iOS 16 draining your iPhone battery? 19 Best Fixes!

If you’re having problems with rapid battery drain after iOS 16 update, you are not alone. Here’s how you can fix battery drain issues after upgrading to iOS 16.

With every new operating system update, there are complaints about battery life and rapid battery drain, and iOS 16 is no exception. Since iOS 16 beta was released, we’ve seen reports of issues with battery life, and an uptick in complaints with each new point release since then.

iOS 16 battery life problems can be caused by issues that Apple needs to address in the software, or when excessively using GPS, system-intensive apps and games, and more. A battery life issue caused by a bug can’t be helped until Apple provides an update to address it, but there are steps you can take to maximize your battery life and cut down on hidden sources that might be causing excess drainage.

Fixing iOS 16 battery life problems can be a bit tricky, but we’ve got some solutions that have worked for us, and other iPhone users, in the past.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through fixes for bad iOS 16 battery life and there’s a chance they’ll help you get your issues sorted out in a jiffy.

If you’re one of the users experiencing a significant drop in battery lifespan with iOS 16, here are some of the most effective fixes to try.

1. Lower the Screen Brightness

Higher brightness levels play an enormous role in draining a phone’s battery. Adjusting to a lower brightness may be difficult at first, but it will definitely help your phone last longer over time and is thus one of the best ways to save battery on iPhone running iOS 16.

Try to increase your brightness only when necessary. Follow these steps to adjust your iPhone brightness:

1. Start the Settings app and tap Display and Brightness.
2. Drag the brightness icon to the left or right decrease or increase the brightness respectively.

Alternatively, you can also use Control Center by sliding down from the upper-right corner (on iPhones with Face ID) or swiping up from the bottom of the screen (on iPhone models with a Home button).

You can then adjust your brightness by vertically dragging the brightness icon.

2. Turn on iPhone Auto-Brightness

Auto-Brightness settings adjust your screen lighting automatically based on ambient light levels. Follow these steps to enable this feature:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Go to Accessibility.
3. Select Display & Text Size.
4. Toggle on Auto-Brightness.

3. Enable Low Power Mode

If you encounter bad iOS 16 battery life after installing the latest software update, try to use low power mode for the time being. Turning on Low Power Mode disables numerous unnecessary and unimportant activities on your iPhone. This feature allows you to easily save iPhone battery when needed without toggling a bunch of individual options.

To enable Low Power Mode on your iPhone, follow these steps:

1. Start the Settings app
2. Go to Battery
3. You can then switch on the toggle for Low Power Mode

4. Update your apps

When Apple releases a new iOS update, developers have to play catch-up too. That’s why there’s a beta version of iOS for developers, so they can prepare and optimize their apps for the latest and greatest operating system. If you don’t automatically update your apps on your iPhone, taking the time to update all the available apps on your list could seriously help with battery drain after iOS 16 update. Here’s how to update your apps:

1. Stat the App Store app.
2. Tap your account icon at the top-right of the screen.
3. Select Update All, then tap Done at the upper right of the screen.

5. Reduce the Number of Widgets in the Today View & Home Screen

Widgets allow you to quickly view information in the Today View or on your Home screen, such as the weather, your calendar events for the day, activity progress, and much more. But all those widgets consume a lot of power keep up to date. If your iPhone battery is draining fast after iOS 16 update, consider getting rid of any widgets you don’t need. To access the Today View from the Lock screen, swipe right from the main Lock screen. To access the Today View from the Home screen, swipe right from the first Home screen.

To remove widgets you don’t need in the Today View & Home screens:

Scroll to the bottom of the Today View screen; tap Edit.
If you started from the Lock screen, you’ll need to unlock your phone to make changes.
Tap the minus symbol next to any widgets you’d like to remove.

For widgets on your Home screens, touch and hold the screen until it enters Wiggle mode.
Tap the minus sign on widgets you’d like to remove.

6. Keep Your iPhone Face-Down

Your iPhone has detectors that are capable of detecting your phone’s orientation. When your phone is placed face-down, your iPhone won’t turn on its screen when a notification arrives. If you receive notifications regularly, this tip will help you save a good amount of battery life.

If you’re experiencing terrible battery drain after installing the newest version of iOS 16, make it a habit to keep your iPhone face-down whenever you are not using it. However, an important point to know is that this method doesn’t work if you turn off Fitness Tracking on your iPhone.

This option is what allows your iPhone to detect motion in this way. To ensure that Fitness Tracking is enabled, follow the steps below:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap on Privacy
3. Scroll down and tap on Motion & Fitness.
4. Check if the toggle next to Fitness Tracking is turned on. If it’s off, enable it to allow this function to work.

7. Location Services: Only While Using the App

Location Service is another sneaky way your iPhone could be leaking battery power. Lots of different apps want to know and use your location for various reasons, but most of them don’t need to track your location when you aren’t using the app. Yet, some apps have the option to always know your location, regardless of whether you’re currently using it or not. Now you might want to leave tracking on for, say, a navigation app. But most apps don’t need Location Services on all the time. You can quickly go through your apps and choose whether they can use your location Always, While Using the App, Ask Next Time, or Never. If the app never needs your location, feel free to select that. For most apps, it makes the most sense to allow Location Services only while using the app. To do this:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap Privacy & Security.
3. Tap Location Services.
4. Select individual apps to choose when Location Services can be used. If the app never needs to know your location to be fully functional, go ahead and select Never.
5. You can also choose to toggle off Precise Location if the app does not need to know exactly where you are.

8. Disable Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh for iPhone is a feature that allows your apps to run in the background, even when you’re not using them. The apps fetch new data, such as Twitter loading new tweets without you having to open it. While this may serve a useful purpose, it can also drain extra battery.

