How to Fix the iOS 16 Battery Drain Issue: 9 Important Tips and Tricks to Improve Your iPhone’s Battery Life

In the last few days, I have seen many users going gaga over the latest iOS 16 update for the iPhone. You might have updated your device to iOS 16 to try your hands on all the new features and functionalities.

However, the new update also comes with some backdrops as well. Many users have reported battery drain issues in iOS 16. So, there isn’t a magic wand you can apply to fix the issue. However, there are some steps you can take, which I will demonstrate, in order to reduce the battery drain.

How To Fix iOS 16 Battery Drain Issue

If you are facing battery drain issues after upgrading to iOS 16, try these important tips and tricks to improve the battery life of your iPhone.

Change “Fetch New Data” Settings in Mail

Settings => Mail => Accounts => Fetch New Data

1. Open up the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
2. Here, you’re going to scroll all the way down until you see “Mail.”
3. From here, you’re going to tap on “Accounts.”
4. Tap where it says “Fetch New Data.” Tap on it,and by default it’s set to “Automatically.”

This means that the Mail app is going to ping your mail accounts every couple of seconds. So, that’s going to use a lot of data, which you may not care about, but you should understand that it will also cause the battery drain issue.

So, if you wish mail to be fetched in the background, you can set this to either every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or hourly.

If you set this to “Manually,” you have to open up the Mail app in order to receive new mail.

Since I really get bothered when I get random emails now and then from Amazon and stock market brokers, I preferred this setting to be set at “Manually.” Eventually, it also solves the battery drain issue in iOS 16.

Turn off “Background App Refresh”

Settings => General => Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh allows apps to download new files and new data even while they’re in the background.

For instance, you are downloading a video from YouTube when the “Background App Refresh” is turned off. In this case, the download will not continue while you have minimized the YouTube app and are using some other apps.

Don’t worry, this won’t stop WhatsApp or Telegram from sending you new message notifications.

Personally, I keep the “Background App Refresh” off entirely and this won’t cause any issue. So, I would recommend turning this off as it will save you some data as well as battery drain issues on your iPhone.

Turn Off “Reduce Motion”

Settings => Accessibility => Motion => Reduce Motion

1. If you want to go kind of extreme, search for “Reduce Motion” in the “Settings” app and tap on it.
2. Toggle it off if it’s turned on.

Reduce Motion enables animations on your iPhone. For example, when you open any app, when Reduce Motion is on, it will launch in a little fade animation. This may look cool, but it reduces the battery juice very quickly on your iOS 16 device.

If you do have “Reduce Motion” off, not only does it improve performance, but it’s also going to reduce the battery drain issue on the iPhone.

Enable the “Low Power Mode”

Settings => Battery => Low Power Mode

1. Now, let’s go to the Settings app and slide down until you see “Battery.”
2. Then from here you see the “Low Power Mode.”
3. You can turn it on.

So, it will put your iPhone on battery saving mode and your phone will pause all background activities. This doesn’t mean it will pause all important activities, but only the ones that consume most of your battery.

For example, when it is on, your display will turn off after 15 seconds of idle time. It’s also going to reduce the processor speed. This is definitely useful if you just want a one-twist quick fix.

However, if you have an iPhone (iPhone 13 Pro series or later) that has a high refresh rate display, you may not want to use Low Power Mode as it will limit the refresh rate to 60 Hertz. On the other iPhones, you won’t notice much difference in the display.

Change the “Location Services” Permissions

Settings => Privacy & Security => Location Services

Here, you will notice that a bunch of applications may be using your location, and you may not know about that.

You can open any application, for instance, and check what location permission has been granted among the four options i.e.,

• Never
• Ask Next Time or When I Share
• While Using the App
• Always

I would suggest selecting “Ask Next Time or When I Share” or “Always.”

If you do have a genuine reason that is causing issues when you turn off location services, then you definitely just want to keep that on. For the most part, either set it to while using the app or never, and that will definitely help out with the battery drain issue in iOS 16.

Disable “Tracking”

Settings => Privacy & Security => Tracking

You will see an option to “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” When it is enabled, apps can ask for your permission to track your activities across other companies’ websites and apps.

For example, if you have Facebook allowing you to track through other apps, and you use other applications such as games, Facebook can track you.

Yes, this happens. They can track you when you visit other websites. It’s kind of scary, but you can turn it off.

Make sure it is toggled off. No app can force you to enable this function, as it will violate the App Store guidelines.

When apps track your activities across other apps and sites, your battery will drain faster. So, turning off this feature will improve the battery life of your iPhone as well as protect your privacy.

Change “Local Network” Setting

Settings => Privacy and Security => Local Network

You may have some apps in here that have an enabled or disabled toggle.

What this means is that all the applications where the toggle is turned on have permission to connect to devices connected to local networks such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

So, if you find applications that don’t need to connect to Bluetooth devices or devices on the same Wi-Fi connection, you can turn this toggle off.

This will definitely help you to improve the battery life on your iOS 16 device.

When Not in Use, Turn Off Bluetooth

Settings => Bluetooth

This has been one of the common ways to save battery life on the iPhone since the beginning.

Well, I am a guy who uses Bluetooth all the time. I don’t turn it off ever.

However, if you’re not using Bluetooth, you’re wasting battery life. Just turn it off and that will definitely help when it comes to the battery life on your iPhone powered by iOS 16.

Enable Dark Mode

Slide Down from the Top-Right Corner => Long Press the Brightness Toggle => Select Dark Mode

When you have turned on the dark mode, all the settings and applications will show a dark or black color in the background.

Many experts believe that using Dark Mode on the iPhone will improve the battery life. As everything is in black, fewer pixels are used or are in black, resulting in a lower power requirement.

Therefore, you’re going to get way better battery life.

So, these are all the tips and tricks you can do to help with the battery life in iOS 16. If you have some other tips, you can tell us in the comment section and we will add them to the list.