Do you feel like battery life is worse after downloading and installing iOS 16 beta on your iPhone? Battery draining issues are commonly reported after major system software updates, and iOS 16 beta is no exception. Fortunately there’s usually an explanation to these battery life woes, and resolutions too.
For most users, installing the iOS 16 beta goes without a hitch, but for others there is trouble and difficulty, with battery issues being amongst the top frustrations.
If you just recently updated to iOS 16 beta and feel battery life is notably worse, the first thing you should do is wait.
That can be frustrating to hear, but iOS has to perform background maintenance, indexing, and other tasks after a major software update, and during that time the device will use battery life faster.
Simply pugging your iPhone in over night and waiting a few days for the background activity and indexing to complete typically restores battery behavior to normal. And yes really, this works! So have a little patience especially if you just installed an iOS 16 beta.
1. Turn on Low Power mode
Low Power Mode is perhaps the most effective way to maintain iPhone battery life. To turn this feature on, simply go to Settings > Battery and toggle on the Low Power Mode feature. Low Power mode “temporarily reduces background activity like downloads and mail fetch.”
If you want easy access to Low Power Mode, you can add it to the Control Center. You can do this by going to Settings > Control Center. From there, tap on Customize Controls and tap the green “plus” sign next to Low Power Mode.
2. Keep location tracking to a minimum
Apps are data-hungry these days, and some apps are constantly trying to ascertain your location. This can naturally eat into precious battery life. A solution for this is to make sure an app is only tracking your location when the app itself is actively open. You can adjust this setting by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Once there, you can adjust location tracking for each individual app.
3. Turn Dark Mode on
Dark Mode may not be the game-changing feature many people assumed it would be, but it’s still a nice aesthetic option to have. The sleek look and feel of Dark Mode aside, having Dark Mode on can also help you preserve battery life. Some studies have claimed that Dark Mode can improve battery life by upwards of 30%. You can turn Dark Mode on by going to Settings > Display & Brightness and selecting the Dark option.
4. Optimize Battery Charging
This feature was first introduced with iOS 13. As Apple details, the feature is designed to reduce the time that your iPhone spends in a fully charged state. This helps reduce battery aging.
When the feature is enabled, your iPhone will delay charging past 80% in certain situations. Your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging routine so that Optimized Battery Charging activates only when your iPhone predicts it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time.
You can turn this feature on by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health > Optimized Battery Charging.
5. Another iOS 16 battery saving tip: Turn off ‘Hey Siri’
The iPhone’s ‘Hey Siri’ feature is certainly useful, but having your iPhone remain in an active listening state can slowly but surely eat away at your battery life. You can turn Hey Siri off by going to Settings > Siri & Search and toggle the “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” switch into the off position. Note that you can still use Siri with this toggled off, you simply won’t be able to activate Siri by your voice alone.
6. Turn off Background App Refresh
Another way to preserve iOS 16 battery life is to turn Background App Refresh off. The only downside is that apps will be unable to refresh content in the background. Still, if you’re in a bind and need to keep your iPhone from turning off, this is something worth keeping in mind.
If you go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh, you can toggle the feature on and off. You can also granularly pick which apps you’d like to make use of Background App Refresh.
7. Lower the brightness on your iPhone
Similar to Dark Mode, lowering the brightness on your iPhone can help maintain battery life throughout the day. And truth be told, the iPhone display these days is so powerful that even lowering the brightness down to 40% is more than workable. Screen brightness can be adjusted by opening up Control Center.
8. Turn your iPhone off and then back on
Restarting your iPhone can help battery life by “killing background processes that could be draining precious juice.” You can turn your iPhone off by pressing the volume-up button and the side power button simultaneously. You can turn your iPhone on again by pressing the side power button until you see the Apple logo flash on the screen.
9. Lock up your device quicker
The iPhone has a setting where you can determine how many minutes of inactivity are needed before the device goes into Sleep mode. Naturally, the shorter you set this setting to, the more your iPhone battery will thank you. You can adjust this setting by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock.
10. Keep Your iPhone Face-Down
Your iPhone has detectors that are capable of detecting your phone’s orientation. When your phone is placed face-down, your iPhone won’t turn on its screen when a notification arrives. If you receive notifications regularly, this tip will help you save a good amount of battery life.
Make it a habit to keep your iPhone face-down whenever you are not using it, in order to maximize battery. However, an important point to know is that this method doesn’t work if you turn off Fitness Tracking on your iPhone.
This option is what allows your iPhone to detect motion in this way. To ensure that Fitness Tracking is enabled, follow these steps:
- In Settings, select Privacy
- Scroll down and tap on Motion & Fitness.
- Check if the toggle next to Fitness Tracking is turned on. If it’s off, enable it to allow this function to work.
11. Turn Off Raise to Wake
As soon as you raise your iPhone from a table or similar, the screen wakes to let you see your Lock screen. However, there are often times when the screen wakes unintentionally, even if you aren’t trying to use it.
When your screen constantly wakes and sleeps, the iOS 16 battery drains faster. To avoid this, follow these simple steps:
- Open Settings, then go to Display & Brightness.
- Toggle off Raise to Wake.
12. Turn On Reduce Motion
Another issue that can be the cause of iOS 16 battery drain is an increase in animations that come with new software features. If you’ve been enjoying the interesting effects (fireworks and confetti anyone?) and reactions in the Messages app, you’re using animations that require lots of iPhone battery life. While the flashy features of the Messages app might be fun, they’re sure to cut into the amount of time your iPhone can stay alive. Beyond the Messages app, the iPhone has animations for everything. Simply switching from an app to the Home screen has its own animation. Each animation may not use much battery life, but the little bit each transition uses adds up quickly. To turn on Reduce Motion and stop iOS 16 battery drain from these small animations:
- Open the Settings app and go to accessibility.