This is why the more apps you have running, the faster your iPhone runs out of charge. You can turn off Background App Refresh for some or all apps on your iPhone.

To disable this feature, follow the steps below:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Go to General.
3. Tap on Background App Refresh.
4. To turn off background refresh for all your apps, choose Background App Refresh at the top of the list. In the next menu, tap Off.
5. To turn off the feature for specific apps, just tap on the toggle next to the app you don’t want refreshing in the background.

Don’t know which apps you should disable background refresh for in order to save the greatest amount of battery? Your iPhone has a handy tool to help you out.

To check what apps are consuming the most battery on your iPhone, follow these steps:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap on Battery.
3. Scroll down to see a list of your apps, with their percentages of Battery usage by app next to it. Disable Background Refresh for the apps that use the most battery.

9. Use WiFi Whenever Possible

WiFi uses less power than a cellular connection, so to maximize battery life, Apple recommends connecting to WiFi whenever possible. At home or work, for example, WiFi should be activated, saving cellular data and battery life.

10. Disable Raise to Wake

As soon as you raise your iPhone from a table or similar, the screen wakes to let you see your Lock screen. However, there are often times when the screen wakes unintentionally, even if you aren’t trying to use it.

When your screen constantly wakes and sleeps, your iPhone’s battery drains faster. To avoid this, follow the steps below:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap on Display & Brightness.
3. Toggle off Raise to Wake.

11. Activate Airplane Mode in Low Signal Areas

When you’re in an area with no cellular coverage or a low signal, your iPhone is draining battery looking for a signal or trying to connect. If you’re experiencing poor cellular coverage, it’s best to activate Airplane Mode since you probably can’t do much with low signal anyway.

12. Disable Vibrations and Turn Off the Ringer

If you spend a huge amount of time typing on your phone and receive a ton of notifications, vibrations consume a fair bit of your iPhone’s battery.

To turn off vibration on your phone, follow these steps:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap on Sounds & Haptics.
3. Toggle off Play Haptics in Ring Mode and Play Haptics in Silent Mode.

13. Restart your iPhone

Sometimes an app can act up or a background process can go wonky, and the best solution is to simply restart your iPhone. If you have an iPhone 8 or later, follow these steps:

1. Press and quickly release the Volume Up button.
2. Press and quickly release the Volume Down button.
3. Press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo, and then release the Side button.

If you have an iPhone 7 or earlier, follow these steps to restart:

1. Hold down the Volume Down key and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
2. Keep holding until the screen turns dark and the Apple logo appears on the display.
3. Release the button.
   When you see the Apple logo, it will take a minute or so for the iPhone to start back up.

14. Turn On Optimized battery Charging

Optimized battery Charging is a feature whose main purpose is to preserve your battery’s health by preventing it from sitting at high charge levels for long periods of time.

Over time, your iPhone learns your daily charging routine. Using this, your iPhone will activate Optimized Charging when your phone is plugged in for a long time to keep it under 100 percent until you need it.

Follow the steps below to enable this feature on your iPhone:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap on Battery.
3. Select Battery Health.
4. Toggle on Optimized Battery Charging.

15. Cut down on Notifications

Cutting down on the number of notifications that apps are sending is a good way to save a little bit of battery life. If you have apps inundating you with notifications, it’s going to drain battery every time your screen lights up and your phone makes a connection, plus a glut of notifications is just plain annoying.

batterynotifications
Adjust your notification settings in the Settings app by following these simple steps:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Select Notifications.
3. Go through each app and adjust whether or not an app can send you notifications by tapping on the toggle.
4. If you do allow notifications, you can choose to allow apps to show on the Lock screen, in the Notification Center, as banners, or all three.

16. INSTALL THE LATEST IOS update

Rapid battery drain issues can occur due to system bugs. Fortunately, Apple is pretty quick to release updates to resolve issues. You can check for updates by going to Settings> General> Software update.

17. Don’t Close Apps

A lot of battery life guides will suggest manually closing apps by using the App Switcher to prevent them from running in the background, but this doesn’t save battery life and can in fact drain more battery.

Apps in the background are paused when not in active use and aren’t using battery life. Closing out an app purges it from the iPhone’s RAM, requiring a reload when it reopens, which can have a bigger impact on battery.

18. Turn off Private Relay for Specific Wi-Fi Connection

With iOS 16, Apple has added a couple of privacy-related features to the iCloud subscription. One of them is iCloud Private Relay that monitors your internet connection and prevents third-party trackers. In some cases, it might slow down the internet connection speed hence draining your iPhone’s battery.

Thankfully, Apple has added an option to turn off Private Relay for a Wi-Fi connection. Simply start the Settings app on your iPhone and tap on Wi-Fi > Wi-Fi network and turn off iCloud Private Relay from the following menu.

19. Reset Your iPhone

If you are still experiencing rapid iOS 14 battery drain issues despite following the steps above, you may have to reset your iPhone to eliminate all possible errors.

To reset, follow the steps below:

1. Start the Settings app.
2. Go to General.
3. Scroll down and tap on Transfer or Reset iPhone.
4. Tap Erase All Content & Settings, then confirm your passcode to reset your device. Remember that a factory reset will erase everything on your phone, so make sure you have a current iPhone backup to restore.

iPhone battery draining fast after iOS 16 update: fixed

There are a lot of features on your iPhone that accumulate and play a role in draining a large percentage of your battery. Increased brightness, vibration, and Background App Refreshes are some of them.

Disabling these minor features is going to improve your battery life significantly and have your phone last for longer, especially with the issues presented in iOS 16.