Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

It's not an issue inherent to iOS 26.

The most common reason is one or more of your apps wasn't properly updated for iOS 26 and is using excessive amounts of battery.

Check battery usage on your iPhone - Apple Support

crhymes wrote:

My battery health was 100% before updating to ios26. I even checked before installing ios26, while installing i slept and checked it in the morning and It dropped to 90%. Its an iphone 13 with a brand new battery replaced by the apple store.

Take it back to Apple, they warranty their service for 90 days. Since you said the Battery Health was 100% before updating, you are clearly within the 90 days. Problem solved.

I may have found the solution. It worsens the user interface, but you need to go to Settings, then Accessibility, Display, and reduce transparency. Apparently, Liquid Glass is poorly optimized and requires significant effort from the GPU, causing the phone to overheat and accelerating battery degradation.

[Edited by Moderator]

lippe92 wrote:

I may have found the solution. It worsens the user interface, but you need to go to Settings, then Accessibility, Display, and reduce transparency. Apparently, Liquid Glass is poorly optimized and requires significant effort from the GPU, causing the phone to overheat and accelerating battery degradation.

It does require significant GPU handling, but that doesn't mean it's poorly optimized.

Rather the combination of Liquid Glass plus the poor implementation of the apps you are using ends up in more CPU being used.

life-is-exciting wrote:

It has nothing to do with a fresh iOS 26 installation, the issue still remains after more than a month. Feels like my almost new iPhone 16 Pro Max has changed into a very old iPhone although max battery is still at 100%

Then you are only left with a couple of options after reviewing the information provided.

• Wait for iOS 26.1 that is currently in beta and being tested. We cannot comment on the issues resolved in that release that pertain to the battery performance as it is a violation of the terms of use for being a beta tester. The release date has not been announced.
• Have Apple perform diagnostics on our phone. They can do it remotely or by scheduling an appointment with Apple. It is not clear if you have performed a factory reset, which has resolved the problem of poor battery performance for some, but that can be performed at Apple. It is best to use a computer so the iOS is reinstalled.

dolphinfever wrote:

So then the apps causing my battery draining problem being the photos app and the music app are APPLES problem right?

I don't see where you have provided any details for your case. There is some very important information that has been left out. The battery draining is obviously not s systemic problem, otherwise everyone would see the same thing and that is not the case. I have 3 devices in my family, all with iOS 26, and there is no battery draining problem on any of them.

Don't forget this is a Support Site for those looking for assistance, it is not a Social Media site. For your case:

• What is your Battery Health at Settings > Battery > Battery Health > Maximum Capacity?
• Post a screenshot of Settings > Battery, showing your green battery graph along with the top 5 apps consuming the battery.
• Describe what you have done to address the problem so far, such as Force Restart, Factory Reset, Contact Apple.
• What version are you on and when did you update?

For some here, simply following the recommended steps have solved their problem, and you can see the examples yourself as Abhijitrabha posted a few days ago that the Apple support article was correct and waiting for the files to finish indexing improved their battery performance.

I have bought a new iPhone 15 and right then on 28 sept I upgraded my phone to 26 then again after 3-4 days to 26.0.1 .I am not facing any issues but for the first 10-12 days my phone battery was draining fast.Now suddenly battery performance improved

We have also seen others that had the problem resolved with a Factory Reset and others seen significant improvement after deleting identified battery consuming Social Media app. Many of those apps have now been updated, so results may vary. A large number of users have a Battery Health lower than 80%, and it has always been the case that the battery needs to be replaced once that happens. We are also aware that iOS 26.1 is currently in beta and being tested, but we cannot comment on any issues that have been resolved related to battery performance as it violates the user agreement for testing the beta software.

If you are wondering why posts are deleted on this site, you will need to review the Terms of Use and can find them on the bottom of this page. This support site is vastly different than a Social Media site where you can post the earth is flat and there is no accountability.

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]

StereodarkX wrote:

4 min of YouTube draining 10% is for sure normal 🤣. I used to watch 45 min for 10% with iOS 18. I used my iPad 20 min today and it’s down 21%, if that not an issue I don’t know what is. Even if Apple fixes it in 1-2-3 months, the battery is also ruined by many more cycles than necessary. I think it should be looked into urgently and Apple should really focus hard on avoiding this on each update. It’s happens almost every time a new OS is released.

