It happens every single year. You buy a shiny new device, the battery lasts two days, and then—seemingly out of nowhere—you’re tethered to a wall charger by lunchtime. If you feel like your iPhone battery drains fast, you aren’t imagining things. It’s not always "planned obsolescence" either, even if that’s the most common conspiracy theory on Reddit. Usually, it's a messy cocktail of software indexing, rogue background processes, and the simple chemistry of lithium-ion cells that just hate being alive.
I’ve spent a decade troubleshooting iOS. Most "fixes" you see online are total junk. Turning off Bluetooth won't save you more than three minutes of power. Real battery drain is usually deeper. It’s about how the A-series chip handles requests. It’s about the fact that your phone is trying to do a thousand things at once while you’re just trying to check an email.
The "New Update" Curse is Actually Real
Whenever Apple drops a new version of iOS, the internet explodes. Everyone complains that their iPhone battery drains fast immediately after hitting "Install." Here’s the thing: they’re right, but it's not because the update is "broken."
When you update, the system has to re-index everything. Every photo in your library is being scanned for facial recognition. Every file is being re-categorized for Spotlight search. This happens in the background and it is incredibly processor-intensive. If you have 50,000 photos, your iPhone is going to be running hot for 48 hours. That’s just physics. You’re essentially running a marathon while trying to take a nap.
Wait it out. Honestly, the best advice for a post-update drain is to leave the phone on a charger overnight with Wi-Fi on. Let it finish its chores. If it’s still dying quickly after three days, then we have a real problem.
Background App Refresh is the Silent Killer
We need to talk about Background App Refresh. It’s a feature that lets apps check for new content even when you aren't using them. Sounds great, right? In reality, it’s a disaster for your percentage bar.
Think about an app like Facebook or Instagram. They want to be ready the second you tap them. So, they’re constantly pinging servers, downloading ads, and updating your feed while the phone is in your pocket. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Don't turn it off entirely—that makes your phone feel "dumb." Instead, go through the list and be ruthless. Does your local sandwich shop app need to refresh in the background? No. Does a game you play once a week need it? Absolutely not. Keep it on for things like Maps or Messaging, and kill the rest.
Your Screen is Eating Your Battery Alive
The display is the hungriest component in your phone. If you’re rocking an iPhone with an OLED screen—basically anything from the iPhone 12 onwards (excluding the SE)—black pixels actually turn off. They use zero power.
💡 You might also like: Free Second Phone Number for WhatsApp: Why Most Apps Fail (and What Actually Works)
This is why Dark Mode isn't just an aesthetic choice. It’s a literal power-saving tool.
If you use a bright, white wallpaper and keep your brightness at 100%, you’re essentially asking your battery to catch fire. Use Auto-Brightness. It’s tucked away in Accessibility settings for some reason (Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size), but it’s vital. The human eye is terrible at judging how much light we actually need. Let the sensors do the work.
The ProMotion Tax
If you have a Pro or Pro Max model, you have a 120Hz refresh rate. It looks buttery smooth. It also consumes more juice. If you’re in a pinch, you can "Limit Frame Rate" to 60Hz in the Motion settings. It’ll feel a bit "laggy" at first because you’re used to the smoothness, but it adds significant time to your day.
Why 5G is Often Overkill
5G is fast. It’s also a battery hog, especially in areas where the signal is "spotty." When your iPhone is on the edge of a 5G coverage zone, the modem works overtime. It constantly switches between 5G and LTE, searching for the best connection. This "radio hunting" is one of the primary reasons an iPhone battery drains fast while you're commuting or traveling.
Switching your Voice & Data setting to "5G Auto" helps, but "LTE" is often the smarter move if you don’t need gigabit speeds to check Twitter. LTE modems are mature and efficient. 5G is still a bit of a power-hungry teenager.
The Chemistry Problem: Heat and Health
Batteries are chemical sandwiches. They don't like being too hot, and they don't like being too cold. If you leave your iPhone on a car dashboard in the sun, you are permanently damaging the capacity.
📖 Related: SQL Join Venn Diagram: What Most People Get Wrong
Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging. Look at the "Maximum Capacity."
- 90% - 100%: Your battery is fine. The drain is likely software-based.
- 80% - 89%: You’ll notice it’s not what it used to be.
- Below 80%: Apple considers this "consumed." The phone might actually throttle your performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns.
If you’re at 75%, there is no software trick in the world that will save you. You need a new battery. It’s about $89 to $99 at an Apple Store, and it’ll make the phone feel brand new.
Stop Closing Your Apps
I see people doing this all the time. They double-tap the home bar and swipe away every single app. Stop doing that. iOS is designed to keep apps in a "frozen" state in the RAM. When you force-close an app, you remove it from the RAM. When you reopen it, the CPU has to reload everything from the storage, which uses more power than if you had just left it alone. Only force-close an app if it’s actually frozen or glitching. Otherwise, you’re just making your iPhone battery drains fast by being "organized."
Location Services: The Eye in the Sky
GPS is a massive power draw. Some apps are "location-hungry." They want to know where you are at all times so they can sell that data to advertisers or "improve their service."
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services.
Look for the little purple or gray arrows next to apps.
- Solid Purple Arrow: The app has recently used your location.
- Hollow Purple Arrow: The app is using a "geofence" (waiting for you to enter a specific area).
If you see a weather app or a random retail app using your location "Always," change it to "While Using." There is almost no reason for a standard app to know where you are while it’s in your pocket.
The "Low Power Mode" Myth
Low Power Mode is great, but people use it wrong. It disables 5G, drops the screen brightness, stops mail fetch, and kills background processes. It’s a "break glass in case of emergency" feature. If you leave it on 24/7, you're missing out on the features you paid $1,000 for.
Instead of living in Low Power Mode, look at your Battery Usage by App list at the bottom of the Battery settings page. It shows you exactly who the villains are. If "Home & Lock Screen" is your top battery user, you're probably getting too many notifications that wake up your screen. Turn off notifications for apps that don't matter. Every time your screen lights up for a "10% off" coupon, you're losing juice.
Mail Fetch vs. Push
If you have multiple email accounts, specifically work accounts, they might be using "Push." This means the server pushes the email to your phone the second it arrives. This keeps a constant data connection open. If you don't need emails the exact second they land, change the setting to "Fetch" every 15 or 30 minutes. Your battery will thank you.
Actionable Steps to Take Right Now
Don't just read this and move on. If your iPhone battery drains fast, do these four things immediately. They work.
- Audit your Apps: Go to Battery settings and find the app with the highest "Background Activity" percentage. If you don't need it to stay updated, kill its Background App Refresh permissions.
- Brightness Check: Turn on Auto-Brightness. Also, try to keep your phone face down when it's on a table so notifications don't wake the screen.
- Clean your Charging Port: Sometimes, "drain" is actually just a bad charge. If there’s lint in your port, the phone might not be hitting 100% properly or might be getting hot while charging. Use a toothpick. Be gentle.
- Check for Rogue System Services: Under Location Services, go to System Services. Turn off "Significant Locations" and "iPhone Analytics." These are mostly for Apple's benefit, not yours, and they use the GPS chip constantly.
Living with a phone that dies by 4 PM is stressful. But usually, it's just a few bad settings or a single "bad actor" app that's stuck in a loop. Fix the software, respect the hardware's heat limits, and you'll actually make it through the day without a power bank.