iPhone 12 iPhone 12 really slow

[AssassuN]

I have an iPhone 12, with about 81% battery health and 100/128GB storage filled. It's also updated to the latest iOS version.

It's been really slow and borderline unusable these past few weeks. I'm wondering if it has to do with throttling due to poor battery health or my storage filling up. Or is this expected for this model at this point?

 

[aakshey]

Create more free space, min 25% of total free

Get an original replacement battery

DFU restore, start without backup

You’ll be much better off

 

[MrAperture]

I have an iPhone 12, with about 81% battery health and 100/128GB storage filled. It's also updated to the latest iOS version.

It's been really slow and borderline unusable these past few weeks. I'm wondering if it has to do with throttling due to poor battery health or my storage filling up. Or is this expected for this model at this point?

Maybe backup your phone and do a hard reset?

 

[AssassuN]

Create more free space, min 25% of total free

Get an original replacement battery

DFU restore, start without backup

You’ll be much better off

yeah figured. will do, thanks!

 

[Clamjuice65]

I have an iPhone 12, with about 81% battery health and 100/128GB storage filled. It's also updated to the latest iOS version.

It's been really slow and borderline unusable these past few weeks. I'm wondering if it has to do with throttling due to poor battery health or my storage filling up. Or is this expected for this model at this point?

It’s time to upgrade to a 15 series or 16 series that comes out later this year 👦👦

 

[Slippery Gimp]

I have a 12 on 82% battery health, its memory is 55gb full out of 64gb, I have iCloud backups on, and I occasionally do a hard reset and I have zero problems at all. Tbh it’s the reason why I haven’t felt like upgrading yet. When I traded in my 8 Plus to get the 12 I remember thinking there was no difference in the speed, so no rush for me.

 

[one more]

It’s time to upgrade to a 15 series or 16 series that comes out later this year 👦👦

Do you also advise people to get a new car every time their tyres wear off, LOL? The OP just needs to clean their iPhone up and free up some space.

 

[Andeddu]

The iPhone 12 is still a good performer on iOS 17. Replace your battery (preferably via the Apple Store) and increase amount of free disc space you have. That’ll fix your issues.

 

[Abazigal]

I would advocate getting a battery replacement as well.

 

[Marty80]

It’s time to upgrade to a 15 series or 16 series that comes out later this year 👦👦

No it’s not I am still using a 12 pro max here with 84% battery, and it’s still preforming well on iOS 18 developer beta. I am holding out for a design change in the 17 pro max or 18 pro max.

I would recommend like the others a battery change and freeing up as much space. Besides I prefer the notch when watching movies and YouTube rather than the hideous Dynamic Island.

 

[K4sper]

There is no Point in changing the battery. It won’t become faster just last longer. Is there still the turned of ‘high performance’ mode in Battery settings? Maybe check that. But I have a similar issue with an iPhone 12 Pro Max with a lot of empty storage. I’ll try updating it to iOS 17 and hope that makes a difference. I swapped a 11pro battery once at apple and the difference was barely noticeable in lasting longer and as I said: it was not faster.

 

[Clamjuice65]

Exactly so why waste time changing batteries on a OLD iPhone 12 device. Just upgrade and get a 16 series IPhone

 

[MathersMahmood]

I have an iPhone 12, with about 81% battery health and 100/128GB storage filled. It's also updated to the latest iOS version.

It's been really slow and borderline unusable these past few weeks. I'm wondering if it has to do with throttling due to poor battery health or my storage filling up. Or is this expected for this model at this point?

Tim wants you to upgrade.

 

[winxmac]

How Much Free Space Should You Leave on Your iPhone?

First, and most importantly, there's no real official word from Apple regarding what fixed amount or percentage of your storage you should keep free for optimum use.

Based on their tests on devices running iOS 10, 2GB of free space is somewhat the ideal limit to not experience slowdowns/sluggishness... I don't know if 2GB of free space will still give you an acceptable performance for devices running iOS 15 to iOS 18

 

[Paddle1]

There is no Point in changing the battery. It won’t become faster just last longer. Is there still the turned of ‘high performance’ mode in Battery settings? Maybe check that. But I have a similar issue with an iPhone 12 Pro Max with a lot of empty storage. I’ll try updating it to iOS 17 and hope that makes a difference. I swapped a 11pro battery once at apple and the difference was barely noticeable in lasting longer and as I said: it was not faster.

I don't know about iPhone 11, but on the iPhone 12 according to user reports it is because of the battery. A battery replacement will speed up the phone. Why Apple made it slow down above 80% battery health? I don't know.

And no, iOS hides if you have peak performance on iPhone 11 and newer and replaces it with a generic message.

 

[HDFan]

2GB of free space is somewhat the ideal limit to not experience slowdowns/sluggishness.

The general rule is to keep 25%-30% free space on a storage device. That means 76 GB on a 256 GB system or 38 TB on a 128 TB device.

 

[Andeddu]

I used an OGSE for a year in 2022 which had 16GB of storage. I pretty much had 15GB used at any given time and the phone was not behaving sluggishly… it was as quick as my iPhone 6S with 64GB storage and 20GB of free space.