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.
About the battery usage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touchCheck battery usage
Go to Settings > Battery.
To see how long each app has been open and running in the background, tap
. Under each app, you might see these usage types:
- Background Activity means that your battery is used while apps run in the background.
- Audio means that apps play audio while running in the background.
- No Cell Coverage and Low Signal means that your device is searching for a signal or being used with a low signal.
- Backup & Restore indicates that your device has been backing up to iCloud or restoring from an iCloud backup.
- Location and Background Location means that your battery was used when tracking your device.
Adjust settings to improve battery life
While viewing your battery usage, you might get a suggestion like Enable Auto-Brightness or Adjust Display Brightness. This is because iOS determined that changing these settings could improve your battery life. You can also see the usage times since the last full charge.
Learn more about maximizing the battery performance and lifespan of your iOS device.
iCloud in general wasn’t the fix to the problem. It was only with I specifically turned off the iCloud Drive switch from within the entire iCloud menu did the battery drain completely stop. Overnigh, battery standby was over 7 hours and usage was 10 minutes. With iCloud Drive on, both usage and standby were the same during the past week. Devices would drain in a couple hours. I was losing my mind. Now I just need to confirm that someone using 11.2.5 has the same result to fix this bug as I’m refusing to upgrade from 11.2.2 at this time.
Don’t know what I did but my battery is back to normal. I deleted YouTube and turned off iCloud. I then did a hard restart and turned iCloud back on. I had 100% this morning and as of 5:45 pm, I have 82%. Not sure if this will help everyone but it’s worth a try. I did not reload YouTube basically because I don’t use it on my phone. Good luck.
Your iPhone 6S could have been affected by Apple's inserted slowdown code in iOS 11 that affects performance of older iPhone with batteries that are degrading in performance due to age and charging wear and tear.
This would ONLY get worse with each update version of iOS 11, not better.
This is EXACTLY why Apple introduced the new reduced priced iPhone battery replacement program!
Older iPhones are running iOS and the phone hardware on less than ideally powered Li-ion batteries.
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
Good Luck to You!
I tried all the other suggestions in sequence of posting dates, except for removing the SIM card. I rebooted, and then shut the phone off and turned it on again. Nothing made a difference. Then, while poking around “Cellular” in “Settings,” I noticed I had not re-enabled LTE for voice (I had data only) so I changed that to voice and data. I also turned off data roaming because I did not need it active at this time. I did these things because I was there and they needed changing, not because I thought it would make a difference to the battery problem. Sorry to have muddied the waters.
My carrier is AT&T, so I take advantage of using WiFi to answer my phone from my other devices. The option in Settings...Cellular...AT&T is called “Calls on Other Devices” and I turned that off because I wondered if the phone was trying to constantly communicate with my iPad. When I got out of Settings, I watched the battery for a while and the drain seemed to have stopped. Today, the phone battery seems to be as healthy as it was pre-11.2.5. This “fix” (and turning off the iCloud Drive) feel like they are dependent on the random configuration of each phone, so it may not work for anyone else. Good Luck!
Hi Guys
Fixed!
I’ve turned my phone off (first time since update) and disabled Siri, left phone active overnight and only lost 5% battery, so fingers crossed it has done the trick
Sent from Steve's iPhone
My 7+ is less than 6 months old and my battery had no issues until I downloaded the latest iOS update. I found by turning off Siri and iCloud, my battery performance returned to very close to what the battery life was before the update.
6 weeks ago I bought a NEW iPhone 7 and updated to 11.2.5 and I had the problems which are outlined above. I tried iMessage on/off, iCloud on/off, ... and further made a reset. No improvement. I installed 11.2.6. No improvement.
I think the last thing I tried was to set the default time for the lock screen from 1 minute to 30 seconds.
Now my battery-lifetime is normal !!! since 3 weeks.
Cause I tried many things I am not definetely sure that the problem was the lock screen time. But I am sure the problem with the battery is not a hardware problem.
@apple: It's definitely a software problem.
What you are seeing is PhotoStream syncing. That should stop after a few hours. If it continues try turning it off. If that stops the problem turn it back on.
PhotoStream is a deprecated feature as of iOS 10. It will still work, but the better solution is iCloud Photos, as its permanent (PhotoStream images disappear after 30 days or 1000 photos, whichever comes first).
MavraH
Can you see if you have the iCloud Drive setting turned on WITHIN iCloud on your iPhone? If so and you turn it off, does your battery drain return to normal?
For me turning iMessages off and on in Settings -> Messages fixed this issue. Before my phone would be drained at the end of the day and now it easily lasts the whole day again.
In my case, changing my Apple ID password seems to have fixed the drain. Also, I deativated everything from iCloud (calendar, safari..) except for Notes.
Jeffmic I can confirm this. Turning off iCloud Drive is the fix to the annoying battery drainage that did not start until 11.2.5 upgrade.
Interestingly I removed the sim and ran the phone just using WiFi. Used it continuously for over 9 hours and still have 26% battery!
I received a new iPhone 7 back from apple after a repair, this has iOS 11.2.1 still. The sim is installed, I’m tethering and using the apps continuously. 3 hours later, I’m still on 88%. So it is definitely an issue with iOS 11.2.5.
i noticed an improvement after during the following: drained the battery down to 0%, turned off Siri, and praying.
The battery life isn't what it was before the 11.2.5 update but it is decently better than immediately after updating. Good luck everyone.
IOS 11.2.5 battery drain
