Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

You’re not taking into consideration the extra processes that go on after an upgrade (from 18.x.x to 26.x.x) and then an update.

Please update all your apps. Third party apps may not have been optimized for iOS 26 yet and that can cause severe battery drain. After updating your apps, please do a forced restart and give things another few days to settle in.

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Hi, Lock Screen is probably running in the background too. This often indicates a Widget is stuck in a loop and consuming your battery. It also might be due to high screen brightness, notifications being stuck in a loop, background activity being pushed to apps from servers (turning off background activity does not stop server side pushes).

Id start with deleting all widgets and adding them back one by one until you find the culprit. Sometimes just a forced restart will work, but I find that the widget gets in a loop until the developer updates. Particularly bank widgets have been an issue in the past.

martinjames1962 wrote:

Down loaded two days ago. It drains faster than it will charge

You haven't provided any information that would be needed for assistance:

• What is your Battery Health?
• What are the apps consuming the battery?
• What kind of charger are you using, 20W, Wireless, etc?
• Have you tried a different charging cable?
• Have you tried the Force Restart?

Indexing is expecting for 3-5 days and will also depend on the size of your photo library to process the object detection algorithms. Since you just installed 2 days ago, this is still occurring and you should be experiencing heat, lag, and increased battery drain. That is documented by Apple here:

About Apple software updates - Apple Support

In addition, we cannot comment on the issues that have been improved in the iOS 26.1 version that is currently in beta and being tested. You may find better optimization with battery performance. I see another user referred to iOS26.1, but I think they were mistaken and actually meant 26.0.1, since they were asking about downgrading and beta software can be removed, just not the release versions.

Had the same issue on my iphone 16 after upgrading to 26.0.1.

i did these things and battery life seems to be normal. Following are the things i did.

1. update all the apps manually and do a hard reset by pressing volume up, release, volume down, release & finally hold power button until you see the apple logo. This will force your iphone to restart.
2. turn on reduce motion from setting. This will disable lockscreen 3d image feature. But maybe this helped to reduce my battery draining. (accessibility—> motion)
3. turn on the prefer cross-fade transitions(accessibility—> motion). This will disable modern transitions and new glass effect.

somehow these things prevented my rapid battery draining issue.

also please note that for first 2-3 days there are some background processes running to indexing after the update. So maybe that will also take a huge battery power for that process better to give 2-3 days and then try these methods. All or one will help you.

I also have a brand new iPhone 15 Pro Max, am not new to Apple products, technology in general including software, Hardware, the differences, etc. I experienced the same issue and had the same complaint as the OP (original poster) and after doing the 26.0.1 update AND updating ALL of my third-party apps AND the force restart, I continued to have the same issue. For me, I went into my Battery Usage and realized that at some point I had turned battery optimization and AI habit learning to the off-toggle position. No doubt it was during a time when I needed my phone to be at 100% sooner than my habits had it programmed to reach full batter capacity or prior to the iOS 26 release with some 3rd party apps had not rolled out a bug-fix as they were waiting for iOS 26 to launch and then do a larger software update to optimize accordingly. When that was happening, my battery was draining from 100% to 33% in a matter of 2.5 hours with no apps open, background refresh turned off, etc etc so on and so forth.

Realizing this, I toggled the option on, back off and then back on again, got to my Home Screen and did another force restart. I gave my phone a solid 4 days and by the 5th day I stayed above 60% despite numerous hours-long conversations for work, an extremely heavy email in & out day and also heavy use of socials for that work day as well. if you're at your wits end, check something simple like this as you may have read it wrong, thought it was toggled on when it wasn't, a setting may have caused the phone to go rogue, etc. Believe it or not, it happens.

Our devices are indeed, SMART devices. They learn our habits, our usage, etc and we all know by now that keeping our phones plugged in constantly is actually NOT good for the battery. Try the above and see if that helps.

andrea_filice wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/6028a191-4116-4e02-8c7d-9e0e04dbdba9

Meta needs to calm down, it's not possible that Instagram consumes 38% of my battery for a simple 2 hours. Whatsapp has 22% of use but anyway how does it in the background to have gone 1 hour and passes if I have never made a call or something like that

You are absolutely correct and even Google has called out Meta for battery draining on their devices. Meta has the worst track record for introducing bugs in their apps, and attempts to resolve it with another update that introduces a different bug. For example, Instagram was just updated 4 days ago with 12 updates in just the last month. It is clear very little in-house testing is being done and the users are really the bug testers.

