iPhone Battery Draining Too Fast? 9 Fixes That Work

You charge your iPhone to 100% at breakfast. By lunch you're at 40%. By 5pm you're scrambling for an outlet. Sound familiar?

Battery drain almost always traces back to one of three things: a setting that's working against you, an app misbehaving, or a battery that's just getting old. Here's how to find out which one is yours.

1. Check your battery's health first

Before changing any settings, find out if the battery itself is the problem. Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.

Look at Maximum Capacity:

• 90%+: Battery is fine, look at settings and apps
• 80-89%: Noticeably weaker than new
• Below 80%: Time to replace. No setting tweak fixes this.

Apple replaces batteries for $69 to $99 depending on the model. It's almost always cheaper than upgrading the whole phone, and the difference in daily battery life is night and day.

2. Turn off Background App Refresh for most apps

This is the single biggest battery hog on most iPhones. Background App Refresh lets apps update their content while you're not using them. It sounds harmless but it can cost you hours of battery.

Settings > General > Background App Refresh

You can either turn it off entirely (recommended for most people) or selectively. Apps that genuinely need it: Messages, Mail, Maps, your bank app. Everything else? Turn it off. You'll barely notice and you'll get hours back.

3. Tame Location Services

Apps that constantly check your location drain battery fast. The fix isn't to turn off location entirely. It's to give each app only what it needs.

Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services

Go through the list. For each app, ask: does this app actually need to know where I am all the time? Pick the smallest option you can:

• Never: apps that don't need location at all (Calculator, Notes, etc.. These shouldn't even be asking)
• While Using: default for most apps (Maps, weather, ride share)
• Always: reserve this for your essential ones only (Find My, Maps if you use navigation often)

Also turn off Precise Location for apps that don't need pinpoint accuracy. Weather doesn't need to know your exact street address.

4. Turn on Low Power Mode strategically

Low Power Mode pauses background refresh, dims the screen slightly, and slows some processes. It can squeeze 2-3 extra hours out of a day. Most people only turn it on at 20% when it's offered, but you can turn it on manually anytime: Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode.

Pro tip: add it to your Control Center (Settings > Control Center > Low Power Mode > green +) so you can toggle it with one swipe.

5. Lower screen brightness and turn on Auto-Brightness

The screen is the single biggest battery user on any phone. Manually dropping brightness to about 50% instead of 100% can add hours to your day.

Better yet, let the phone manage it: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Auto-Brightness. It dims in dim rooms and brightens in sunlight automatically.

6. Turn off the always-on display (newer iPhones)

If you have an iPhone 14 Pro or newer, the screen never fully turns off when you lock the phone. It just dims and shows the time. Looks cool, costs battery.

Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On Display and toggle it off.

7. Stop pushing notifications you don't read

Every notification wakes the screen, runs the processor, and draws power. If you get 200 notifications a day and ignore 180 of them, that's 180 small battery drains for nothing.

Settings > Notifications

Go through the list. For any app you ignore, tap it and turn off Allow Notifications. Be ruthless. You can always turn them back on if you miss something.

8. Update iOS

Battery drain is sometimes caused by bugs in a specific iOS version. Apple usually fixes these within a few weeks in a point update (like 17.4.1, 17.5, etc.). Settings > General > Software Update to check.

9. Reset all settings (the nuclear option that often works)

If everything else fails and you suspect something weird is going on under the hood, this is the last try before assuming it's the battery. It resets settings to defaults but keeps your photos, apps, and data.

Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings

You'll need to set up Wi-Fi passwords and your preferences again, but everything else stays. Surprisingly often, this fixes mysterious battery drain that nothing else touches.

What is normal iPhone battery life?

For comparison, here's what a healthy iPhone should give you:

• Light use (texting, calls, occasional web): full day, easy. 12-18 hours.
• Moderate use (social media, some video, music): 10-14 hours.
• Heavy use (constant video, gaming, navigation): 6-10 hours.

If you're well below those numbers even after these fixes, the battery is almost certainly the problem.