iOS 16.6 Battery Draining Fast

Not only is it causing battery drain, it is causing the maximum battery capacity to deplete rapidly. I have an open case with Apple. I called them on Sept. 30th and today. The first advisor had the audacity to tell me that this tremendous drop in battery capacity is normal. But then he pointed out that he does see my battery draining rapidly while we were on the phone. To sum it up: I have rapid battery drainage and maximum capacity depletion. I honestly believe that Apple is doing this to make people buy new phones. I do not have money to buy a new phone when my old one was working fine up until the software update. I have a 11 pro max. My husband is also having the same issue with his 11 Pro.

I was having this issue too and found this thread on iOS 16 battery drain to be pretty informative. It basically says that your phone is probably indexing a bunch of stuff after the update and therefore using more battery right now, but should return to normal soon.

The normal troubleshooting procedure for a problem like this is as follows (only do the subsequent steps if the previous one failed to solve your problem):

1. Try closing the app that is causing the largest battery drain.
2. Delete the offending app and reinstall.
3. Reboot your iPhone (TOBO: Turn Off, Back On)
4. Upgrade iOS to the latest version (Settings > General > Software Update > Download and Install)
5. Try putting your device in Recovery Mode (you'll need a Mac or Windows system, Lightning cable, and if on Windows, iTunes). This will reset your iPhone and require you to restore from a backup (a backup on your Mac/Windows system will go a lot faster than an iCloud restore, but you should definitely have a backup before trying this option).

Hope one of these solves your problem.

This is not solved. I opened a call with Apple support and they are aware of it. Please log a support call with them. Also it may be causing the battery health on older phones to drop as well. My daughter's iPhone 11 pro did so (It fell below 80% and recomended replacing) in which case you should claim on Apple to replace it for you for free if it is iOS 16 that has caused it.

[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Personal Information]

Well, I’m glad you discovered what was using energy, but there’s a way to prevent any drain overnight, and extend the useful life of your battery as a bonus. The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

denice186 wrote:

. Very upset that at the Apple Store, it was not mentioned to me that the new upgrade is causing this battery depletion.

That’s because the new upgrade is not causing the battery depletion. Using your phone causes battery depletion.

Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

Once the capacity drops below 80%, or if there is a message in Battery Health that the battery is not meeting peak performance expectations, it’s time to change the battery→iPhone Battery Replacement - Official Apple Support

The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

for me, iPhone X and iOS 16.0.2 disabling exposure notifications improved the situation a lot. I believe this is one workaround until it is fixed.

I disabled both the corona warn app (Germany) and exposure notifications and by battery holds like before iOS 16.

I am literally scratching my head and crying for the stupid thing i have done by upgrading to ios 16. i have iphone 11 but its only 1.2 yrs old. But after upgrading battery draining seems to be like a feature in the phone. Under normal usage, songs that too using earphone or browsing, in its max 3-4 hrs, and if i take the call then forget about the battery. Have to carry powerbank everywhere i go. When outside or travelling i fear to use the map, it might drain within an hour or a half.

Hi!

I bought a new iPhone 14 pro no so far ago, and had the same issue. Before i had 13 pro and had same issue but solved it by resetting network settings, but it did't help me with 14 pro. I've done all recommendation i found :) even reinstalled from DFU, and set all phone configs manually, without importing from iCloud or elsewhere.

So after week investigation i found out that after disabling "Time-Sensitive Notifications" in all apps, i lost only 3% during night in a background, this percent was 25-30 before.

What worked for me (12 pro) after both the update from 15 to 16.1 when the problem began and again from 16.1 to 16.1.1 when it resurfaced was deleting all my messages in iMessage. Seems no matter how long I was on power and WiFi it was not able to reconcile something in iMessage. After deleting messages across iCloud iMessage phone battery back to normal within 1 hour of being plugged in and on WiFi.

I have just bought a new SE 3rd gen a few days ago. I thought it was broken, even went to an Apple store where they reset the firmware after running a diagnostic. They didn't see any problem with the battery, just a major draw and large unexplained CPU-usage . From what I can tell my phone does not drain battery unless I log in with the Apple-ID. Just now I had the phone erased and did not set up my Apple-ID. Now the battery usage is normal, still using WiFi, Bluetooth and Location services, but no major draw as it seems. Later this evening I will try and add my Apple-ID to confirm this hypothesis.

My battery percentage stayed at 41% for an hour or more this evening. Then I logged in with my Apple-ID to iCloud. After about 15-20 minutes the battery is down to 36% and I can clearly see the trend changing in the battery graph. I did login to iCloud via the web before and I have basically nothing there. I've never used Photos or Drive. Had a few old Contacts which I removed completely as well as 1 note and a 3 reminders. Basically a completely empty iCloud. Whatever it is trying to sync it should be done within minutes or even seconds. Must be something else going on...

Well, with 1.5 billion iPhones in use it could easily be 1.5 billion different apps causing battery drain. Probably not, but there will be hundreds of possible apps.

One of the bigger problems is installed VPN that is not configured correctly or was not deleted and re-installed after the update.

Having battery issues since last update 16.1.2 and it shows high usage of Siri on last 24h stats, 47% + on a iPhone 13.

The weird part is that Siri is disabled on its configuration with all itens off on the menu.

So I went yesterday to Apple Store to check my phone 11 which I bought in 2021. The battery is draining fast. Per diagnostic test, my battery was at 84% capacity. The tech said Apple Care will replace for free if it shows your battery at 80 %. I ended up buying a new battery before I entered this forum. Very upset that at the Apple Store, it was not mentioned to me that the new upgrade is causing this battery depletion.