Your battery appears to be performing very well. Over the last 22 hours, your battery only lost 21%. Apps will continue to use the battery even without you viewing them on screen, such as when they receive a Notification. The app will wake up to process that Notification, and if you manually quit an app the battery usage is increased because the app has to launch instead. Your hourly graph actually looks fantastic. Are you also showing anything under Other Battery Usage?

For Youtube, make sure you are on version 20.4.3, Google has identified bugs in the app and fixes were provided in an update today. It is impossible to compare an app with previous usage or even earlier from another device because you are most likely not comparing the same version of the app. For example, YouTube has been updated 14 times in just the last month and of course the goal is to only provide improvements, but additional bugs can also be introduced.

It appears there is one charge cycle being used in about 4 days, that is not concerning. It also appears that this may be a recent install with Friday being your first full day usage day. You have to account for file indexing after the update as well as photo optimization including processing object detection algorithms that run in the background. This will consume more of your battery and usually resolved in 3-5 days, but to be sure, give it a week. That is why you see it happen almost every time a new OS is released and Apple documents that fact here:

About Apple software updates - Apple Support

Like many others I've had this problem. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I noted that I had 497 tabs in Safari (don't ask). So I saved them on my mac and nuked all but 3 of them that I use everyday. I noticed that the battery drain was markedly less today, though it's still not as good as it was before I upgraded to ios 26. I still notice that some apps (like Linkedin) still seem to use more than I would expect. For example I was on Linkedin for only 7 minutes this morning and that used 3% of my battery. All of my apps are updated. I fear that Apple has significantly changed some interfaces for ios 26 and things that worked ok for a a lot of apps (because there were a lot of different ways to accomplish them) now use some interface that wastes a lot of resources.

Harry_chirag wrote:

I am too facing a **** out of this update the battery drain a lot faster . I wish apple fixes it fast

Are you referring to iOS 26.1 that was released today, or still talking about iOS 26.0.1 that was being used by the person you replied to?

I can suggest to use the Sort By option above the first reply and you can choose Newest where you will see the newest reply on top. There you would have seen the iOS 26.1 is available and you should update your software.

Deejjjjjjjjjj wrote:

iOS 26.1 is even worse than

26.0.1 with the battery drain!!

how is this even possible!!!!!

• What is your Battery Health percentage?
• Post a screenshot of Settings > Battery, showing your green battery graph with the last 24 hour option and the top apps consuming the battery. Make note of the System battery usage below for things like Lock Screen that may indicate file indexing, AI model installation after the update and also widget usage.

The battery improvements have been widely reported by many third party review sites across multiple devices.

https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/ios-26-1-update-fixes/

crap292 wrote:

I spent a lot of money to buy the new iPhone 16 PM. At first, the battery worked well with iOS 18. However after the update to iOS 26, everything changed. It ruined my new phone, and now I don’t feel like I’m using a new device anymore. The battery is draining super fast even though the phone is new and the battery cycle count is only 45. I updated to version 26.1 today but the battery is still draining super fast. Why is Apple doing this to us and not fixing this major issue?

You are wondering why Apple is doing this to "us", and that does not seem to be the case as you have seen here that not everyone has experienced the battery drain and it has been reportedly widely from many third party sources that those who did have seen vast improvements with 26.1. There was a bug resolved with the use of Low Power mode that could explain why it was an issue to some and not others, but that is no longer the case with 26.1.

Post a screenshot of your battery usage at Settings > Battery that shows the green battery graph with the previous 24 hour option, along with the apps consuming the battery. Note also the ones below the apps for System usage of the battery, which may be an indication of the file indexing following the update and expected.

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.

My iPhone 14 Pro Max battery drains by approximately 10 percent to 20 percent or more per hour on iOS 26.1, even with only moderate usage or when the screen is locked.

In addition, the maximum battery capacity has decreased by about 3 percent since updating to this iOS version. The battery was replaced less than one year ago and was previously at 99 percent.

It now feels like I get only about half the usage time per charge compared to when I was using iOS 18, and I now need to charge the phone several times per day.

There appear to be ongoing issues with iOS 26 that are significantly affecting battery performance on the iPhone 14 Pro Max and have not been addressed since the initial release.

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.