How do I fix incorrect Screen Time on iPhone after iOS 18 update?

It’s almost April 2025 and the bug still is not fixed and screen time is not even accurate with the time spent in apps even while the phone is powered on plus it’s counting screen time for background processes like User Authentication which is at 5 hours in my screen time plus sim setup services

same here. Each night I shut down my phone and background app refresh is off for all my most used apps. However, around midday or in the evening, screen time suddenly shows that I have spent an insane amount of time in 3-4 different apps. I have tried hard resetting my phone but it has the same issue. Some days, I get lucky and screen time resets back to normal around 6pm. This could be an iOS issue but I am currently on version 18.5 and it still hasn’t been patched yet.

i'm encountering the same problem. ever since i updated my iphone 14 pro to ios 18 yesterday, my screen time has been ridiculously high, and as a person who checks it everyday, even the past few days have changed from 2-3 hrs to 12-13 hrs. if you add up the time spent on all apps to the total, it's totally off. i don't know what's going on!

Which apps do you guys see that caused the activity? I see settings, calculator and firefox.

In addition I do not only see screentime but activations too. All while my Iphone is turned off.

Would you think it could mean we somehow see the result of a malware exploiting some security whole? Maybe it was uncovered by incident owing to the upgrade to IOS 18?

I have had my phone turned off for 29 hours. My screen time says I use my phone for 20 hours and 23 minutes the day I had it all for an entire 24 hours. The one day my phone was cut off for over 24 hours, I have 20 hours of screen time?What kind of glitch is this. Instagram, YouTube, and some other app, says that I have been using it for 20 hours and 23 minutes. How? The phone has been off. And how could I use three apps at the same time for 20 hours? Haha apple needs to fix that.

I am also having this issue and I just recently updated my iPhone 15 Pro to

iOS 18. I even tried to keep my phone on Monday night (last night) and other than airplane mode to stop any notifications, the phone was basically on and it said that I used Settings for 11 hours yesterday. that does not match my battery use in hours. because of this bug, I am not going to update my iPad mini right now. I am deeply regretting updating to iOS 18 if I had known about this bug, I would not have updated my phone. I’ve only had my phone since May when I upgraded from my iPhone 8.

nope this did not work. I left my phone on last night (Monday) and my screen time report that I used Settings for 11 hours. I can’t leave my phone on every night. I prefer to shut it off at night before I go to bed.

Same here :( I'm 15 and my mom has a screentime setup on my phone. I updated my phone last night since I was bored and figured I should update it. This morning when I was on my bus ride to school my phone gave me a notification that I had "-12,532,648 minutes remaining until downtime." I was really confused but to be honest figured it was just a simple glitch but it wasn't. My ENTIRE phone screentimed and told me that my phone would remain on downtime until 12 AM Next Monday (Mind you its 10/30/24.) I had a field trip today as well and my phone was useless. I soft/hard reset my phone more than once as well. I don't know what to do 🤷

What’s going on! So I have a limit on my screen stuff and for some reason that limit is just going off right now! I haven’t been on the app it’s closed it’s blocked right now I deleted the apps and then it says I’ve been on it for like 2 hours or more what’s going on!

I know right? I’ve taken to having to leave my iPhone on overnight, but I turned on airplane mode so the battery level doesn’t drop as much. I don’t want to have to turn my phone off unless the battery has dropped like one percent and I’m not planning to charge it until the next morning (Definitely not charging overnight.) when I did turn my phone off it said I had used settings for like 10 hours.

I sure hope that they get this bug fixed soon because I need to shut my phone off at certain times (like when I go to church.)

You might have other issues going on. There are multiple threads about this but none going back 4 months. Maybe start your own thread with specifics about your device. I just called about a week ago on it and thought it was related to iOS 18.1.1, not a long standing issue.

not very easy for me to ignore that when I need to turn my phone off when I go to church and then when I turn it back on, it says I used Settings for “ x number of hours” because that may have been the Last “app” I used. I can’t even turn my phone off at night when I want to because of this bug. i’ve taken to turning on airplane mode and then shutting the screen off overnight.

Seems like the only way to fix this is to stop using Apple products as Apple doesn't seem to care about fixing these issues as they don't increase their profit margins. I've run into this twice in 2 weeks making the entire feature useless as it completely messes up the averages.

[Edited by Moderator]

Same it is also happening with me . I am using my instagram and not using whatsapp but I don’t how it is going on background without even using ( my background refresh is off and notification too). As you can see in the screenshot my total screen time is 1 hour 32 mins but whastapp is 1 hr 17 min and instagram 52 mins like what is going on i didn’t even open whtsapp still its going in background

[Edited by Moderator]