iPhone 6 Battery Drain - Please Help! :(

[Dick Whitman]

After experiencing a total battery life of 4 - 5 hours on the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, and now the iPhone 6, I have come to the conclusion that this problem has to be related to my iCloud account and/or some combination of settings I currently have enabled. Please help me troubleshoot this issue, as I can't live like this.

When I first powered on my shiny new iPhone 6, the battery was around the 73% mark. I usually don't do iCloud backups, as I know they can cause issues, but I decided to take a chance this time. My last iCloud backup was made last night from my iPhone 5s. It included contacts, messages, settings, bookmarks, and some applications. I initiated an iCloud restore around shortly after receiving my iPhone 6, and was disappointed to see the battery begin dropping 1% every two minutes or so. I started using my phone around 11:30 AM and it died at 3:30 PM. I realize I didn't start using my phone until the battery was already around 70%, and that I was more-or-less using the phone non-stop for this period of time, but this kind of battery life still seems abysmal, especially for simple tasks like web browsing, streaming music with the screen turned off, taking a few pictures, etc.

Interestingly, I noticed that my home screen still said "iCloud restore in progress" hours after I had first selected the option of restoring. As a result, I went into my settings and ended the restore. Everything had already seemed to have restored anyway. I then began disabling the obvious battery-draining culprits:

- Limiting Ad-Based Locations
- Disabling Background App Refresh
- Disabling Location Services
- Disabling Parallax Wallpapers
- Disabling Automatic Updates
- Closing Multiple Safari Tabs
- Reducing Screen Brightness
- Resetting Network Settings
- Resetting All Settings (and then disabling those settings listed above)

None of this seemed to make any difference though, as battery continued to drain at the same rate. I have since allowed the battery to fully drain and am recharging it now. Note: I am in an area that gets three bars of LTE service. The only other thing I can think to do is to erase all settings and maybe not sign in with my iCloud account? Here are some screenshots I captured of diagnostic related information, which may prove to be useful.

If anyone has any insight they could offer, I would seriously be very grateful.

 

[Skevaboy]

I would suggest a full restore via iTunes on your laptop

 

[kas23]

What about looking at app-specific battery useage?

 

[Skevaboy]

it may have been updating all your apps in the background if auto update was on?? bluetooth on?

 

[durkkin]

You could also just wait a day or two and see what the battery is like after fully charging it. You've had it for 4 hours. Seems a bit early to be panicking...

 

[ZipZap]

If you restored the phone from a backup that's likely your problem. Especially if you had drain issues before.

Start the phone as new and re-set everything up. Always do this for a new phone.

 

[Bigserver1]

If you restored the phone from a backup that's likely your problem. Especially if you had drain issues before.

Start the phone as new and re-set everything up. Always do this for a new phone.

Is there a way to save your contacts if you do this? I would love to set up as new, but I dont really want to take a really long time to manually add my contacts back.

 

[kaiguy]

Is there a way to save your contacts if you do this? I would love to set up as new, but I dont really want to take a really long time to manually add my contacts back.

You should be using iCloud or Gmail to save your contacts. That way there's never a concern about losing contacts, since it's always synced to the cloud.

 

[benboy12]

My battery was draining pretty quickly all day long. However, I came home and gave it a full charge and it seems to be much better.

 

[Dick Whitman]

If you restored the phone from a backup that's likely your problem. Especially if you had drain issues before.

Start the phone as new and re-set everything up. Always do this for a new phone.

I've restored and set up my phones as new devices in the past but have never had much success. I'll give it another try though. After a full charge, I dropped back to 88% in 45 mins. Mind you, that was with Spotify running in the background along with heavy Instagram usage. Also, I don't know if it's worth noting but when I first signed into my iCloud account, it asked me for the password to an email address that wasn't mine. I think this issue has been reported before, but I don't know if it's any indication of a server issue or a corrupt iCloud account/backup.

