Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

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?????

oldmaninflorida wrote:=

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

• Disabling Apple account-> find my is the setting for finding YOUR device and turns on Activation Lock.
• Background App Refresh is only for updating the UI of Find My when the app is not open. That is an optional setting that has little impact on battery performance.
• Settings->Privacy and security-> Location services ->System services-> find my Iphone, allows your device to participate in the Find My network where it broadcasts the location of OTHER Apple devices. That is how another user can find their lost device when your iPhone passes within range. You don't need to be using Find My yourself to assist others in finding their devices, but if you turn this off it also means you will not be using Find My to locate your device. I suppose if you are in a household with many Apple devices with users constantly using Find My to locate them, it may have a greater impact, but have seen no data on battery consumption from the service for that purpose.

Just because you don't understand what the settings are for does not mean it is a poorly written program. As IdrisSeabright suggested, it is most likely something else that was going on that you correlated with this setting. Maybe you have Automatic App Updates set in the App Store where you would not even know it occurred other than a little blue dot next to the app.

Update

after the factory reset didn’t help me

( even after a week , to give it time to re-index recalibration nonsense)

a few days ago

i went thru all the apps

1- turned off background refresh on every app ( except GPS & maps + navigation)

2- turned off notifications on

all but a couple that I think I should leave on

( GPS + maps , etcetera )

3- set screen refresh to 60

my battery life is about 80% better

Today I’ve used

2 hr 41 minutes

at 6 am my battery was about 50%

it’s 2:21 pm. My battery is 25%

( battery health is 94% )

been on WiFi all day

this probably isn’t perfect but it’s way better than anything I’ve gotten with

iOS 26.xx.x

Wu7chamber wrote:

Well, it's been a few weeks and indexing didn't seem to help. Didn't think it would. I'm sure Apple thinks I already need an upgrade after only a year and a half.

Don't forget to update to iOS 26.2 released today. It is seen for most already, but may take a little more time to propagate to your device. Beta testers had already noted improvement, but we could not post here as it violates the Terms of Use for beta software.

• Have you updated to iOS 26.2?
• What is your battery health percentage?
• Low Power Mode does turn off Background App Refresh, but it is not reported to stop Background Activities of apps noted in your Battery Settings. What apps do you see using the Battery?
• How many bars are showing for your cellular connection? The less you see the more power is being used to maintain that connection whether you use Low Power Mode or not. On iPhone 12 and 13 5g remains on for streaming and downloads, where other devices turn it off.

Use Low Power Mode to save battery life on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

I would expect your Home & Lock Screen and Settings to be using more battery today after the update.

You still have not posted what apps are using your battery by scrolling down on your screen. Just because you aren't using an app does not mean it is not using power. The 2 you identified are the exact ones you would expect to be using your battery after an update for a short period of time.

In addition there is no word on your cell signal which is a major contributor to how much power is necessary to connect to your closest tower. The farther away it is the less bars you will have and the more power your device is going to use. The only thing that uses more power than a 1 bar signal is when it is searching for a tower.

If you post future screenshots, it is the green battery graph along with the apps consuming the battery that is the most helpful. The green graph shows rate of drop where the daily usage does nothing more than tell you what you have used. Leave it plugged in all night tonight and follow up tomorrow with your results.

Confirmed - I also disabled Find My & the battery only dropped 2% in 4hrs (yay). Previously within 4hrs it would drop below 50%.

Using third party app to see the overall CPU usage before & after it dropped from ~80% to ~10% usage.

This is on iPhone 14 Pro Max & 2 x iPhone 15 plus' - watches also see longer battery. All updated to 26.2.

So seems a MAJOR issue with core functionality of Find My.

Mkrr24 wrote:

Same here, battery drained within an 2 hrs after updates. Apple fix it. Thx

I would suggest making a new post with your device details and include the Battery Health along with the screenshot showing the green battery graph and apps shown at Settings > Battery, that are consuming the battery. The thread you posted in is now over 2 months old and specifically titled for iOS 26.0.1, which is now no longer relevant and the current version that you may be referring to is iOS 26.2, but it is unclear.

