iPhone 12 battery drain overnight

It doesn't take much to understand that if your battery drains from 88 percent to 30 percent while IDLE and not being used in the middle of the night, that there's a problem. Doesn't take a level 10 to understand that. It's a problem that needs fixed. This entire thread is exactly about trying to SOLVE that problem. Some level 10's dismiss any discussion about it and write people off as un-intelligent because they don't agree with your bandaid approach of constantly having to plug the phone in. Is it helpful to write people off who are looking for a real solution? Does that qualify as "helping people for many years?" And I'm about to leave this forum for good, as it seems to have some level 10s that are quite dismissive of any other opinion than theirs in regards to my comments. All I got was grief from this forum, and all because I dared to want to solve a big problem with my phone. Shame on me. I should just be quiet and plug my phone in and do as the level 10s say, because they're the smart ones.

prasaanth28 has identified a real issue here.

My new iPhone 12 Mini drained completely from full 100% charge to low battery shut-down overnight last night.

• Received it four days ago (Friday Nov. 13th)
• Charged it while setting up Friday night
• It lasted through yesterday (Monday) afternoon with about 2 hrs screen time per day, and several phone calls a day at about 10 minutes each, which I found impressive.
• At 9% I plugged in late yesterday afternoon.
• A couple hours later at 100% I unplugged it.
• Overnight, the only app running was the alarm clock, which should not drain 100%.

This morning it was shut-down.

This appears to be a real problem.

With no apps in the background, and only a clock running, even if it's searching for 5G it should not drain completely in 9 hours, especially when it lasted three days of normal use, including the alarm clock running for two nights, immediately prior to this event.

1. How good is your 5g service in your domain ?

If its poor to none existant switch the service Ariel OFF in settings right now

1. Do you use social media such as TikToc , Facebook or Instagram . These use battery to update in the background especially TikToc .

Make sure you Quit them fully before you sleep the phone

Those are the prime drivers for flatting your battery overnight or indeed at anytime

Yeah, same problem here! 4 nights of new iPhone 12 drain:

1st night -7%

2nd - 20%

3rd - 13%

4th - 9%

that is a very very bad result and a drain while in the idle is a very big problem.

despite that my phone gives me around 8-9 hours of a screen on time in average

can't really imagine what it would be after that bug with the idle drain is going to be fixed

I came here to find a solution because I am experiencing the same issue.

this is my very first iphone (iphone 12 mini) ever that is 3 weeks old now.

@QuickTimeKirk or other advisors who advice to charge overnight: please, be quiet and leave this conversation. you are not helping at all and only provoking aggressive behaviour.

charging the phone overnight makes no sense because the issue is not directly night related and can accure over a usual working day. so, would be the advice of level 10s to have the phone plugged in all the time?

I don't have a charging brick (I am lucky enough that I have USB-C on my computer; I refuse to buy one, I am happy with the apple product but not with the apple marketing strategies) so I am forced to charge the phone on my computer that is not running at night.

the issue accured twice now with about a week inbetween which is the rason why I now am looking for a solution.

is replacing the iphone realy the only solution?

There is a bigger thread regarding this issue where I and many others have explained the issue in more detail: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251956914

I have also seen similar threads on other forums. It is a real issue and seems to affect all iPhone 12 models. I’m hoping it’s an issue with the modem firmware that can be fixed with an update. I’m averaging a loss of about 10-15% at night. However some night I’ve lost 25% and some nights only 3%.

No one here knows and even if they did, publishing it would be a violation of the NDA they signed.

If however, you are waiting for an update to fix your issues, it most likely won't. No one I know with iPhone 12, 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max is experiencing the drain some of you are. This means there is most likely something you brought over from your previous phone when you set it up which is causing the drain.

It would be advisable that your do a backup restore and your issue will likely go away.

See this link --> Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Then something is not right there.

I would recommend you do a backup, then restore.

See this link for guidance. If you do it using your home computer with iTunes, it will put a totally fresh install of iOS on your phone, which in your case may make the most sense.

Click here --> Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Click the Restore From a Computer Backup to see how do it that way.

Yesseter wrote:

Why I should charge the phone over night?

Because it's good practice and makes sense. When you put the phone on charge and lock the screen, if it's connected to WiFi, it will automatically back up to iCloud (assuming you have that turned on). When you wake up in the morning, your phone will be backed up and fully charged. A better question is "Why would you not charge if over night?"

When to charge your iPhone or iPad - Apple Community

After a couple days of experimenting.

Let me give you scenarios/examples with no regard to any other settings other than those mentioned being turned on or off.

iPhone 12 Pro running iOS 14.3

SIM card installed, WiFi on, Cellular On, Bluetooth in Standby (Turned off in CC to disable new connections, but still enabled)

Battery drops between 15 and 30% over an eight hour time frame while not being in use. (This was the case for a couple days, until I realized something was clearly wrong)

SIM card installed, WiFi off, Cellular off, Bluetooth standby same as before

Battery drops around 10% over the same time frame (Better, but still not satisfying)

Now get this!