 

[Casiotone]

Note that brand new iPhones needs to have their battery indicators calibrated. This means going from a full charge to zero and charging it back a couple of times (at a minimum, one charging cycle).

 

[Dick Whitman]

Ok, I experienced slightly better battery life (if you consider 5.5 hours vs. 5 hours to be any better) after letting my phone drain and then fulling charging it for the first time. See below. At this point, I am going to perform a clean restore. Is there any specific methodology to follow? Can I still sign into my iCloud account after restoring? I've had the same iCloud account for years. Is there any need to create a new one perhaps?

 

[Newtons Apple]

I agree with the others and would NEVERTHELESS use the cloud for my restore when you can get it done 100% in about 10-12 minutes via an iTunes backup.

 

[r-m]

Backup your backup...
When you set up as new, iTunes may overwrite your backup so you'll lose it if you did decide you wanted that backup back..

I charged my 6 up to full when it arrived. Got 5:33 usage, mostly 3G with maybe an hour of WiFi.
Charged up to 100% then got 7:27 usage. That was mostly WiFi, with less than an hour of 3G.

Charged again to 100% and switched wifi off, and will see how this charge goes.

My 5S was worse, usually get between 4-5 hours on that.
Certainly not the stated times that Apple mentions in the keynote and on the website.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Backup your backup...
When you set up as new, iTunes may overwrite your backup so you'll lose it if you did decide you wanted that backup back..

I charged my 6 up to full when it arrived. Got 5:33 usage, mostly 3G with maybe an hour of WiFi.
Charged up to 100% then got 7:27 usage. That was mostly WiFi, with less than an hour of 3G.

Charged again to 100% and switched wifi off, and will see how this charge goes.

My 5S was worse, usually get between 4-5 hours on that.
Certainly not the stated times that Apple mentions in the keynote and on the website.

Same. I truly don't understand how some can get 4-5 hours while others supposedly 8 hours and above. It has to be something with a corrupt backup. Do you know if it's possible for an actual iCloud account to be corrupt? I restored and set up my 6 as a new device. I plan on using it after its fully charged and not signing into my iCloud account until I can test the battery.

 

[meagain]

OP - I would LOVE to have your battery usage.

My scenario.... Plugged it in yesterday to full charge and did a Clean setup, nothing from backup except iCloud contacts.
Loaded my apps, did all sync'ing, etc. plugged in to iTunes.

Turned off BT, iCloud, Location except for Find my iPhone and maps, killed a lot of notifications, etc. It was fully charged this morning so I left the house.

Between 9:45-10am to around 1pm battery drained to zero. There was no service where I was so I turned off LTE and Cellular Data with turning it on periodically. I basically hardly used it but for a few messages.

I got 3.5 hours usage with 5 Standby. Way worse than old iPhone. I feel something is wrong with mine and no draining/recharging is going to fix this one.

 

[r-m]

Same. I truly don't understand how some can get 4-5 hours while others supposedly 8 hours and above. It has to be something with a corrupt backup. Do you know if it's possible for an actual iCloud account to be corrupt? I restored and set up my 6 as a new device. I plan on using it after its fully charged and not signing into my iCloud account until I can test the battery.

I am wondering that, about a corrupt iCloud account.
I did set up my 6 as new, but it's the same iCloud account as I had on my 5S.


Example of corrupt settings being around on a new device - iPad safari tab reload. I'd set up my iPad air as new, added my iCloud account, email, and installed a few apps. It was reloading tabs when I only had 3 open and no other apps (had literally just switched on the iPad). After resetting settings (Settings- General- Reset- Reset all settings), my safari tabs stopped reloading so much and could have as much as 8 open before I noticed reloads.

Please update us on how you go, not adding the iCloud account

 

[jason4427]

OP - I would LOVE to have your battery usage.

My scenario.... Plugged it in yesterday to full charge and did a Clean setup, nothing from backup except iCloud contacts.
Loaded my apps, did all sync'ing, etc. plugged in to iTunes.