We all now that immediately after the update everyone experiences battery drain, lag, and excessive heat on your phone and also explained in the Apple Support article that has been posted here. It is a problem if that continues longer than that. If it is 2 hours after the update, you are still having files indexed in the background and you should plug your phone into power for that process to complete quicker.

<Quote> Wait another day. Mine was the same way but now It's running perfectly. I even bit the bullet and downloaded macOS 26.1 on my Mac. Everything is back to normal. Apple was right.

Also downloaded iOS 26.2 and no problems.

I don't know what followyoheart will find, but when I check, I don't see any unexpected or unknown processes running in the background. I know that one app, insight timer, now drains a lot of battery if left on overnight (it didn't used to) - I don't use it all the time. The main thing that I notice is that when I remove an app or make a system setting change, the draining seems to continue. I also noticed yesterday that my newer iPad (A16) ignored the setting request to stop charging at 80% - it just kept charging past that amount. I think there must be things that are effectively runaway processes, uncontrollable by the user, but of course I can't be certain of that.

sk8gal wrote:

I also noticed yesterday that my newer iPad (A16) ignored the setting request to stop charging at 80% - it just kept charging past that amount. I think there must be things that are effectively runaway processes, uncontrollable by the user, but of course I can't be certain of that.

That is normal behavior of using a Charge Limit. Occasionally it will charge to 100% in order to perform battery calibration. If you prevented it from charging to 100%, it is going to keep trying.

• Your iPad will occasionally charge to 100%—even with the limit set to 80%—to keep the battery percentage display accurate. This may happen more often if your iPad isn’t regularly able to complete a full charge.

Set a charge limit on iPad - Apple Support

sk8gal wrote:

I don't know what followyoheart will find, but when I check, I don't see any unexpected or unknown processes running in the background. I know that one app, insight timer, now drains a lot of battery if left on overnight (it didn't used to) - I don't use it all the time. The main thing that I notice is that when I remove an app or make a system setting change, the draining seems to continue. I also noticed yesterday that my newer iPad (A16) ignored the setting request to stop charging at 80% - it just kept charging past that amount. I think there must be things that are effectively runaway processes, uncontrollable by the user, but of course I can't be certain of that.

Even if you set the 80% Charge Limit on your iPad or iPhone, it's supposed to on occasion charge past 80% to 100% to to keep the battery display accurate. That is normal and expected behavior. It's explained here --> Set a charge limit on iPad - Apple Support

And this is what it says about charging past 80%:

What to expect

• Your iPad will occasionally charge to 100%—even with the limit set to 80%—to keep the battery percentage display accurate. This may happen more often if your iPad isn’t regularly able to complete a full charge.

thank you. I see lobserghost1 has shared the same info. Once upon a time, I was a Mac support professional, in the days when apple products were easier to manage. the apple ecosystem has become cumbersome to me, but I'm not going to toss out all of my products.

sk8gal wrote:

thank you. I see lobserghost1 has shared the same info. Once upon a time, I was a Mac support professional, in the days when apple products were easier to manage. the apple ecosystem has become cumbersome to me, but I'm not going to toss out all of my products.

You are welcome. There is no doubt adding options and features increases the complexity. In the old days you would not have the Charge Limit or Optimized Charging Settings, so the process was simple and you just plug the device in and there was nothing else to consider. When someone sees a feature on another platform, then they think it should be on the iPhone too and if Apple does not add new features then it appears the company has become stagnant.

The sheer number of Settings that can be changed on a device has increased dramatically to accommodate new features. On the other end of the spectrum, if Apple just added a feature and did not give a user any way to change it, then users complain that Apple is forcing them to do something they don't want. The liquid glass UI is a good example, where now Apple is adding additional Settings to reduce the effect for those that do not like it, and certainly increases the complexity. It's a no-win situation, you can't be stagnant while competitors are adding new features, and the features add complexity for those that don't think anything should ever change.

I’m having the same battery drain issue after the iOS 26 update. My phone was 69% about 10 minutes a, it’s down to 62% and I haven’t used the phone l…I’ve been doing everything on my android.

After typing this message it’s gone down a 1%.