iPhone 14 Battery Draining after update

There could be several reasons why your iPhone 14 Pro Max is experiencing battery drain after updating to iOS 15.3.1. Here are some steps you can take to try and fix the issue:

1. Check Battery Usage: Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Usage to see which apps are using the most battery. If you see an app using a lot of battery, try force-closing the app or deleting it and see if it helps.
2. Turn Off Background App Refresh: Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turn off the switch to prevent apps from refreshing in the background.
3. Turn Off Location Services: Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and turn off location services for apps that don't need it. You can also turn off the "Precise Location" setting to improve battery life.
4. Reduce Screen Brightness: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness and turn off "Auto-Brightness" and reduce the screen brightness.
5. Turn On Low Power Mode: Go to Settings > Battery and turn on "Low Power Mode" to conserve battery life.
6. Update Apps: Make sure all your apps are up-to-date, as older versions of apps can sometimes cause battery drain.
7. Reset Your iPhone: If none of the above steps work, you may need to reset your iPhone to factory settings. Before doing so, make sure to backup your data to iCloud or iTunes.

If you've tried these steps and your battery life is still poor, you may want to contact Apple support or visit an Apple Store to get further assistance.

After an iOS/iPadOS or macOS update, your device will be running some background tasks for clean-up, re-indexing of Spotlight search, among many others. I personally notice the battery takes a hit for the first few hours, sometimes a day or two. This usually won't last longer than that so you might want to check back to see.

Your Mac might send you a notification saying "Optimizing your Mac" but the same is happening on your iPhone and iPad, too, after an update.

Also—doesn't apply to you in this case but—after a major OS update (such as from iOS 15 to 16), software usually isn't well optimized, AND the user tends to play with new features and drain the battery faster.

Why don’t you try backing up and restoring?

The links to do this appear below:

Link for how to Back up and Restore: Back up and restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac or to iCloud - Apple Support

Link for putting iPhone in DFU Mode: If you can't update or restore your iPhone or iPod touch - Apple Support

Note: The above material is not my work. Any credit should go to Michael Brooks1  who originally posted it here: Jun 27, 2023 8:55 AM in response to Jubalub. 

Please report back wether performing the above process made the battery drainage worse, fixed it, or if you noticed no change at all. 

Same problem. A full reset fixed it. Now my battery is still at 100% after being on overnight.

This worked:

Backup everything to iCloud.

Reset the phone to factory settings EXCEPT for your cell phone provider information referred to as esim. You'll get the option to retain esim.

Restore from iCloud. Restoration of settings is nearly perfect. For example, location sharing stopped working. I had to turn it off then back on.

Apple details the procedure. Follow it carefully or have an expert do it.

How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Same problem. I noticed that Wallet has the highest battery usage by app, constantly over 71%. Strange!

Mine is about the same, it will randomly drain in the middle of the night when on the magnetic charger (wondering if that is the issue but its random like once a week?).

Then sometimes during the day kind of after lunch it will get hot and drain while not using it or even having it on.

Since the update it uses all its power for background activities especially when no telephone reception but also Podcasts, etc. Before no problem whatsoever!

Another nuisance, my AirPods Pro do not reconnect automatically again after losing connection for a short while.

I had the same issue battery drain tried everything all usual turn off stuff. My battery was draining overnight when not in use on iPhone 14 pro max. Took it to Apple who ran a test and found camera module was failing causing drain. Phone was only months old. They put new camera/module in phone and phones as good as new. Charge at 100 overnight and when wake up still 100 percent. They said it’s a one in a thousand fault I have my doubts though. It wasn’t even showing up on battery usage. At end of day there shouldn’t be any battery drain on a phone that’s not that long on the market

I agree, I go to bed with more than 50% battery and wake up today with 1% left. Bought this 14pro at Best Buy in April, it’s been a not so good experience with battery from day one and has gotten horribly worse. I’m not a phone junkie, a few times a day message ect.

If I go back to Best Buy they said I don’t have Apple care but their TOTAL care from BB. They’ll keep the phone for days to evaluate- so I’m living with the aggravation. Who can leave a phone for that period of time

I don’t know if the Apple Store will touch this if I don’t specifically have the Apple care.

Andymo1234 wrote:

Backing up and restoring does no good

Has this been your experience with this process, that performing a backup and restoring does not fix the battery drain issue, or are you only saying this because it shouldn’t be necessary for you to do this to get your battery to retain a charge as it should?

Yes I tried all the usual procedures with battery drain restore phone getting rid of apps tweaking the settings. So I took it to the Apple Store where the Genius Bar performed a test on my phone and found it to be a camera module draining the battery as I slept. They repaired my phone the same day free of charge after all it’s a brand new phone under a year old and shouldn’t be performing the way it did due to their components. Hope that helps

Your welcome I was experiencing the same issues as you and couldn’t figure out why a top of the range phone couldn’t hold a charge since it has been repaired the battery life is unbelievable so it was an Apple issue and they sorted it promptly and said if it didn’t work they would give me a new phone. They also said it was one in a thousand that had that issue to me that seems quite high with the millions that Apple sell

Thank you for the information, I’m going to attempt to back it up on my laptop by creating a new iTunes account. I don’t have an iPad system just a regular laptop /windows.

Same issue happened last night, I had it fully charged at 9:30pm and at 5 o’clock this morning it had drained from 100% down to 56% by just sitting there sleeping overnight. (The night before it went from 52% down to 1% by just sleeping overnight.)

There’s definitely a problem here it’s just getting worse so I have an appointment at the Apple store on Wednesday and I hope they can figure out what’s going on with it without having to keep it for very long.

Did Genius Bar say whether camera module was causing drain while phone’s in use vs only in sleep mode (overnight)? I’m assuming the former but maybe optimized charging feature is a factor?

From reading various threads on battery drain since 16.5, the 2 root causes appear to be camera module issue & iMessages constantly running in background. Anyone aware of others? I’ve resorted to keeping phone in low battery mode all day (doesn’t help much) & turning phone off at night after it reaches 100% to ensure I have full charge in a.m.

Has anyone come up w/a theory as to why not all iPhones are affected? Could stainless steel vs aluminum frame be a factor? Wouldn’t think so but trying to ID diffs since friends & family w/aluminum 13 pros don’t have battery drain probs while I do & mine is stainless.

Yes Genius Bar confirmed that it was camera module causing drain during the night my phone was ok during the day compared to when asleep since it has been repaired it doesn’t run any percentage down at night anymore and battery life is brilliant