How to check your Apple Pencil battery level

How do you know when your Apple Pencil is charged? Or even yet, how do you know what the battery level of your Apple Pencil is?

Even though the Apple Pencil 1st generation and 2nd generation lack a battery status indicator to tell you how much charge you have left, there are ways to learn how much battery life is still there in the device.

This quick tutorial shows you how to check your Apple Pencil’s battery status. We will detail methods for both Apple Pencil 1 and Apple Pencil 2.

Check your Apple Pencil battery percentage on iPad

How to check Apple Pencil battery life

Here are a few ways to know the battery percentage of your Apple Pencil on your iPad.

Use the Battery widget

The best way to easily check the battery level of your Apple Pencil is to enable the Batteries widget on your iPad. This method works for the 1st and 2nd-generation Apple Pencils.

On iPadOS 15

  1. Tap and hold anywhere on your Home Screen until the icons get into wiggle mode.
  2. Tap the plus sign on the top left.
  3. Select the Batteries widget.
  4. Choose the size you want and tap Add Widget.
Add Battery Widget on iPadOS 14 and later to see battery percentage of Apple Pencil

When the widget appears on your Home Screen, you can drag it wherever you’d like.

For more:

On iPadOS 13

  1. Access the Today View on your device by swiping right on the first Home Screen.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap the Edit button.
  3. You shall now see a list of available widgets on your device. Tap the plus sign next to Batteries to enable the widget. You can optionally reorder the widgets on this screen or add the Batteries widget to the pinned widgets.
  4. Tap Done to finish.
Add Battery Widget on iPadOS 13 to see Apple Pencil battery percentage

From now on, you can easily see how much battery your Apple Pencil has right within the Today View. Simply swipe and see at a glance how much juice both your iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have left.

Connect your Apple Pencil to your iPad

While this method only works for the second-generation Apple Pencil, it is one of the fastest ways to see the battery status of your stylus.

Attach your Apple Pencil to your iPad using Smart Connector, the magnetic connector on the side of your iPad. You should immediately see the battery life displayed at the top of the screen.

Apple Pencil 2 charging on iPad and showing the battery level

Use the Settings app

While not as practical and convenient as the two methods described above, there is one more way to know how much battery is left in your Apple Pencil.

Open the Settings app on your iPad, and scroll down to the Apple Pencil section. The battery level will be displayed on the right.

Apple Pencil battery percentage in iPad Settings

How to fix iPad not showing Apple Pencil battery

If you do not see the battery indicator:

  • Make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your iPad.
  • Wait a few seconds.
  • Detach and reattach the Apple Pencil to the Smart Connector.
  • Put your Apple Pencil to charge. If the battery is entirely depleted, it can take a couple of minutes to charge and then show the battery percentage.

Depending on whether you have the Apple Pencil 1 or 2, there are different ways to gauge the battery percentage of the device. Hopefully, at least one of the methods described above will work for you.

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