosses the limit if it holds more than two hours of “non-exempt wake locks” in 24 hours. Essential wake locks, for audio playback or data transfer, are excluded from this count. Notably, an app crosses the “bad behavior threshold” if 5% or more of its user sessions show excessive wake locks within a 28-day period.
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