iPhone 16 Pro Battery Draining Quickly

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share an update regarding the battery issue I faced. Here’s what worked for me:

First, I backed up my iPhone via iCloud. Then, I upgraded to a beta version and subsequently turned off beta updates. After that, I connected my phone to my Mac and selected the option to restore it, which wiped the phone and reverted it to the normal, non-beta iOS version. Finally, I restored my data using the iCloud backup.

This process resulted in a significant improvement in battery life.. almost doubling it. I hope this helps anyone who has been experiencing similar issues. Thank you!

i have been having my 11 Pro for about 4 weeks now. Battery drains so quick. for 2 days I only have about 4.5 hours screen on :(.

I dont know which phone to get if I am returning my 16 Pro

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

I listened it a podcast for an hour or so in the morning, checked and replied to emails and texts throughout the day, and had a phone call. Typical use for me and I think about the same as my iPhone 13 when I traded it in.

I've gotten my iphone 16 pro since Sept 20 and i am still facing the same battery drain issue.

I am a light user even that it can't last me a whole 20 hours.

Yea right... indexing takes over a month and it is not done yet.

Good job.

Saneee wrote:

It has been 3 days now since I got my iPhone 16 pro and I am blown away by the poor battery life. I believe all the updates and configuring as apple support stated is complete. The phone is no longer running hot. But the battery life is unacceptable. Thinking of returning it. Has this improved for anyone? If yes what did you do ?

Once the problem goes away, we don't see many follow ups as people no longer need the support they are looking for, but there have been some such as this one provided Petalfrog82. It would appear at that rate they are getting the full day of battery usage that would be expected:

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.

I have the same problem. Bought 16 Pro 3 days ago and I can reach more than 5-6h screen time and maybe, maybe 1h - 1.5h of idle. Can't believe in these units with 8-10 screen time... not doable in my case I think.

Turned off: 5G, AOD, background apps, location services, ets. When the phone is not being used, it consumes 1% per 30-40 mins.

Spoke with Apple yesterday and they performed an online diagnosis and the tech support representative told me, that what my phone achieves is pretty decent and he doesn't think this is an issue. The diagnosis showed the battery is good, nothing is happening.

The options I have are to replace the unit within 14 days but tbh I feel this is not the unit case because before 16 Pro I had 16 Pro Max for 10 days and had the same: when the youtubers were saying they have 18h screen time, mine was 5h after 50% of battery at most.

So I feel disappointed? I am not a heavy user but I was expecting much more from 16 Pro in comparison to my 14 Pro which I was charing twice per day. With 16 Pro I think I can make one full day but without the full comfort of not thinking about the battery.

sheetalgaurang wrote:

Please try and lodge a complaint.Ask for email address where you can write to. If they refuse please come back to forum. This is a genuine problem and Apple got it wrong. I am hopeful- it will be fixed.

There is not email address for assistance. You can:

• Send Feedback - Product Feedback - Apple
• Contact Apple by phone or start online support request - Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support
• Schedule Genius appointment - Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

If you have a computer, reset the device with that and set it up as new and compare the results. That is what Apple will do when you take it in for service.

kumar59 wrote:

I faced the same problem and apple told me that I can’t return the phone for refund in India.

That is correct. There is no return or exchange policy in India. That is true for all products purchased in India.

Returns & Refunds - Shopping Help - Apple (IN)

Lucky you! With my 16 Pro what I did was to:

1. I went through the initial setup on the day I purchased the phone
2. Then I connected it to my Mac and performed factory reset (DFU > Restore iPhone)
3. Used iCloud to login but did not restore the phone from the backup (only iCloud contacts, photos) - I installed apps manually.

Unfortunately, in my case the battery life remains pretty the same. I did the same with 16 Pro Max (returned to the seller), 16 Pro 128 (1st unit - returned to the seller) and with 16 Pro 256 (2nd unit which I don't plan to return). All units were not so effective when it comes to the battery. My average SoT in 16 Pro after 6 days since the first setup is 4-6h + some time when the screen is not active but the phone is working.

I can't believe that this is a unit fault (16 Pro Max and 16 Pro 128 were from September, both unit and battery. My current unit 16 Pro 256 was manufactured in October, both unit and battery). So it ether iOS fault or these phones simply can offer only this battery life in case of my usage pattern.

I purchased a new iPhone 16 and had the same issue. I discovered the background app refresh defaulted back to all apps again.

Background App Refresh on an iPhone allows apps to update and check for new content in the background, even when you're not using them. To turn on (or off) Background App Refresh, you can: 

1. Open Settings 
2. Select General 
3. Tap Background App Refresh

I only have a few apps I would like to refresh in the background so I turned the other 100 or so off. Battery life increased dramatically.

olatunbosun209 wrote:

This worked for me : Improve Battery Life

To be clear, it is no surprise that performing steps such as these will improve battery life:

• Reducing Screen Brightness
• Turn off Background Refresh
• Limiting Location Services

That is not a solution to the problems that users have posted about and they are not looking for these minimal improvements by partially crippling these features. What users have found success in is resetting the phone using a computer and compare the results before any data is restored from a backup. This should be the first thing that is done before any post about poor performance so that there is an apples to apples comparison

I factory reseted using my MacBook but didn’t see any improvements.

Nor did I unfortunately

Mine was helped by turning off background app refresh except for on a few select apps. I got an extra couple hours out of it (vs the 8 hours I had calculated at same draining rate as you).