How to Fix iPhone Battery Draining Fast (7 Fixes That Actually Work)

There is a very specific type of anxiety that kicks in when you leave your house at 90% battery, only to look at your phone two hours later and see it hovering at 45%. You haven’t been gaming. You haven’t been streaming 4K video. You’ve barely touched the thing. So, where did the power go?

I’ve been troubleshooting iOS devices for over a decade, and I hear this complaint more than any other. The immediate reaction is usually to blame the battery itself (“My phone is old”) or a recent iOS update (“Apple broke it again”). While those can be factors, they are rarely the whole story.

Usually, rapid battery drain is a crime scene, and you have to play detective. There is almost always a rogue process, a misconfigured setting, or a specific app that is sipping power in the background while your phone is in your pocket.

If you are tired of carrying a power bank everywhere you g0. Here is how to diagnose the drain and actually fix it. Without turning your expensive smartphone into a reckless phone.

Step 1: Check the “Screen Off” Activity (The Smoking Gun)

Before we change a single setting, we need evidence. Most people look at the battery percentage, but they ignore the activity log.

Go to Settings > Battery and wait for the graph to load.

Here is the critical part: Look at the blue bars (usage) compared to the green line (battery level). Now, scroll down and tap “Show Activity.” You are looking for high background activity.

The Scenario: I once helped a friend who swore his iPhone 13 was defective. He’d lose 30% overnight while sleeping. We checked his battery stats. The culprit? A specific notes app was stuck trying to sync a large file to the cloud, racking up 9 hours of “Background Activity.”

The Fix: If you see an app with massive background activity relative to how much you actually used it:

1. Force close that specific app.

2. Check the App Store for an update (bugs often cause loop-crashes in the background).

3. If it persists, delete and reinstall the app. This clears the cached data that might be causing the hang.

Step 2: The “Vampire” Setting: Background App Refresh

If the diagnosis above didn’t show one specific rogue app, the problem is likely collective. “Background App Refresh” is a feature that allows apps to update their content before you open them. It’s great for email, but do you really need your food delivery app refreshing in the background constantly? Probably not.

The Common Mistake: Most people turn this feature off completely. That works for saving battery, sure, but it makes your phone annoying to use because nothing updates until you open it.

The Smarter Approach: Be surgical.

1. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

2. Leave the main toggle ON.

3. Scroll down the list and turn it OFF for 90% of your apps.

Checklist:

• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram): OFF (They are notorious power hogs).

• News/Stocks: ON (If you need real-time info).

• Uber/Lyft/Food Delivery: OFF (They update when you open them).

• Google Photos/Dropbox: OFF (Unless you need instant backup).

Step 3: Audit Your “System Services” (The Hidden Tracker)

Location services are necessary for Maps, but they are a massive drain when every app wants to know where you are. However, the real battery killer is buried deeper than the app list. It’s in the System Services.

How to fix it:

1. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services.

2. Scroll all the way to the bottom and tap System Services.

This is where things get interesting. You will see a long list of toggles. Many of these are simply data gathering for Apple that uses your GPS radio (and your battery).

What to Turn OFF:

• Location-Based Suggestions: Turn off.

• Location-Based Alerts: Turn off (unless you use specific geofenced reminders).

• iPhone Analytics / Routing & Traffic: Turn off. You are donating your battery life to improve Apple Maps. That’s noble, but not if your phone dies by noon.

The “Significant Locations” Insight: Deep inside System Services, you’ll find Significant Locations. This tracks places you visit frequently to provide “better photo memories.” It’s a constant GPS poller. I turn this off on every phone I own. It saves battery and, frankly, feels a bit better for privacy.

Step 4: The “Push” Email Trap

If you have multiple email accounts added to your iPhone (say, a Gmail, an Outlook for work, and an iCloud), your phone might be keeping a constant connection open to the servers, waiting for mail to arrive instantly. This is called “Push.”

Push is great if you are an ER doctor waiting for a schedule change. For the rest of us, it’s a battery killer.

Real-World Example: I had a client with four different email accounts on his iPhone. His phone was staying “awake” constantly because the mail server for his old university alumni account was trying to ping his phone every minute.

Action Steps:

1. Go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > Fetch New Data.

2. Turn Push OFF at the top.

3. Scroll down to “Fetch” and set it to Every 30 Minutes or Hourly.

This allows the radio to sleep in between checks, rather than maintaining a constant, battery-draining handshake with the server.

Step 5: Stop Closing Your Apps (Yes, Seriously)

This is the part where I usually get some pushback, but stick with me. There is a persistent myth that swiping up and force-closing all your apps saves battery.

The Reality: It actually drains your battery.

When you minimize an app, iOS freezes it in the RAM. It sits there suspended, using zero CPU power. When you force close it, you wipe it from the RAM. The next time you open Instagram or WhatsApp, your processor has to wake up, load the code from scratch, and re-initialize the app.

Think of it like a car. Is it more efficient to leave the engine idling at a red light (suspended app) or to turn the engine off and restart it every time you stop for 10 seconds (force closing)? Modern iOS manages RAM incredibly well. Let the operating system do its job. Only force close an app if it is frozen or glitching.

Step 6: The 5G Factor

5G is incredibly fast. It is also incredibly thirsty. If you live in an area with spotty 5G coverage, your iPhone’s modem is working overdrive, constantly switching between LTE and 5G bands trying to find a stable signal. That switching process generates heat and eats power.

The Fix:

1. Go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data.

2. Switch from “5G On” to 5G Auto.

3. Pro Tip: If you don’t care about super-fast speeds and just want reliability and battery life, switch it to LTE. For most browsing and streaming, LTE is perfectly adequate and much easier on the modem.

Step 7: The Hardware Reality Check

Sometimes, you can tweak every setting in the book, and the battery still drains fast. At that point, we have to look at the chemical reality of lithium-ion batteries. They degrade. It’s not a defect; it’s chemistry.

Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.

Look at the Maximum Capacity.

• 90-100%: Your hardware is fine; the issue is software/settings (see above).

• 80-89%: You might notice slightly shorter days, but it shouldn’t be catastrophic.

• Below 80%: This is the danger zone. You will likely see a message saying your battery’s health is significantly degraded.

Surprising Insight: Once a battery hits roughly 79% capacity, the voltage can become unstable. This leads to “peak power” issues where the phone might suddenly shut down even if it says it has 20% left. If you are in this range, no amount of turning off “Background App Refresh” will fix it. You need a physical battery replacement. It’s usually about $89 at an Apple Store, which is much cheaper than buying a new phone.

A Note on “Indexing”

Did you just update your iOS yesterday? If so, stop panicking.

After a major update, your iPhone re-indexes your entire file system, photos, and contacts in the background so Spotlight search works correctly. This process uses heavy processing power and can drain your battery significantly for 24 to 48 hours.

If you just updated, plug the phone in, connect to Wi-Fi, and give it a day or two to settle down before you start changing settings.

Getting Your Day Back

You shouldn’t have to nurse your phone through the day. Smartphones are tools, not pets that need constant feeding.

Start with the Battery graph. Identify the outliers. Turn off the aggressive system tracking. And please, stop swiping your apps closed. If you follow these steps and still can’t make it past dinner time, check that health percentage—it might just be time for a new battery.

Editor — The editorial team at Prowell Tech. We research, test, and fact-check each guide and update it when new info appears. This content is educational and not personalized advice.