For a long time, iPhone users have requested an estimate for how much longer it would take their phone to charge, but Apple has yet to come through. Reddit user u/AlxR25 grew tired of waiting for the feature and decided to create one themselves, sharing it on the r/iPhone subreddit.
They created the Shortcut through a combination of commands and instructed it to run immediately upon connecting the iPhone to a charger. When enabled, a message pops up with an estimate for how long until the phone is fully charged.
It’s not quite as straightforward as it seems, though. The iPhone charges at different rates. The Shortcut was created using a 20W charger as the baseline, and that charges 1% of the battery every 1.2 minutes up to 50%. From that point, it gains 1% charge every 1.8 minutes to 100%. And if you have Optimized Charging enabled, the pace slows to a crawl after 80%.
Another Redditor, u/Alarming_Cod8848, created a secondary version of the Shortcut based off u/AlxR25’s original design that took the varied charging speeds into account and launched a discussion on how to make the Shortcut even more accurate.
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If you’re interested in trying the Shortcut for yourself, you can download it via this iCloud link.
Yet another user, u/HeartbreakWon, added a timer onto the Shortcut that would force it to appear in the Dynamic Island, although they did not share the link to that.
This trick won’t work for everyone. If you’re using a charger with a different watt amount, the estimates likely won’t be accurate. Some users also reported false estimates due to older batteries, but it’s encouraging to see the community come together to implement a feature that fans have wanted for a long time.
iOS 18 came with several promising charging features, like a setting to alert you when you’re using a fast charger. However, it didn’t include another promised feature that would provide a charging time estimate. We assume Apple still intends to implement that function at a later date, but there have been no official updates.