iPhone 16 Pro Battery Draining Quickly

I had the exact same issue. Drove me insane. Battery was terrible, especially while phone was idle. Talked to Apple and they said to bring it in for inspection. I reset the phone (not factory reset) and nothing. HOWEVER, I tried a factory reset via my MacBook, and voila! The problem is gone. Battery is now amazing! Charged my phone 20 hrs ago and it still has 71% left. So, factory reset via your computer. My guess is when they installed software there was some type of error when downloading directly to the phone in the beginning. Hope this helps!

I am thinking about returning my iPhone 16 pro because of the poor battery life. My iPhone 13 Pro with a recently replaced battery has better battery life than my iPhone 16 pro

I thought it was just me I’m not happy about it at all

Hi, did your battery life improve in the meantime? I just got my iPhone 16 pro 4 days ago and it has been driving me insane ever since. I get a battery drain of 1% every 5 minutes of on screen time. Just by simply browsing on the web. I am not sure how long it should last or if this is normal, but this means that i won’t have too much on screen time at this rate. I am seriously thinking if i should simply return the phone. I am coming from iph 11 which had the battery at 70% and it had a similar performance with iphone 16 pro.

Your phone is still doing many background processes that will require power to complete. If you are not plugged into power, it will consume battery power. Some of the things that your phone is doing is:

• Reindexing all files for spotlight search
• Analyzing all of your photos to take advantage of new algorithms for Face/Object detections
• Rebuilding database for suggestions used for Maps, Siri, and Photo Memories.

Depending on how many photos you have, this could take 3-4 days to complete and will happen quicker if you leave it plugged in and turned on to allow it to complete. This is not specific to the iPhone 16 and happens on any device after an update.

hi I purchased my iphone 16 pro Oct 15th (literally 5 days ago!)and same issue with extreme battery draining like the others! I will remove my Whatsapp as "suggested" aformentioned and see if that makes a difference. But so many of us on here are having this issue Apple really should find resolve in this issue, Especially for the amount of money we consumers are paying.

I have the same issue on mine, the battery drains incredibly quickly even if it’s only being used very lightly. It did not get better despite waiting for almost the full 2 weeks. So I just organised the return and I guess my trusted 4 year old iPhone SE will have to stick it out another year.

linu33 wrote:

Just got the phone yesterday and I’m running into the same problem- battery drain - did all the settings change to limit battery consumption but still does not work - crazy that Apple did not test this properly and it happens for such an expensive phone in this day and age.

If you just got your phone yesterday, it has not finished:

• Indexing your files for spotlight
• Analyzing photos for object/face detection
• Building database for Siri Suggestions
• Large initial backup

This can take up to 3 days and maybe more if you have a very large photo library. This significantly increasing the discharge rate until those background processes complete and happens after every update. Leave your phone plugged in when next to power to ensure that those processes continue to run.

If you currently have WhatsApp, it has been found that their latest updates of that app were consuming far more resources than necessary and users had found that removing the app had a dramatic increase on battery like.

The same thing keeps happening to me since I bought that phone. Today for exemple, I unplugged it at 7:28 PM with 100% of battries, it is now 12:29 AM with 20% of battries(about 5 hrs). My screentime is only 3 hrs and 27 minutes.

Just got the phone yesterday and I’m running into the same problem- battery drain - did all the settings change to limit battery consumption but still does not work - crazy that Apple did not test this properly and it happens for such an expensive phone in this day and age.

Petalfrog82 wrote:

The day after I got it, my battery drained to 70% after 4 hours. Five days later I am down to 45% after 10 hours, so I do think it has been improving over time.

Thanks for the update. That is what is expected and unfortunately we don't get many updates here to confirm that. Some only post when they have a problem, but when it goes away, they don't come back.

I returned my iPhone 16 Pro for another one and it works well. No issues with Battery or Heating. It’s been one week of no issues. I could be wrong but the original phone had a hardware issue rather than software.

jcarlo.cc wrote:

I am thinking about returning my iPhone 16 pro because of the poor battery life. My iPhone 13 Pro with a recently replaced battery has better battery life than my iPhone 16 pro

You have 14 days to return the iPhone for a full refund. If you have given it 4 days to reindex files and do the background processing needed for photo analysis and siri suggestions, and still are not happy with your battery like, then I would recommend returning it. After these background processes have been completed, it is expected that the iPhone 16 Pro should have up to 27 hours of Video Playback and up to 85 hours of Audio Playback compared to the iPhone 13 Pro having up to 22 hours of Video Playback and up to 75 hours of Audio Playback.

Here are a few insights from Apple Support’s official iPhone Battery Drain help page. 

Did you recently update your iPhone to a new version of iOS? 

• If you've recently updated your iPhone, battery life might drain faster than usual for a few days. Background tasks like indexing and syncing can temporarily affect performance, so give it time to stabilize.

Battery Suggestions

• Auto-brightness: Enable auto-brightness to reduce battery usage.
• Auto-lock: Activate auto-lock to prevent the screen from staying on unnecessarily.
• Reduce Brightness: Lower your screen brightness if it's set too high.
• Background Location: Limit location access for apps to "While in Use" to conserve power.

Battery Usage Overview

• Check Activity & Battery Usage by App: Go to Settings > Battery to see which apps are using the most battery. Adjust settings for apps consuming excess power.

Other Battery Saving Tips

• Use Wi-Fi: When possible, connect to Wi-Fi, as it consumes less battery than cellular data.
• 5G Auto (iPhone 12 & later): Enable Smart Data mode to automatically switch between 5G and LTE to save power.
• Low Power Mode: Activate this mode to reduce power consumption when the battery is low.

Battery Health

• Check Battery Health: Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health to see your battery’s condition. If "Service" appears, consider replacing the battery.

rejodia wrote:

Please how do you factory reset iPhone with a MacBook? My new iPhone 16 Pro´s battery is draining so fast.

Here you go:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings using a computer - Apple Support