Apple has a few words for people who obsessively close apps on their iPhone, thinking that it will save on battery life: you’re wasting your time.

The battery is not being sucked dry by having a plethora of apps open at one time, Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said according to a CNET report.

The question was first posed to Apple CEO Tim Cook by a reader in an email, asking if it helps to shutdown background apps. Federighi ended up replying, simply responding with a “no” as to whether this works.

It’s been six years since Apple added the ability to multitask for iPhones with iOS 4. You can view those apps by double tapping the home button, and you can swipe away an icon to shut it down.

Mobile phone users are always looking to save on battery, and will try myriad ways to keep their phone from draining and leaving them high and dry at a critical time. But this isn’t the way to go about it.

You can adjust certain settings and apps to save a little bit on battery power, but simply shutting down background apps won’t make a difference, apparently.

Here’s what Apple’s support page says about the issue:

Force an app to close in iOS
If an app isn’t responding, you can force it to close.

If an app is unresponsive and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch still reacts to button presses, you can force the app to close:
Press the Home button two times quickly. You’ll see small previews of your recently used apps.
Swipe left to find the app you want to close.
Swipe up on the app’s preview to close it.

Generally, there’s no need to force an app to close unless it’s unresponsive. When you press the Home button two times quickly, the recently used apps that appear aren’t open. They’re in an efficient standby mode to help you navigate and multitask.