iPhone 16 Pro Battery Draining Quickly

Here are a few insights from Apple Support’s official iPhone Battery Drain help page. 

Did you recently update your iPhone to a new version of iOS? 

• If you've recently updated your iPhone, battery life might drain faster than usual for a few days. Background tasks like indexing and syncing can temporarily affect performance, so give it time to stabilize.

Battery Suggestions

• Auto-brightness: Enable auto-brightness to reduce battery usage.
• Auto-lock: Activate auto-lock to prevent the screen from staying on unnecessarily.
• Reduce Brightness: Lower your screen brightness if it's set too high.
• Background Location: Limit location access for apps to "While in Use" to conserve power.

Battery Usage Overview

• Check Activity & Battery Usage by App: Go to Settings > Battery to see which apps are using the most battery. Adjust settings for apps consuming excess power.

Other Battery Saving Tips

• Use Wi-Fi: When possible, connect to Wi-Fi, as it consumes less battery than cellular data.
• 5G Auto (iPhone 12 & later): Enable Smart Data mode to automatically switch between 5G and LTE to save power.
• Low Power Mode: Activate this mode to reduce power consumption when the battery is low.

Battery Health

• Check Battery Health: Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health to see your battery’s condition. If "Service" appears, consider replacing the battery.

jcarlo.cc wrote:

I am thinking about returning my iPhone 16 pro because of the poor battery life. My iPhone 13 Pro with a recently replaced battery has better battery life than my iPhone 16 pro

You have 14 days to return the iPhone for a full refund. If you have given it 4 days to reindex files and do the background processing needed for photo analysis and siri suggestions, and still are not happy with your battery like, then I would recommend returning it. After these background processes have been completed, it is expected that the iPhone 16 Pro should have up to 27 hours of Video Playback and up to 85 hours of Audio Playback compared to the iPhone 13 Pro having up to 22 hours of Video Playback and up to 75 hours of Audio Playback.

I have the same problem. Bought 16 Pro 3 days ago and I can reach more than 5-6h screen time and maybe, maybe 1h - 1.5h of idle. Can't believe in these units with 8-10 screen time... not doable in my case I think.

Turned off: 5G, AOD, background apps, location services, ets. When the phone is not being used, it consumes 1% per 30-40 mins.

Spoke with Apple yesterday and they performed an online diagnosis and the tech support representative told me, that what my phone achieves is pretty decent and he doesn't think this is an issue. The diagnosis showed the battery is good, nothing is happening.

The options I have are to replace the unit within 14 days but tbh I feel this is not the unit case because before 16 Pro I had 16 Pro Max for 10 days and had the same: when the youtubers were saying they have 18h screen time, mine was 5h after 50% of battery at most.

So I feel disappointed? I am not a heavy user but I was expecting much more from 16 Pro in comparison to my 14 Pro which I was charing twice per day. With 16 Pro I think I can make one full day but without the full comfort of not thinking about the battery.

I think you have misunderstood us. I have been regularly reporting that I phone 16 pro battery hasn’t been improving with anything -if you don’t use low power mode. It is unfair for you to say that we will report if there is any problem. If we report and if there is a solution- will definitely share. If you are Apple employee- I would recommend to pass it on to high up that Apple may have good customer service, but there has to be a way to allow us to complain.

I have been strong supporter of Apple since 3GS and various MacBooks and ipads- but if they can’t fix battery issue with 16 pro or accept mistake - then no difference with other unreliable mobile phone companies.

Saneee wrote:

It has been 3 days now since I got my iPhone 16 pro and I am blown away by the poor battery life. I believe all the updates and configuring as apple support stated is complete. The phone is no longer running hot. But the battery life is unacceptable. Thinking of returning it. Has this improved for anyone? If yes what did you do ?

Once the problem goes away, we don't see many follow ups as people no longer need the support they are looking for, but there have been some such as this one provided Petalfrog82. It would appear at that rate they are getting the full day of battery usage that would be expected:

The day after I got it, my battery drained to 70% after 4 hours. Five days later I am down to 45% after 10 hours, so I do think it has been improving over time.

Im using my phone from last 8days My iPhone 16pro battery drains so fast when I use cellular data it’s screen time only 4hours with 95per battery

i must say its good battery time with WiFi but with cellular data very disappoint me

please resolve this issue ASAP I’m requesting to apple company

Recently bought a new iPhone 16 Pro very upset about the battery life. It seems like I’m consistently charging my phone. I’m very glad to hear others are having this problem. It’s very disappointing as a Apple user to have a new product and the battery is just dying so fast

rejodia wrote:

Please how do you factory reset iPhone with a MacBook? My new iPhone 16 Pro´s battery is draining so fast.

Here you go:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings using a computer - Apple Support

I've gotten my iphone 16 pro since Sept 20 and i am still facing the same battery drain issue.

I am a light user even that it can't last me a whole 20 hours.

Yea right... indexing takes over a month and it is not done yet.

Good job.

The worst battery time I faced even my iphone xs on 76% battery health giving better battery time than my iphone 16 pro. What are you guys doing? The shity battery timing make the worth of the phone as nothing but ****.

No one here is an Apple employee. Apple Support Community is a public discussion forum for fellow Apple users to connect, assist each, share tips and solutions. Apple hosts the community, but is not a participant and will never read your comment. If you would like to leave feedback for Apple please use the link below.

Feedback - Apple

Here are the steps provided by Apple to reset your iPhone using a computer. Should be fine restoring from a backup as you are really just interested in getting the OS installed again. Definitely make sure you have a backup, as the phone will be wiped clean. No doubt some apps are notorious for battery drain, such as Meta apps, but restoring the OS may help as it did with TAS22.

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings using a computer - Apple Support

olatunbosun209 wrote:

This worked for me : Improve Battery Life

To be clear, it is no surprise that performing steps such as these will improve battery life:

• Reducing Screen Brightness
• Turn off Background Refresh
• Limiting Location Services

That is not a solution to the problems that users have posted about and they are not looking for these minimal improvements by partially crippling these features. What users have found success in is resetting the phone using a computer and compare the results before any data is restored from a backup. This should be the first thing that is done before any post about poor performance so that there is an apples to apples comparison

It might be the 3 main reason of iPhone battery drain:

1. Hardware issue - resolved by changing the phone.
2. iOS software issue - fixed by manipulations with the phone.
3. Corrupted file / app issue - fixed by deleting the files / apps and resetting the system.

Log of the fixing iPhone battery drain issue (if previous doesn’t help try the next):

1. Restart phone.
2. Soft reset phone.
3. Change different settings:

• Always On Display
• Background apps activity
• cellular settings
• Siri settings
• etc (a lot of video and articles)

4.Update iOS.

5.Reset phone and restore from iCloud.

6.Reset phone and set from scratch.

7.Reset phone with MacBook/PC.

8.Update iPhone firmware.

After each measure take time (couple of days / weeks) and observe phone behaviour.

If all of this doesn’t help - change the system (iPhone to Android “).

If it’s too doesn’t help - throw smartphone, use dumb phone and be happy ))

If we can’t see what your apps are doing, we can’t help diagnose and resolve the issue. 😀

Please post a screen shot of you battery usage by app. Here’s mine,