Fix: iPhone 7 Battery Draining Fast

I posted my problem in so many places asking for help that I forgot everywhere I did it so after finally finding the issue and fixing it I wanted to post my experiences, now I can do just that here.

Finally found the Culprit this Wednesday after a month and 4 different phones. It was iCloud for windows installed in my laptop... Yes believe it or not.

I arrived Wednesday to my office but different than any other day I didn't turn on my laptop and immediately began working on a new project. When I checked my phone around 10am I noticed that for the first time in almost a month it was working normal at my office. I just remembered that the only thing different was not having my laptop on so to verify my new theory I turned it on and left it on besides my phone for about 30 minutes, when I got back to it, the battery standby and usage has increased 30 minutes each, so the problem started as soon as I turned my laptop on. After turning off again and verify that the issue stopped as soon as I turned I off I then moved to see what could have changed in my laptop right around the day the problem began.

It was an easy finding because I hadn't installed anything new on it for the past couple of months except iCloud for Windows PC looking to be able to easily transfer my pictures to my laptop. So I Uninstalled it and reboot the laptop and the problem disappeared for good. After 2 days of that I can confirm that at least in my case, that was it.

So if by any chance you have iCloud installed in your Computer, just get rid of that POS until Apple work on it. I notified Apple about it but who knows when it may get fixed if ever.

This is the 4th phone in a row with the same problem. I had a 128GB iPhone 7+ Verizon Model back in October and it worked great for about 2 weeks that I had it, I decided to sell it and bough the Google Pixel XL until December 15th when I got another iPhone 7+, this time a 32GB T-Mobile version (A1784), it worked as expected for 2 weeks then suddenly on Dec. 28th when I got to my office the phone began draining the battery a lot faster than normal and when I checked the battery stats I noticed that the Battery Standby and Usage were increasing at the same rate, without even using the phone.

Confused about it, I even did a factory reset just before I left the office, so when I finally completed the restore process I was out of the office already. So it worked great again, as usual and the next day as soon as I crossed my Office's door the problem began, problem is that once it begins it doesn't stop. Fast Forwarding a week and trying everything possible (only thing that stops the drain is turning on Airplane mode, but then turning all the radios back one by one immediately starts the issue, every single one of them) Apple agreed to a replacement, for my surprise it had the same issue since the first day it arrived.

Tired of this, I asked my daughter to use the new phone and let me use her iPhone 7 that was working great, and as soon as I enter my office it happened again. I got tired of this and thinking that the only phone that didn't have the issue while I used it here was the Verizon one, I decided to buy a 256GB Jet Black iPhone 7 + Verizon version also, and guess what? It does the same. I've done 4 factory resets with different options, restoring a backup, setting as a new phone and installing basic settings, setting and a new phone and not setting anything, and all of them just did the same.

So as you can see, I'm out of ideas here, the only thing sure is that so far it just happens when I'm here at work, so it must be related to signal/towers/bands, but I have about 10 other co-workers with T-mobile and iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 and none of them have the same issue I have so that's what driving me crazy.

One more thing, once I leave the office it goes back to normal, but this is totally unacceptable that I must be re-charging all day decreasing my battery life span by a lot for something that seems to be affecting just me on 4 different phones in the last 3 weeks.

Any other ideas or suggestions? Pleeeeeeease.

I found a permanent solution to the battery issue. Get a phone that doesnt have apple on it. This is my 3rd iPhone in less than 2 years, all 3 have had problems. I get no help from apple, oh you need to go to Apple Store, well im not driving 2 hours to go to an Apple Store. I work away from home and depend on my phone, i have had issues as to where i cannot make phone calls, text message, speaker phone not working, freezes constantly, full service lte and wont connect, and now the battery drain is on average of 10% in 15 minutes. Needless to say once i get home, i am taking my iphone to my garage, smashing it with my sledgehammer, and getting a phone that actually works. I had a $30 walmart phone that worked flawlessly, this $900 phone is totally useless. Bye apple in 8 days, i will turn everyone away from your products as well

Oh, your and my problems are sooooo much the same desiadri! I'm on my 3rd replacement iphone and all 3 do the same thing. They work great for a week or two, then bam something happens and the drain changes from about 15 per hour (when it's working good) to 6-8% per hour without even using the phone. In fact, when the drain is excessive it drains 6-8% per hour, if I'm using the phone constantly or if it is sitting on my desk and not being used...

I too sometimes will have 6-8% drop per hour at work, but when I leave work the drain is back to 1% per hour. I am in a high reception cellular area, and have tried everything since October. I'm getting really frustrated after 3 months with this problem. I only have about 6 apps installed at this point because I keep restoring to new and starting over, but I'm beginning to think it's not the apps. Oddly it happened today when I left work and forgot my phone, so the phone was disconnected from my watch and it drained 25% in a hour and a half- could it have something to do with the iphone? If you figure any more out, please let me know...

Same problem here with my iPhone 7 Plus 256GB Matt Black..

Like everyone it started after 2 weeks, this was in september '16.

Did all the steps above and yes, it worked but after a few days the problem did return.

I did narrow it down to 2 steps to fix it for a few days.

1) hard reset the iPhone by holding down the lock button and Volume down - button.

2) When the iPhone is restarted fill in your passcode and then do a normal restart, holding down only the lock button.

