How to Keep Your Phone Charged During a Power Outage

It is 7:40 on the second night of an outage. There are four phones in the house. Your teenager's is at 9 percent. Yours is at 31 percent, and it is the one with the county alerts, the school app, and your mother's number.

Suddenly that 31 percent feels like the most valuable thing you own.

This is a guide to how to keep your phone charged during a power outage when it is not just your phone, but the whole household's, and the outage might run a few days.

Why does your phone matter more in an outage?

Because in an outage, your phone quietly becomes several other things at once.

It is where emergency alerts arrive. It is how you check on a parent across town. For some families, it is also how someone reads captions or gets alerts they cannot hear. That is a lot to ask of one battery with no outlet in sight.

The good news: a little planning stretches that battery a long way.

How do you make a phone battery last longer?

The biggest mistake is waiting. Most of us start saving battery at 20 percent, when the easy wins are already gone.

• Turn on low power mode in the first hour. Low Power Mode on iPhone and Battery Saver on Android cut background activity. The earlier you turn it on, the more it saves.
• Dim the screen. The display is one of the biggest drains. Lower the brightness and shorten the screen timeout.
• Use airplane mode when the signal is weak. A phone searching for a signal burns through its battery. Turn airplane mode off every so often to check messages.
• Keep calls short, and text when you can. The Department of Energy recommends brief calls that stick to the vital information.
• Do not use it as a flashlight. This is the quiet one. A phone flashlight works fine, right up until the phone is the thing you need to save.

That last point is where a real flashlight earns its place. Our StayLit power outage kits put flashlights, a lantern, and light sticks in one pouch, so every phone in the house can stay off light duty.

What is the best way to charge a phone without power?

Every household has a drawer of charging cables, and approximately none of them fit the phone that is dying. So start by making sure the right cable lives with your kit. Then these are your options, roughly in order of how useful they are.

Option	How it works in real life
Power bank	The most reliable choice. It only helps if it is charged before the outage starts.
Your car	Works well through a USB port or 12-volt adapter. If the engine has to run, the car must be outdoors, never in a garage, even with the door open.
A charged laptop	Plug the phone into a USB port. It drains the laptop, but a phone that can make calls is usually the better use of that battery.
Solar charger	Useful on a sunny day for small top-ups. Slow, and not much help in a winter storm.
Hand-crank charger	Takes a lot of cranking for a little charge. Enough for a text or a quick call, not a full battery.
Somewhere with power	If the outage is local, a library, warming center, or a friend's house across town can recharge everything at once.

The car deserves a second word. The Department of Energy advises that if the car has to be running to charge your phone, it should be in a well-ventilated place, and that pulling it out of the garage first is the safest option. Our winter storm guide explains why carbon monoxide is the real risk in any outage.

How big a power bank does your family need?

This is where the label on the box can mislead you. A power bank's rating describes the battery inside it, not what actually reaches your phone. Manufacturers' own engineering guides put the usable output at roughly two-thirds of the label once the power is converted for your phone. In practice, a 10,000 mAh power bank gives most current phones about one and a half to two full charges.

Here are rough planning numbers for a three-day outage, assuming every phone starts full and each phone needs about one charge a day with careful use.

Phones in your house	Extra charges for 3 days	Power bank to plan for
1	About 2	One 20,000 mAh bank
2	About 4	One 30,000 mAh bank, or two 20,000 mAh banks
4	About 8	Three 20,000 mAh banks

If that last row looks like a lot, you do not have to cover every phone equally. Cover the phones that matter most first: the one that gets emergency alerts, the one an older parent calls, and the one someone relies on for captions or a medical app. Everyone else can take turns.

What if someone relies on their phone for alerts or captions?

Then that phone gets charged first, every time.

For someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, a phone is often how alerts arrive, how conversations get captioned, and, where it is available, how they reach 911 by text. If rechargeable hearing aids are part of the picture, they need power too, and our guide to rechargeable hearing aids in a power outage covers how to plan for both. Our post on how emergency alerts reach a deaf or hard of hearing household goes through the backup options.

The same goes for older parents. Pew Research found that 78% of adults 65 and older now own a smartphone, and for many of them it is how family checks in. A charged power bank is one of the most useful things to add to a parent's kit.

A question worth sitting with

If the power went out tonight, whose phone in your house would you charge first, and do you have a way to charge it?

Most households can answer the first half right away. The second half is the part worth settling this week.

The honest part

None of our kits include a power bank, and our product pages list a charger as something to add yourself. It is also the one kit item that only works if you keep it charged, so it helps to own one you top off regularly.

What our kits do is take the other jobs off your phone. Dedicated flashlights and a lantern so the phone is not your light. A weatherband radio in many of our kits, so the phone is not your only source of news. That leaves the battery for the things only a phone can do. If you are building out your outage plan, the power outage kits and our guide to what day three of an outage looks like are good places to start.

Frequently asked questions

How many times will a 10,000 mAh power bank charge my phone?
Usually about one and a half to two full charges for most current phones. The label describes the battery inside the power bank, and some of that energy is lost converting it for your phone, so what actually reaches your phone is roughly two-thirds of the rating.

Is it safe to charge my phone in the car during a power outage?
Yes, if the car is outdoors. If the engine has to run, pull the car out of the garage first. Never run it in a garage, even with the door open, because of carbon monoxide.

Does low power mode really help?
Yes, and it helps most when you turn it on early. Low power mode cuts background activity like app refreshes and mail fetching. Turning it on in the first hour of an outage saves far more than turning it on at 20 percent.

What is the best way to save my phone battery during an outage?
Turn on low power mode early, dim the screen, use airplane mode when the signal is weak, keep calls short, and use a real flashlight instead of your phone's.

Peace of mind, packed and ready.

Sources: Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet and 2026 analysis of smartphone ownership by age; U.S. Department of Energy, Keeping Mobile Devices Charged; power bank manufacturers' published guidance on usable capacity and conversion loss.