Turned off BT, iCloud, Location except for Find my iPhone and maps, killed a lot of notifications, etc. It was fully charged this morning so I left the house.

Between 9:45-10am to around 1pm battery drained to zero. There was no service where I was so I turned off LTE and Cellular Data with turning it on periodically. I basically hardly used it but for a few messages.

I got 3.5 hours usage with 5 Standby. Way worse than old iPhone. I feel something is wrong with mine and no draining/recharging is going to fix this one.

Which carrier do you have?

 

[nevesis]

If you restored the phone from a backup that's likely your problem. Especially if you had drain issues before.

Start the phone as new and re-set everything up. Always do this for a new phone.

I want to do this, but I have 9000 photos from my camera roll that I still want to have on my new phone.

I restored from my previous iPhone backup, and would prefer not to use iCloud to backup all those photos/videos.

What's the best way to get all my photos/videos back on my new phone and not restore from an iTunes backup from my previous phone?

 

[r-m]

I want to do this, but I have 9000 photos from my camera roll that I still want to have on my new phone.

I restored from my previous iPhone backup, and would prefer not to use iCloud to backup all those photos/videos.

What's the best way to get all my photos/videos back on my new phone and not restore from an iTunes backup from my previous phone?

You can transfer the photos to your computer then sync photo albums off your computer to your iPhone.
With a mac it's easy, it uses iPhoto's albums, smart albums, events, for you to pick to put photos back on.

Not sure how it works on a PC/Windows, but I think the option's there on iTunes for you to pick photos to sync onto your iPhone.

 

[meagain]

Which carrier do you have?

AT&T I don't think that matters at all tho.

 

[metsjetsfan]

I am wondering that, about a corrupt iCloud account.
I did set up my 6 as new, but it's the same iCloud account as I had on my 5S.


Example of corrupt settings being around on a new device - iPad safari tab reload. I'd set up my iPad air as new, added my iCloud account, email, and installed a few apps. It was reloading tabs when I only had 3 open and no other apps (had literally just switched on the iPad). After resetting settings (Settings- General- Reset- Reset all settings), my safari tabs stopped reloading so much and could have as much as 8 open before I noticed reloads.

Please update us on how you go, not adding the iCloud account

if you have an ipad w same icloud acct and settings then i think you could rule out a corupt icloud acct if it works ok. removing safari bookmarks sync helped a couples yeras ago. but think they fixed that

 

[shox2k2]

I have similar numbers for my 6. Now I rarely got more than 4 hours streaming radio on my iphone 5. I ran down my six last night. Plugged it in all night. Full charge ready to go this morning. After the full charge I got about 12hrs standby and a few minutes short of 6 hours usage time*. No radio streaming, just web surfing, boom beach and just genera messing around with it. I set it up as new and synced safari and contacts from icloud. It is charging up now and I made sure the device is turned off for this charge.

*disclaimer: The first few hours the brightness was up pretty high. I forgot I had turned it up to help run it down last night. So we will wait and see what tomorrow brings.

 

[whirldy]

DFU Mode restore.

Spotlight is always culprit. And, Background App Refresh...

Also, changing Mail app setting to manual, instead of Push/Fetch

 

[r-m]

I have similar numbers for my 6. Now I rarely got more than 4 hours streaming radio on my iphone 5. I ran down my six last night. Plugged it in all night. Full charge ready to go this morning. After the full charge I got about 12hrs standby and a few minutes short of 6 hours usage time*. No radio streaming, just web surfing, boom beach and just genera messing around with it. I set it up as new and synced safari and contacts from icloud. It is charging up now and I made sure the device is turned off for this charge.

*disclaimer: The first few hours the brightness was up pretty high. I forgot I had turned it up to help run it down last night. So we will wait and see what tomorrow brings.

I'm not sure it charges whilst it's off?