Unusually high battery drain is a symptom, not a problem. There are many possible causes for this symptom. In theory, as many as there are apps installed on the phone.
Sudden change in battery drain is caused by an app or apps that are using more energy than they should. It can happen at any time, but is slightly more likely after an update, because the update process interrupts apps in the middle of some activity, either foreground or background, and some apps do not recover cleanly and get stuck attempting to repeat a failed data update, essentially forever. Killing the app doesn't always resolve it, because the real problem is data that was corrupted by the interruption, and the app will continue trying to recover the corrupted data after it restarts.
MS Exchange email accounts will do this frequently, due to a bug in the Microsoft ActiveSync process which, unfortunately can never be fixed, because it would break millions (billions) of older MS Exchange clients that cannot be updated. If you have an MS Exchange account the only fix is to delete the account, restart the phone, and add it back. Or have your administrator restart the MS Exchange server (which most admins don't really want to do). If you are interested I can provide technical details on this bug, but I don't want to distract from solving the problem.
Other IMAP email accounts can exhibit a similar problem; again, the easiest solution is to delete the account, then add it back. As the email server is always the master for IMAP accounts no messages will be lost.
Accounts that sync data from a server (and this includes iCloud) can get out of sync between the server and the iPhone. Given enough time this can resolve itself (at least for iCloud), but it's easier to shut down the sync service, restart the phone, and start it up again. Yes, even for iCloud syncing. And I had to do this over the weekend when my iCloud Contacts stopped syncing correctly. It took about 14 hours for my contacts to again sync.
As many 3rd party apps sync with a server all can be suspect. That's why checking to see which apps are using the most energy in Settings/Battery is a good diagnostic step.
Interesting enough I have an old iPhone 5 as well. I upgraded this phone as well to 11.2.5 and it's not having the problem.
I spent 3 hours yesterday straight watching netflix on my iPhone 5 and the battery depleted at a normal rate to what I've noticed these last 3 years (I'd say 75%).
My iPhone 5 has significantly better battery retention then my iPhone 6s.
I really hope an immediate fix comes out, because my solution here isn't to upgrade to a new iPhone platform.
It's to abandon iPhone altogether after many many years.
I have the exact same problem. Anyone who has had an iPhone knows the drill, so no need for Apple to keep telling us how to conserve battery life. The problem is with the updates and Apple knows this, so why are they skirting the issue and pretending we are morons instead of fixing it? I've had an iPhone since the first release, but I've had it. Jobs never would have stood for this. Apple should be ashamed. I'm giving them one more try and then tossing the iPhone in favor of Android. When enough people follow this path, the investors will demand that they stop playing games with us and get back to work.
After "upgrade" 😉 to 11.2.5, my iPhone 7 also has the fast battery drain.
Additionally, it exhibits rapid restarts when plugged in for charging and vibrates when it usually doesn't when airplaying music.
Before 11.2.5 had been rock solid.
Hope Apple has 11.2.6 in the pipeline.
HTH others...
Disabled iMessages & Handoff => NOK
Multiples reboots => NOK
Disabled iCloud Drive (without reboot) => OK
Today:
100% -> 5hrs (normal usage - mail, news...) ->75%
Hoping it will be definitive
Thx to all, and mostly Magnumct
Your iPhone 6 may need a new battery.
Your iPhone qualifies for the reduced priced iPhone Battery Replacement program, which now, until the end of 2018, will only cost $29 U.S.D..
Here’s what to do here in these Apple website/webpage links.
https://www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/
https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service
For older model iPhone, like the 5S/6/6S/6S/7/7S, a new replacement battery is the real key.
Good Luck to You!
Apple mention that the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 7 had issues with the battery and you have to make an appointment with the Apple Genius Bar to replace the battery with a new improved one. A few weeks ago, Apple ordered new improve batteries for your iPhone 6 and 7. Cost for a new battery is $75.00, but since its no fault of yours so Apple will charge you about $25.00 to put in the new battery for you at the Genius Bar. Within weeks all of the replacement batteries were gone. Apple is ordering more batteries. Make a appoinment as soon as possible with the Genius Bar because they are thousands or maybe millions of iPhone 6 and iPhone7 users that needs new replacement batteries. After December 2018 if you don't replace it then Apple will charge you the full price of $75.00 for it. Do it now and make an appointment with the Genius Bar soon.
