Stop iPad Screen from Dimming or Locking Automatically

The iPad screen defaults to automatically dim itself and then turn itself off after a fairly short amount of time of inactivity. That’s great for preserving battery life of iOS devices, but if you’re like me you keep an iPad or iPhone alongside you full time while working as a control panel for Pandora, podcasts, and email, and having the screen lock after a few minutes of inactivity is annoying.

Here’s how to prevent the iPad (or iPhone or iPod) screen from dimming and auto-locking:

1. Open “Settings” then tap “General”
2. Tap “Auto-Lock” and choose “Never” as the option

Close out of Settings, and now when you leave the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch screen alone it won’t automatically lock itself or even dim.

A caveat to remember is this will always be in effect, meaning you will have to lock the screen yourself using the top power button when you do want the screen to go dark. That’s especially important for when you’re on the go, if not to prevent battery drain than to help protect your personal data in case you happened to lose the device (don’t forget to use a strong passcode too). In an ideal world, there would be different power management settings for auto-locking for if a device was plugged in and if a device was on battery, but iOS isn’t there yet.