iPhone 6+ Photos "Background Activity" is using up my battery.

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Level 1

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iPhone 6+ Photos "Background Activity" is using up my battery.

I have an iPhone 6+ with iOS 8.4 (the most current version) and 128GB of storage. Up until about 10 days ago I've been very pleased with the battery life. The phone used to easily make it a day and a half without a charge. Now I find that the battery can't make it through a day. The "Battery Usage" screen shows that it's Photos "Background Activity" that's using up the battery. I started being careful to not start Photos, but that didn't help. I also check from time to time (by double-hitting the home button) to make sure that Photos isn't running. It isn't. Last weekend I backed up and restored the iPhone. That didn't help. I'm out of ideas. Does anyone else have any?

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 8.4, 128 GB memory

Posted on Jul 25, 2015 1:43 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 25, 2015 2:29 PM in response to -nkr

You can compeletely turn off background activity for all apps, or you can disable background activity for the apps you want to. This can be done by going into settings>General>background app refresh. 🙂

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Answer 2

-nkr Author

Level 1

1 points

Jul 27, 2015 9:51 AM in response to DarkoGjakovski

Thanks for the response, Darko. That made sense and I tried it...but no joy. First, Photos doesn't appear in the list of apps for which you can turn off Background App Refresh. I turned off Background App Refresh entirely though. I did that over 24 hours ago and my phone is still draining its battery and the battery usage for the past 24 hours is showing "Photos Background Activity" as 80% of the battery usage.

I appreciate the idea...does anyone have any others?

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Answer 3

-nkr Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 3, 2015 5:21 PM in response to -nkr

I solved my own problem. Previously I had backed up my iPhone to my MacBook and then restored it--but that didn't fix the problem. I did that a second time, but this time I reset the iPhone after I backed it up. Now my battery life is back to where it should be.

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Answer 4

Aug 28, 2015 8:35 AM in response to -nkr

So you backed up the phone, reset the phone, restored the phone to factory settings, then used the restore backup option? I want to make sure I am doing this correctly!

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Answer 5

-nkr Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 7, 2015 7:45 AM in response to blackmamba5490

That's what I did the first time and it worked. But the problem occurred a second time. I did the same thing and this time it didn't help. So I'm not sure what's going on. Sigh.

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Answer 6

Sep 19, 2015 7:45 AM in response to -nkr

After trying everything I found something that, so far, has worked.

So I backed up my Iphone then restored it (which I had done before with no success) but this time, instead of choosing the restore back up option on iTunes, I restored as new. I set the phone up again as if I had just bought it, re-downloaded my apps, and only synced things I deemed necessary back to the phone via icloud (apple music and contacts). I have not synced pictures and only have 2 in my photo library now that I took, but my battery is lasting all day like it did originally and the "Photos: background activity" section that was using 65% of my battery is now not even listed when I check the "battery Usage" section. Hope this helps. I know ive spent way more time trying to fix this than anyone should have too.

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