iOS 16.1.1 Contacts app draining battery

I have had this same issue for over a month. However, I did NOT recently add a child to my "Family." They have been included for quite some time.

I have taken my new iPhone 14 Pro into the Apple Store 3 times. They replaced the phone. The issue persists. I have contacted Apple Support. I have been put in touch with a "Senior iOS Technical Advisor." That was over 2 weeks ago. She has forwarded my problem to "Engineering." Going on one month, and there is still ZERO progress on this problem. My battery drains incredibly fast, and the Contacts App is responsible for >80% of battery usage, with only 1 minute of actual App Usage. This very nearly has me to the point of switching phones and finally leaving Apple.

Same issue with iPhone 13 Pro. Battery being completely drained by Contacts app. Phone feels really hot in morning after charging and clear that Contacts has been trying to drain it through the night. Phone down to 30% battery in just under 4 hours whilst in my pocket not being used. What the heck is going on here?

FYI: Apple I hope you are looking into this:

In Attempt to troubleshoot this further: this seems to occur on the iPhone 12-14 pros not the base models with iOS 16.1-16.1.2.

*I backed up my data to iCloud.

*used apple configurator with my iPhone connected to a computer.

*Downloaded the fresh copy of the iOS software with firmware .

*erased my iPhone, Reinstalled IOS via configurator, and manually re-installed all my applications and logged into the applications when needed.

*activated as a new phone not restore from backup this worked for 1 day.

*my work phone which is a iPhone 12 base model hasn't experienced this issue to date.

I have this problem since update to 16.1.

16.1.1 and 16.1.2 is the same. When i turn off contacts iCloud sync it is better, but still not good as on 16.0.3

Iphone 14 Pro Max, German edition, used with dual sim.

It's a bug.

Turning off iCloud sync for Contacts will "solve" the problem.

Contacts app is constantly syncing with iCloud and draining battery. You can notice it when scrolling through your contacts. When bug is present the scrolling is stuttering (because of the constant updating).

iOS 16.1.1 iPhone 12 pro

I’m having this issue as well. Contacts is burning through most of my battery. I had 100% battery health on my IPhone 13 Pro Max and it’s dropped 3% since this issue started about a month ago! I feel like the severe drain everyday is hurting the longevity of my battery. I also noticed the constant flashing when I open a contact and/or search a contact. I will try turning off contacts sync as well and see if it helps

Hi, I repaired it by doing the following:

1.Export on a single card by selecting all the contacts through iCloud Web to backup a copy of the contacts

2. Deleted all the contacts through iCloud Web, and realized that the contacts on my other devices were still there without being deleted (they should be deleted but something was wrong with the synchronization)

3.Manually delete the contacts on my iMac

4.Disable iCloud contacts from my iPad and iPhone and at that time selected to delete them from my iPhone and iPad, and then reactivated the Contacts App in iCloud both my iPad and iPhone

5.Open the contacts app on the iMac, iPad and iPhone ensuring that I don't have any synchronized contacts - check zero (0) contacts

6.On the iCloud website import the copy of the contact card that I had initially exported

7. Wait a moment and the contacts are automatically synchronized on all my devices

8.Done, I check the cellular data consume of Contacts in my iPhone and it only reaches 29.1 mb 24 hours have passed and the consumption remains at 29.1 mb and the battery after charging it 100% after 10 hours at night only to 97% 👍

iphone se 2020. 16.1.2. Siri killing the battery,45ish%, even when disabled. Erased the phone, no restore from backup, now Contacts killing the battery to the tune of some 80% usage. This thread nailed it. Disable Contacts iCloud sync. Back to normal. Not sure if my Siri issue was related or not, but highly coincidental.

juan carlosfrombogota may be a genius! I have been having this problem for over a month, and Apple Support has been ZERO help. However, last night I followed juan carlosfrombogota's 8 steps listed above. The only difference is that because I had so many contacts, I wasn't able to import them back into iCloud.com. Instead, I did a Contacts restore from the day prior.

So, to summarize, I had to sign out of all devices with Contacts synced, chose to delete all contacts from those devices, and then restored Contacts from a backup on iCloud.com, and signed back in to Contacts on all devices. It worked perfectly for me. Thank you juan carlosfrombogota!

Hi, in a Macrumors forum, a user wrote the following: "Apple help contact me yesterday and told me that my issue is reported as a problem of iOS 16 and they accepted that there is a problem on syncing contacts for some people .. they aked me to keep my contacts out of sync to avoid excess cellular DATA DRAIN until 16.2 come out .. the battery problem is secondary and it shows up after contacts keep draining data either from Wi-Fi or cellular ..

They said that this problem is not generally known because average iPhone user won’t search about it and won’t search what keeps draining battery or data"

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/contacts-battery-drain.2371195/page-2

Yep. The phone is noticeably warm and the battery drained in a few hours. Had the iPhone 14 pro since September and this problem just started a few days ago. I did turn off iCloud sync but not sure it had much effect yet. I just noticed that Contacts app leads the cellular data used (6.1GB just this billing period of 2 weeks!). No way it should be transmitting that much data….

If you do Juans 8 points - it works. No more batterie-draining, no cellular data waste.

But: There are no more pictures within the contacts and it seems that they don‘t come back - even if you share imessages with contacts who use photos or avatars.

I apologize, but after trying juan carlosfrombogota's method, the problem has returned. Contacts is still syncing continuously and draining the battery badly.

Additionally, I did not have the problem that Caskstrengther is referencing. When I restored my Contacts, all the pictures remained untouched and intact.

I need to sync Contacts between multiple devices, so I'll need to keep that on for now. Hopefully Apple addresses very soon via iOS 16.2. Apple Support continues to be of no help to me.

Hmmh, I really don't understand why the photos of the contacts are gone, while the relevant vcard-entries "X-IMAGETYPE:PHOTO" and "X-IMAGEHASH:xyz" are still there...

Can anyone confirm this?

To export the contacts from iCloud.com I needed to use a windows machine with firefox-browser - my Mac with safari (macOS Ventura 13.0.1) was not able to export even one single vcard!!!

I deleted contacts from all of my synced devices. I exported all contact cards from iCloud after I did that, but was not allowed to import them all back in. So, instead, I initiated a backup from a day earlier. That solved the problem for about a day, but it's back in force now. I have decided to wait until iOS 16.2 comes out, because Apple Support has proven to be worse than useless in this case. I agree with you...this very much appears to be a bug in the syncing process with iCloud.