Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
- By default, most Android phones turn off the screen quickly to save battery life.
- You can keep the screen on for up to 30 minutes using the Display options in the Settings app.
- You can also keep the screen on indefinitely using a third-party app like Screen Alive.
Your Android phone is designed (by default, at least) to turn off the screen fairly quickly to conserve battery life and keep the phone running as long as possible between charges. If you want the screen to stay on longer, though, there’s nothing stopping you — the Android OS allows you to leave the screen on unattended for up to 30 minutes. And if you want to keep the screen on your Android phone on ever longer, there are a few ways to do that.
How to keep your Android screen on for longer
By default, your phone is probably set to keep the screen on for a very short time — depending on the model, it might default to a minute or two. But you can extend that timeout up to 30 minutes.
1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap Display.
3. Tap Screen timeout.
4. Choose the time that the screen will stay on. You can select up to 30 minutes.
5. Tap the Back button at the top of the screen.
You can set the screen timeout to as long as 30 minutes.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Quick tip: Some Android models have a screen attention feature. As long as you are looking at the screen, it will not turn off. If your phone has this feature, you’ll find it here.
How to keep your Android screen always on using an app
If you want your phone to stay on longer than 30 minutes, you can install a third-party app that’ll force it to stay on for whatever length of time you desire. There are several apps which can do this, but a free and dependable app is Screen Alive.
After installing Screen Alive, you need to give the app permission to change your phone’s system settings. Then, on the Home tab, you can choose Always to keep the screen on until you manually turn it off, or tap the other option and dial in how long you want the phone to stay on, up to 24 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds.
Using an app like Screen Alive, you can leave your phone’s screen on more or less indefinitely.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Keep in mind that if you use an app like this, you will run your phone’s battery down very quickly.
How to keep your Android’s lock screen always on
You have one other option at your disposal. If you don’t want to keep the phone’s main screen on all the time but just want to see some basic information like the time and weather, you might be able to enable your phone’s always on lock screen. Not all Android models support this feature, but you can see if yours does. While it does affect your phone’s battery life, you might find that it’s a worthwhile compromise.
1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap Display.
3. Tap Lock screen.
4. Turn on Always show time and info by swiping the button to the right.
Enable the lock screen to have access to information like the time and weather all the time.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Depending on your model and version of the Android OS, this feature might have a different name or be found somewhere else in the Settings app.
