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.
I have a 6s and I’ve had it for a year. Before today it worked fine and I never had issues with battery life. Today when I woke up it was 100% and only dropped to 98 after usage before I left for work. When I got to work and sat in my car on it for a few minutes it dropped to 80%. I restarted it and it jumped to 96% but dropped to 90 as I walked in the building. I charged it for an hour and then it stayed on 100 till I went to lunch. I even used it a little. Then at lunch it started dropping again. So I installed the new IOS update and it’s STILL having issues. I’m charging it now but I need to know how to fix this.
I don’t blame you. I’m not updating my iPhone 7 or my iPad until I can be sure the battery issue is fixed. Unfortunately I can’t roll back my iPhone 6s as iTunes wont allow it. However, it does give me a tester phone to use to see if the issues get fixed in any future patches. Until then, I’m sticking to 11.2.1
I have an iPhone 6 and have never had a problem with the battery. I upgraded to 11.2.5 and now my battery goes dead in a few hours. I have done everything suggested by apple to extend the battery life without avail. I can't trust that I will have a working phone when I need it.
Ever since 11.2.4 update, my battery has been draining crazy. Fully charged at 5pm, by 11pm it was down to 45%. Seriously?! All the settings were the same as before and now it’s non stop draining. And the battery is getting warm too. What have you done to the updates, Apple?! IOS 11.2.5 did no help either.
I’m using iPhone 7 Plus, battery shouldn’t be that old to drain that much.
So frustrating.
4 month old iPhone 7. Started experiencing the battery drain upon upgrading to 11.2.2.
The drain is substantial enough that I've had to unpair my iWatch to allow all day use without an additional charge. One peculiarity that I've noticed is that the drain is accelerated when the phone's screen is in use, e.g. browsing with Safari or iBooks. The brightness level does not seem to make a difference.
As many on the thread have already noted, I too am disappointed in the continually poor iOS 11 updates being pushed out by Apple.
I turned off iCloud Drive on my iPhone 6s which was updated to 11.2.5. It was 100% before going to bed and 7 hours later the battery was dead. In the past week I have replaced this battery twice. (I thought the first replacement may have been a bad battery.) I've tried every solution posted in these discussions as well as from Apple, yet the battery still drains at an unbelievably fast rate! Clearly, replacing the battery is not the answer to this problem. The phone worked perfectly before these last few updates. I'm at a loss as to what to do.
Same for me - iPhone 6s. After the same issue with an IOS 9.x update on my old 4s, I swore I would leave any updates until all the bugs had been ironed out, but on this occasion I had to update the phone 11.2.5 to fix a problem on my Apple Watch - which is also showing signs of battery drain....
Thank you so much for confirming that it also fixes the battery drain on 11.2.5. One other poster said it made no difference. I was not willing to upgrade from 11.2.2 to make sure it really was the fix...I waited for others that were on 11.2.5 to try it out and you seem to be the 'one'. :-)
Sorry, but it definitely doesn’t stops problem on my iPhone 8. Turned iCloud Drive off today after one of those posts above. Will see how much battery will remain after the night, just made a screenshot. But for now seems like no significant changes to me. Still eats as a beast - 4% while I was writing this.
I too have had my battery draining rapidly since updating to iOS 11.2.5. My battery is also taking longer to charge due to it draining quickly. I have had my phone plugged in at work for most of the day and it still is not fully charged. I can usually charge it an an hour. I have no apps running in the background. I have turned all of them off. This is ridiculous.
I have an iPhone 8 Plus and frankly I’m getting mad how bad the battery is. I have a plus and my battery still dropped 2% writing this little paragraph. I have not messed with the setting at all since I updated but recently its been really bad (since the update).
Depending how old your iPhone 5S is (they were discontinued in September 2016) it maybe time to get your iPhone 5S battery replaced.
The iPhone 5 models are NOT part of the reduced priced iPhone battery replacement program, so you’ll be paying the regular $79 U.S.D. cost for a new replacement battery.
iPhone and iPod Touch Li-ion batteries do NOT last as long for top battery performance due to smaller size and power capacity.
Get your iPhone 5S battery check out your “local” Apple Store or an Apple authorised service center.
Good Luck to You!
Surely this is not the point.
Apple provided an IOS update - battery life before was fine, battery life after was rubbish.
A new battery won't fix this problem. As owners of expensive iPhones, we shouldn't be scrabbling around trying to fix it.
Suggestions are always helpful, but it looks like this isn't a one-size-fits-all issue.
Apple are NOT testing their updates prior to release!
Yeah you are absolutely right! I have never used more than 500mb per month, this month though 90% of my monthly data allowance which is 1 gigabyte is gone in just 4 **** days! I've opened a thread on my net.provider's forum about that and the suggestions they gave me was "switch off data assist" but that was never the case as my phone is connected to my wifi 99% of the time. The problem must be 11.2.5.
And by the way switching "iCloud Drive" off did not improve my battery at all even though I thought it did last night..
APPLE JUST TAKE US BACK TO 11.2.2 UNTILL YOU HAVE REPAIRED THE MESS YOU'VE MADE ON 11.2.5 RIGHT NOW!
This is the worst iOS system ever. A week ago updated my 7 Plus to 11.2.5 and that was a big mistake. Battery life is much much worst than in 10.3.3, at least 25-30% per cycle. This is a joke Apple, shame on you!!!
IOS 11.2.5 battery drain