The apps are free for you to download and use, but Meta is making billions off the data they are able to gather on you and that is also done on your device that is using the battery. They do this by building a Social Graph for everything you do on their platform, including information from others liked or commented on your post and those that you did to others. Processing is being done in the background on your device and any notification you receive will launch the app in the background to process the payload. That is simply their business model and it is no surprise that Meta owns WhatsApp as well.

It is no surprise that without those apps, you have exceptional battery life. Once you are able to identify the problem, it is up to you how you want to proceed. If you are unhappy with the Meta apps, contact them and express your disproval and if they are unwilling to offer any solution you find acceptable, then quit using those apps. It really is your choice what apps you have installed on your phone and the Developer of the app is responsible for how that app performs.

andrea_filice wrote:

Yes, but unfortunately here in Europe Meta apps (especially WhatsApp) are fundamental.

I've already tried to contact Meta by WhatsApp, but the only answer I got is that an Apple problem by a stupid AI agent.

I understand, unfortunately it does not change the fact that those apps are consuming the battery. When you can remove an App and have your battery return to normal, then add the App again to test and find the Battery Consumption return, then you can clearly identity the fault and I would be concerned that they are using AI to tell you it is not their fault when it has been reported on extensively.

When you see the exact same reports for the Meta Apps draining the battery in the Android/Samsung Support Sites, it is much more difficult to believe it is the result of a singe phone manufacturer. Also the fact that the same is true for their apps other than WhatsApp, such as Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram makes it more than just a coincidence.

While Google has publicly called out Meta for their apps draining the battery, Apple has remained silent, other than allowing users to see the apps that consume the battery and let them make the choice themselves to use the app or not. I would hope Apple could apply pressure on Meta, but could you imagine the uproar if those Apps were removed from the App Store. It also is not a violation of App Store Submission Guidelines where Apple could legally remove those apps.

The battery draining varies across users with those apps due to their own personal Social Graph that Meta uses to capture data. Each user has different data points such as their contacts, likes, posts and also includes others who have included them in their contacts, likes, posts. When using multiple Meta apps, those same data points multiply. This data is sold to advertisers, whether you know it or not. They may say it does not identify you specifically, but that data is still being gathered on your device and is how they made $2.7 billion dollars in the last quarter alone on apps that are free to download and use.

That is their business model and they don't have any incentive to reduce this activity that would result in lower profits, as long as they don't lose their customer base. Could they make a simple encrypted Messaging app that does not result in this significant battery drain? Absolutely, and there are others where that is not the case, such as Signal or Telegram.

I finally found out what program was drawing down the battery on my iPhone. This has been a months long hunt ever since I updated to IOS 26. And the internet was unless. Turns out buried deep in the system setting was a location beacon that wouldn’t shut off.

You have to go to: Settings->Privacy and security-> Location services ->System services-> find my Iphone.

And that was after I'd disabling: Settings->General->Background App refresh-> find my iPhone

And also after I disabling: Apple account-> find my

Why are there three different places to disable this battery eating, poorly written program?????

• You emphasized NEW, so not sure if that means you just purchased it from Apple. It was discontinued on September 9th, another source could have been refurbished and new to you and not disclosed. The battery values can be "boosted" on those phones as that phone was released over 2 years ago.
• When did you update? The background process will continue for 3-5 days indexing files and cause battery drain, lag, and increased heat.

About Apple software updates - Apple Support

• Post the screenshot of Settings > Battery that includes the green battery graph for the previous 24 hours and also the top apps using the battery. Below that you will see System usage, and Home & Lock Screen is an indication of those background processes still being performed.
• As for the next update currently being tested in beta, we cannot comment on the issues that have been resolved in that version. We can be a tester, but disclosing the information is a violation of the terms here and also the user agreement being a tester of the beta. You may see improvement when it is officially released.
• From what I read on X, the earth is flat, and you will find many that agree.