I have exactly the same problem. I also got my iPhone 8 four months ago, and since I’ve installed iOS 11.2.5 it drains in about 7 hours.. I already checked the battery use of the apps, and even the smallest apps use a lot of energy. I try not to charge my phone throughout the whole night but only 2 hours, but at this point I have to charge it two times a day! Also my keyboard is doing weird, clicking on things I don’t touch.. Calling with Apple Support is not really helpful, because they will only say ‘Maybe you could turn on the energy saving mode’ as if I did not think about that before calling them...
Siri probably wasn't the issue; iCloud drive was. Try turning Siri on and I think you will not see any degradation in battery life (unless you have Siri off for other reasons). iCloud drive can certainly cause battery drain, as I stated in my post. It's an example of syncing never completing. You may have a file in iCloud Drive that is corrupted. You can try turning it back on; frequently, leaving iCloud Drive off for a while can fix a problem. If it doesn't start moving files out of iCloud drive until normal battery life returns.
iOS 11.3 has the sane problem.
As per the thread, I noticed the app taking most battery was Safari.
i Tried various things like turning off javascript, installing ad blocker, etc. But then installed Dolphin browser and stopped uaing Safari and it looks like my problem is resolved. Safari has some memory leak somewhere.
Hi all!
i am an Apple user for the last 7-8 years and have restore/updated a lot of them. I updated 2 days ago from 10.3.3 to 11.3. I have been afraid of battery drain and now I have this :-( Before in 10.3.3 I used to get 1.5-2 days of battery. Now I recharged my phone over night and unplugged it at 4am. At 8 I was already down to 90% in standby. The battery drain continues. The settings remained the same as before: location off, background app refresh off, iDrive off, only Photo Stream is on.
What I can see odd is that Photos is eating up 47% of my battery, even if it says 2 minutes screen and nothing about background. The next one is Email with10%. With Photos I have iCloud Drive off, backup to iCloud off, just Photo Stream is on.
I am suspecting some sort of background indexing of files because this is not ok at all; battery is draining like crazy. Or trying to reupload Photo Stream - altough on my iPad Mini the photos are uploaded and ok so this shouldn't happen as everything is uploaded.
@Lawrence: I have been reading your posts and they make sense even if I find it weird how an upgrade can mess up syncs as before starting the update the ios closes all running processes, right? Also average users cannot be expected to troubleshoot individual apps like you described as it is very time consuming. Anyways - do you have any ideas to the case described? I also just turned off Siri and Search from looking into photos - I had the suspicion that maybe the ios was reading in the background the photos to try indexing and clustering them in order to offer better search options (like when you type "vacation" in search to offer photos from past vacations).
Thx!
I have never had photo stream on so it doesn’t apply to me.
My biggest battery killer was safari.
See the attached. 4 hours on screen 23% compared to Dolphin 12%
It’s just dropped 2% as I am typing this message!
Well, I can only confirm the about the same similar issue with an iPhone 6S and now a replacement iPhone 5.
– Secondary my iPhone 6S will not charge and that is not a battery issue.
After a Hard Reset about a week ago, the phone was running really well with several days of battery life and charging fast. Then 3 days ago, it stopped charging while I was on a video call with a client. I made the same type of Hard Reset, but it prompted a forced Update via iTunes, with no other options. That upgrade was quirky and I had to put in my phone access code 4 times before it registered it – Then resulting in the message that iTunes could connect with the Phone!. The phone then died from power and it will not charge.
I got an iPhone 5 as a temporary replacement but after a successful recovery, the iPhone 5 seems to get the same problem or at least a very rough battery drainage. I can not determine what causes this, but it is not the battery that is the problem, neither the cables and therefore it must be a software/app related issue.
😕
Again: if you would have read this entire thread you would have seen that this behavior ia not an iOS issue.
If your battery indicator is showing a line (this sign “-“) it means you have restarted your phone since last full charge. If you restart the phone the indicator will not show the time usage since last full charge.
Also if your usage time equals standby time it means you have a rogue app / apps that constantly use your phone, thus draining your battery. After an update an app, or apps can crash and constantly sync (for example I had Photos constantly syncing in the background draining my battery like crazy). Use the Battery menu and identify the top apps, disable/reinstall them and I think it should work. It surely did in my case...
Try turning off Siri and see what happens. This worked for my ipad.
IOS 11.2.5 battery drain