- Tap Motion.
- Toggle on Reduce Motion.
- Toggle on Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions.
- While you’re on this page, you can also toggle off Auto-Play Message Effects and Auto-Play Video Previews to save even more battery.
13. Use Still Wallpaper
Having a 3D or live wallpaper on your phone is cool and all but it puts a heavy toll on your battery. You should consider changing it with plain non-moving wallpaper. The color of your chosen wallpaper will also affect battery consumption since the brighter it is, the more power it uses. So, a black, or at least a dark-colored wallpaper would help extend iOS 16 battery life.
To change it, just go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper > Choose stills (non-moving wallpaper).
14. Declutter Notifications
We install several apps that we don’t use that often, and over time, they accumulates, and these apps come with notifications that can be annoying at times. May it be an unplayed game that keeps reminding you to log in, or other spammy apps encouraging you to spend more money. Turning off those notifications will help in fixing iOS 16 battery drain issue.
Aside from the obvious reason, notifications from social media are a major distraction that prevent you from being productive. Unless it’s work-related, turning off such notifications will help you focus on your goals and finish work without getting distracted.
To disable notifications, go to Settings > Notifications > Choose an app > Tap “Allow Notifications” toggle to turn off whichever app you deem unnecessary.
15. Use WiFi Whenever Possible
WiFi uses less power than a cellular connection, so to maximize iOS 16 battery life, Apple recommends connecting to WiFi whenever possible. At home or work, for example, WiFi should be activated, saving cellular data and battery life.
16. Adjust Mail Fetch Settings
In addition to turning off Background Refresh, adjusting when and how often the Mail app checks for new emails can save some iOS 16 battery life.
- Open up the Settings app.
- Tap Mail
- Tap Accounts
- Tap ”Fetch New Data” at the bottom. mailfetch
From here, you can turn off Push (which lets you know right away when a new email message is available) and adjust Fetch settings on a per account basis for accounts that don’t support Push (like Gmail accounts).
Adjusting the Fetch settings to have longer intervals before checking for new messages can help save battery life, as can turning off Fetch all together in favor of manual checks that will download new messages only when the Mail app is opened.
You can choose the following settings: Automatically, Manually, Hourly, Every 30 Minutes, and Every 15 Minutes.
17. Limit Apps Using Bluetooth
Apple previously introduced a feature that lets you know when apps have requested Bluetooth access, and there are a surprising number of apps that want to use Bluetooth for things like location tracking with Bluetooth beacons or scanning for Chromecast devices.
This is a good list to review to make sure you don’t have a sneaky app in the background connecting to Bluetooth sources without your permission as that can cause iOS 16 battery drain issue. It’s totally fine to allow Bluetooth access to apps that need it for Bluetooth-enabled accessories, but nixing access for retail stores is probably a good idea. Here’s how to access Bluetooth settings:
Open the Settings app.
Tap Privacy.
Tap Bluetooth.
From this list, toggle off any app that doesn’t need a Bluetooth connection to function. It’s best to be liberal with the toggling off — if you disable access and then a feature within an app stops functioning properly, you can just turn Bluetooth back on.
Bluetooth can also be turned off entirely, which can perhaps save a bit of iOS 16 battery life, but it’s not a great idea for most people because Bluetooth is used for AirPods, Apple Watches, and other accessories.
18. Make Sure Everything’s Up to Date
Make sure you have the latest version of iOS 16 beta installed because Apple has been making improvements and refinements to the operating system since it was released. Here’s how to check:
- Open Settings.
- Tap General.
- Tap Software Update.
From here, the iPhone will let you know if your software is up to date or if there’s a new version available.
You should also make sure all of your apps are up to date, which you can do in the App Store.
- Open up the App Store.
- Tap on your profile in the upper right.
- Swipe downwards to refresh everything.
- Tap on Update All.
The update section of the App Store is also a great way to cull apps. If you see an update for an app you don’t use often, swipe to the left on it and you can delete it right then and there.
19. Don’t Close Apps
Many battery life guides will suggest manually closing apps by using the App Switcher to prevent them from running in the background, but this doesn’t save iOS 16 battery life and can in fact drain more battery.
Apps in the background are paused when not in active use and aren’t using battery life. Closing out an app purges it from the iPhone’s RAM, requiring a reload when it reopens, which can have a bigger impact on battery.
20. Disable Vibrations and Haptic Feedback
When your iPhone vibrates or provides haptic feedback to an interaction, Apple’s Taptic Engine chip engages its physical motor. This uses additional energy, so it might be worth disabling these features if you can live without them.
There are two main vibration settings in Settings -> Sound & Haptics. Try turning off Vibrate on Ring, Vibrate on Silent, or both to save power.
Scroll down to the bottom of this menu and you’ll see System Haptics. Disabling this will eliminate system-wide haptic feedback.
21. Reset Your iPhone
If you are still experiencing severe battery drain issue on iOS 16 despite following the steps above, you may have to reset your iPhone to eliminate all possible errors.
To reset, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings and select General.
- Scroll down and tap on Transfer or Reset iPhone.
- Tap Reset.
- Choose Reset All Settings, then confirm your passcode to reset your device.
Fixed iOS 16 battery drain issue
Do you think battery life has been impacted by iOS 16 beta on your iPhone? Did any particular tip help to resolve the issue for you? Let us know your experiences and thoughts with battery life, battery drain, and general battery usage with iOS 16 beta in the comments.
See also: Top 100 New iOS 16 Features and Changes for iPhone
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