You are showing a 50% drop in 10 hours. You should be getting all day battery life and charge your phone all night, every night. The apps are not listed there to identify the background process being used that will drain your battery even when those apps are not being used. Also the import system usage on the bottom of the page where Home & Lock Screen usage may indicate those background file indexing still being performed. With the consistent rate, I would suspect there are some background processes running. Turning off Refresh in Background, means something completely different than the background processes an app will use.

Have you tried the Force Restart?

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

As it was said before:

After a major update like from 18-26 the phone needs 2-5 days running processes (system-optimizing) in the backround.

I am atill on an iPhone 13 Pro max.

Changed the battery last Tuesday, today (5 days later) my battery feels like a new one. Before it was almost drained out faster than the old 75% capacity Battery.

Today I am fine :) before I was not. But I know how it works... so a Llittle bit more patience, it will be okay after 2-3 days.

I had the same issue on my 15 Pro Max. Battery sat on my desk at work all day, not being used, but 45%-60% of the battery had gone. it would also get warm when using it for video/games.

I tried all the suggestions I could find on here and other forums but nothing worked.. until...

I turned off Apple Intelligence. all of it. the only reason i upgraded to ios26.

Suddenly i was back to all day battery life, it wasnt getting warm when using it and i had my phone back.

[Edited by Moderator]

I have used 26.0.1 for quite a while now, around 6 weeks. While the first week was a nightmare when it came to battery usage, it slowly got better and after a while everything went back to normal.

Maybe the phone is doing some optimization over the first days and slowly improving performance? The rest of my family have had the same experience.

I assume everyone writing in this thread had just installed iOS 26 and immediatly gets mad. However, writing an update when everything is fine again is rarely done…we just write when something does not work as expected.

So my suggestion: Stay calm, use your phone normally and things will get better automatically after a week or so.

L_O_R_A wrote:

I’m ditching social media Apps on my new iPhone 17 that I got last week. I am accessing everything through a secured browser so far so good with that issue on Meta

Thanks for the update. The same thing has been seen time and time again that the battery problems go away when the app is removed, yet some still can't believe the app is the problem and continue to say it is Apple.

It is not the point that Apple would never have a bug in the OS that would cause battery drain and that certainly has been seen before, but when everyone complaining has the same Meta apps and the battery draining goes away when the app is removed, you have found your problem. Browser access is a great alternative until Meta figures out their app issues.

I do think Apple needs to press harder on alerting users of an Apps effect on the Battery. Even though it is clearly visible in the Battery Settings there is still more that can be done. In a couple of months, Google is going to start flagging the apps that consume excessive battery in their Play Store and I think Apple should do the same. I also don't think it would be out of line for a Notification to pop up on your device when a preset limit on battery use has been detected. Not sure if that would really change the minds of those who say they simply can't live without an app, so it must be Apples fault, but it may.

Followyoheart wrote:

1. Following can be tried depending on your risk appetite. May not be advisable from safety point of view and depending on how essential are these features to you but could be done until the iPhone stabilises after updates:

Set all mail accounts to fetch manual. New mail only arrives when mail app is opened.

2. Turn off Siri learning for as many apps as possible that is not essential to you. You will have to go Siri settings. I have a feeling that the Apple Intelligence and Siri are using lot of phone resources to learn from your apps and phone usage behaviour.

3. Background activity still happens even if you set background refresh off. You can see that in battery % used for apps. It shows on screen % and background activity %. Close apps on your drawer once done.

4. Location services off for all non essential apps. It can be turned off completely as well until required during navigation but this is risky and not advised (I believe ‘find my phone’ will lose access unless lost mode is enabled from other associated devices) and definitely not for people who tend to misplace their phones. I’ve seen location services running every time I unlock my phone. This does drain battery.

5. Lastly 26.1 seems to have improved the battery management. Not sure though. Do not forget to update all apps and do a force restart before these measures.

Yes, some may ask why bother buying a smartphone then but maybe as a temporary measure to save your battery performance until it’s fixed.

Disclaimer: At your own risk please.

Hello~ Have you tried this on your own device? Perhaps you should do so rather than post “Disclaimer: At your own risk please. “ Wow…

~Katana-San~