How to Fix iOS 16 Battery Drain

If you run into rapid battery drain on an iPhone running iOS 16, there are some steps you should take before getting in contact with customer service.

If your iPhone is getting awful battery life after moving to Apple’s latest version of iOS 16, you may be thinking about a move back to an older version of iOS 16.

That’s an option to consider if the downgrade is available, but you should try and fix the issue so you can keep your iPhone on the latest firmware.

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

Restart Your iPhone

If you start noticing abnormal drain after installing the latest iOS 16 update on your iPhone, we recommend restarting your phone before doing anything else.

Power your iPhone down, wait for a minute, and then power it back on. A quick reboot can have a tremendous impact on your device’s performance so this is definitely the first thing to try.

Update Your iPhone

Apple will periodically release new iOS 16 software.

The company might not call out battery life fixes in an iOS 16 update’s change log, but new software always has the potential to solve battery life issues.

If a new software update is available, dig into feedback about its performance and then decide if it’s worth installing.

For more about the the latest version of iOS 16, check out our guide.

Check Your Apps

Apps have a tendency to start acting up after Apple releases new software so there’s a chance one of your apps is the source of your iPhone’s battery life problems.

Checking app performance is fairly straightforward on iOS 16 and it should only take you a few minutes to find the app, or apps, causing trouble. Here’s what you need to do:

• Go to the Settings app.
• Select Battery.
• Head into the Battery Usage tool. This tool will show you the apps draining your battery and when they’re doing so.

If you use an app on your phone a lot, it will obviously drain more battery than an app you never use. So if you see something out of the ordinary, like an app you rarely use draining battery for instance, you’ll want to investigate further.

If you see one or more of your apps eating up an abnormal amount of battery, try deleting the app from your device and see if that improves your iPhone’s performance.

If the app is essential to you day-to-day use, we recommend downloading the latest updates. If that doesn’t help, and you really need to the app to get through your day, you might need to downgrade back to the previous version of iOS 16.

Turn Down Screen Brightness

If you constantly have your iPhone’s screen at maximum brightness, it’ll drain the battery. To avoid this, you should enable Auto-Brightness to help prevent battery drain:

• Go into the Settings app.
• Tap Accessibility.
• Tap Display & Text Size.
• Make sure Auto-Brightness is toggled on.

Turn Off Keyboard Haptics

iOS 16 allows you to enable haptic feedback for the iPhone’s keyboard.

Unfortunately, Apple says turning on keyboard haptics might affect the battery life of your iPhone. If you don’t need keyboard haptics enabled, turn it off:

• Open up the Settings app.
• Go to Sounds & Haptics
• Tap Keyboard Feedback.
• Toggle Haptic to off.

Reset All Settings

You can also try resetting your iPhone’s settings.

Before you do this, note that it will cause your iPhone to forget known Wi-Fi networks (and Bluetooth connections) so make sure you have your passwords handy before you tap reset.

Here’s how to reset all of your iPhone’s settings:

• Go to Settings.
• Go to General.
• Scroll and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone.
• Tap Reset.
• Tap Reset All Settings and enter your passcode if one is enabled.

Once the process is complete, you’ll need to reconnect your iPhone to your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.

Downgrade

If you can’t find a fix for your problem and/or don’t want to wait for an update from Apple, you can try downgrading back to an older version of iOS.

Your downgrade options will change over time and downgrading may not be available as Apple stops signing on older iOS 16 software.

For more on the iOS downgrade, take a look at our walkthrough.

Buy a Battery Case or Battery Bank

If you can’t seem to shake your battery life issues and you don’t want to take your phone in and/or replace it, buying a battery case or battery bank could help.

We generally recommend going with a Mophie battery case, but there are plenty of alternatives out there.

If you don’t want to put a bulky case on your iPhone, you might want to buy a battery bank.

Battery banks are small, portable power sources that can fully charge your iPhone multiple times. There are a ton of great options out there, but Mophie’s powerstation and the Anker Powercore 20 are a couple favorites.