SIM card taken out, Wifi on, Cellular off, Bluetooth same as before, I also turned Airplane Mode on for the sake of it

Draining between 1 and 3% , over the span of 8 hours.

I know, it seems absolutely silly to use an iPhone without a SIM card, but as long as this bug is not fixed taking out the Sim card might be your best option to prevent your battery from draining over night. Or you just simply keep it on a charger. Keeping the SIM and at least turning off WiFi and cellular or putting the device into airplane mode should make the battery drain a little less too.

Some other things you might want to switch off, if only to test for a couple days to see if battery life improves and slows the drain. Keep in mind, you can disable everything temporarily and don't have to worry about anything breaking. If something needs a certain thing enabled, iOS will most likely give you a prompt anyways. You can go back and enable everything again, but until a version of iOS 14.3.x or 14.4 is released that addresses the those kind of issues, it's the best and to be frank, the only thing you can do.

• Location Services > System Services. Be bold and turn off EVERYTHING. Toggle the status bar icon (the switch on the very bottom) so when you slowly enable them one by one again, you can keep an eye on what triggers the location to update. With the status bar icon on, you can check and investigate closely how and when a certain service is updating. I found the Find my iPhone location feature updates like crazy.

System customization also updates in the background constantly ( if you turn it off, Dark Mode/ Appearance will still be able to work in sunset/sunrise mode, night mode however will work only when you put it on a custom schedule, and optimized battery charging will not work (even the option itself in the battery menu is enabled) if you have Significant Location and/or System Customization disabled).

• Put Bluetooth into standby so it stops searching for new devices (Toggle it via Control Center so the icon becomes white.)

• Turn off 'Ask to Join Networks' and set 'Auto-join Hotspot' to Never in Wi-Fi settings to stop the device from constantly checking for sources, notifying you and trying to connect to other routers.

I don't mention any of those things like turning off Background App refresh, dimming your display etc as those can be found in literary every 'iPhone battery savings' video or article.

It is clear that the issue can be pinpointed to the cellular modem, which can only be put into completely pause if there is no SIM card in the device. Airplane mode alone does not seem to fix the issue fully nor does turning off Cellular data help much if anything.

Give it a read, try it and please report!

The only thing that came close to solving the issue for me.

Hope it helps some of ya. I made a standalone post, because this here has gotten quite floated.

And Yes, I do get the inconvenience and stupidity of removing the phone function from your iPhone!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252271797

How many of you tried to troubleshoot this at all by going to Settings > Battery and looking at what used the battery while you slept?

It's almost NEVER the phone at fault. It is almost ALWAYS an app or some service which is running while the phone is not being used.

And why aren't you all simply plugging your phone in to charge at night while you sleep? Most all of us who have been on this forum for years, plug our phones in at night to charge while we sleep and they also backup if connected to Wifi.

One thing ALL of you having this happen should do, is Force Restart your iPhone.

• Press and quickly release volume up button
• Then press and quickly release volume down button
• Then press ad KEEP HOLDING the side power button (keep holding past the swipe to power off) until you see the Apple Logo, then let go

I have the 12 Pro Max and am seeing this issue too!

I significant drain during the night, I just woke up and dropped about 20%, that is way to much!

No app usage at all during the night except for the Exposure Notifications.

Charging during the night is not the solution nor what I want. I bought the Max so that I could go days without a recharge; this is preventing me from doing that.

And I agree with other people that if it's doing this during the night it must also be doing this during the day.

I have 5g mode turned off by the way. I have no use for it (I wish it wasn't on the phone to be honoust). So I'm sporting 2x4G as I was doing with my Xs Max.

Hi to All!

I have just faced with a really bad battery life during last night with my iPhone 12pro. Fully charged in the evening then without using it during night, in the morning I saw the battery is on the level of 56%. It seems to me an extremely huge problem and thinking to take it to apple service. Just to show you I attach a photo about it so you can see that there was no activity during the night but the battery was going down in a beautiful way like skiing from a hill.

Do you think I should take it to the service or wait for a new iOS update that will fix it?

Yesterday night, lost 8% over a 7 hour duration with no screen time. For about 4 hours, the battery remains a full 100% and only after that 4 hour mark, the battery starts to drain.

Secondly, I have the same charger from Apple that I have been using for over 3 years now and iPhone 12 charges quite quickly than any of my previous iPhones ever did. It charges from 92% to 100% in just 20 minutes. So I suspect this entire battery issue could be a serious software bug and the battery statistics is being affected.

The below screen shot shows how battery remains at 100% for over 4 hours after a full 100% charge and later starts discharging..