3) Recharge your iPhone to 100% and your good to go for a few days...

I hope apple is going to fix this fast! Returning my iPhone for another one doesn't seem to fix the problem, did I read a lot.

This is happening to my husband's phone. I hope one of these solutions works! I've read some of the comments saying it's the Facebook App that's the culprit but he doesn't have that or the app. Waiting for him to get home from work so we can fix the problem!

I too want to thank you desiadri for your suggestion! So far after 5 days or so still running well! I was getting ready to dump the iphone and go back to android with its crappy battery life, but it was still better than what I was experiencing with my iphone draining 6-8% per hour! I'm happy with my iphone again! I appreciate your posting this on as many forums as you can so we can all have it figured out! Hopefully Apple will too someday...

Uninstalling iCloud for Windows fixed the issue for me! Before uninstalling, the battery was draining by about 10% per hour; after uninstalling the battery is at 73% after a day of light use on my iPhone 7 Plus (iOS 10.2).

Like I mentioned above, yes I feel confident that I finally found the culprit of all this mess, reading what rating here and other places this is a well known issue and because it doesn't affect everybody it hasn't given the proper resources to found the issue and fix it. I don't know you but I think I have saved Apple tons of money, sadly I won't receive even a thanks for it...;)

Anyway, please notify this to Apple, I did my part and sent a very detailed email to my Support advisor and I just hope he has forwarded it to the correct department so this can be given the attention it needs to find what causes the issue with iCloud for Windows and only in some phones and can be corrected on a future update.

I have to say I was skeptical about iCloud for Windows being the cause of my battery drain. But after having Apple changing the battery in my iPhone 6s, trading it in for a new iPhone 7, working with Apple support for 3 days on the iPhone 7 and taking it back to Verizon and returning it for a second new phone, and countless hours uninstalling, resetting, and other troubleshoot steps trying to figure out why my phone keep draining the battery so rapidly I figured what the heck, let’s give it a try. Another thing I noticed after all this with my iPhone was my iPad Air and iPad Mini (both connected to my iCloud account) were also rapidly draining the battery. Saturday I uninstalled iCloud for Windows on my office computer and my home computer. Put all devices on charger for a full charge. Sunday I used my iPhone all day long in a normal manor, was off the charger from 5am to 10pm and still had 74% charge. Both iPads have remained fully charged. There is no doubt in my mind uninstalling iCloud for Windows fixed my problem. I’m amazed and very thankful to desiadri for posting this solution, it was driving me crazy trying to figure this out. I’d like to understand what about iCloud for Windows causing this, but for right now I’m just happy my phone will hold a charge throughout the day and I no longer have to throw it on a charger every change I get.

You're welcome man and I'm glad that I helped you as I understand first hand how frustrating this issue is, what's strange is that no one at Apple has come clean and accept the issue and move this to the correct department to be fixed but in the meantime let the people know about it so they can at least temporarily Uninstall iCloud for Windows and I'm sure people will prefer having a normal working phone to an application in your computer that you may barely or ever use.

I also thank you for being the first person to thank me for finding and fixing this, incredibly no one here or in other forums I've posted about it have done it, they acknowledge that it fixed the issue but not a thanks, without even mention Apple that even when I sent them a detailed email explaining the issue and the solution they didn't even reply to the email or even confirmed receiving it, nothing. So thanks and I'm really glad this has help you.

same here.

The battery drain happen from time to time. And I can notice the phone quite warm to the touch. Even if I kill all the apps using App Switcher.. it doesnt stop the drain. The only fix is to reboot. After reboot, thing went back to normal... but it will come back maybe weeks later out of blue moon.

I was on a Iphone 7 32Gb... intially thought was my unit specific hardware issue. Just last week, got myself another 7+ 128Gb, and the issue happened again just a week later.

Tried multiple attempts.

1. Restore from iCloud -- doesnt work

2. Reset and Setup as new phone -- doesnt work

Thanks for the help.

The issue is with facebook application. My sister and I bought iPhone 7 at same and she was not using facebook application so she didn't faced this issue but I was facing it because I was using facebook application.

My phone is working fine since the day I deleted facebook application. Now my phone consumes 1-2% battery only overnight (approx. 8hrs) when phone is not being used.

Deleting facebook is the permanent solution for this issue, the issue is not related to iOS 10.

I hope facebook fixes this.

Thanks for the response- I will give it a try and keep you posted! Maybe

dumb question, but how does one uninstall just iCloud for Windows, and not

iTunes...?

🙂

Thanks,

Dave

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Apple Support Communities Updates <

I exchanged my iPhone 7+ 128gb 3 TIMES, and each time it would do the same thing. It would work great for a few weeks, then start a crazy drain of 6-8% per hour, but ONLY AT WORK. I thought it was an app, then location settings, then... I reset the phone to new over and over, sometimes restoring the backups, sometimes reinstalling everything. I tried everything I could think of for 3 months, and was about to give up.

Then I saw the posts above, and uninstalled iCloud for Windows at work 3 days ago. I did reset my phone again, but since then, no excessive drain. With light use, usually 80+% left at the end of the day! I think this may solve the problem. It wasn't the phone as I've had 3 of them, and it only happened at work- not anywhere else. I'm crossing my fingers that this has permanently solved the problem... Others please post your results below too!