How to Tell Which Apps Are Draining Your iPhone Battery

iPhone users can track their battery usage in a very fine-grained manner. This allows us to find the cause of iPhone battery drain, if it is being caused by an app. The iPhone “Battery Usage” panel keeps track of how much energy is used by your apps and native iPhone features, thus allowing you to analyze where the drain is coming from.

If you are experiencing iPhone battery drain with an older model, which has been subjected to long-term use over several years, it might simply be a case of wear and tear. The battery in your iPhone can only survive so many cycles of charging and discharging, see our guide on iPhone battery health for more information on how to check your iPhone battery health. Another issue could be the calibration of your iPhone battery. Learn how to re-calibrate your iPhone battery here.

What causes iPhone battery drain?

Open up your “Settings” and tap “Battery”. Then check the section “Battery Usage” to see a list of apps that are the top causes of iPhone battery drain.

Every operation on your iPhone requires energy, so you’ll see parts of the system such as “Phone” or “Settings” appear on this list as well. This is by no means a problem! Naturally, a lot of your favorite apps will turn up on this list. Only when a certain app uses up most of your battery and you weren’t using to very much, you should be concerned and maybe consider either reinstalling the app or removing it or maybe restricting the Background Activities.

Sometimes an iPhone reset can solve the issue fast and without a hassel. Find out how to fix battery drain issues quick here.

Which apps are use the most energy on my iPhone?

The lists for the last 24 hours of usage and last 7 days of usage are ordered by impact, thus the apps using up the highest percentage of your battery charge will be listed at the top in descending order.

In general, the usage overview will vary heavily depending upon your usage patterns and what you have installed. Apps might be checking for updates in the background, or fetching messages and email while the screen is turned off. Other apps are periodically fetching your current location, thus activating the corresponding hardware in your iPhone. Overall, screen brightness is probably the most impactful factor when it comes to battery life, right next to processor load and (wireless) communication.

Apps that use a lot of energy and thus battery capacity are apps that make use of wireless networking, 3G or 4G and positional tracking through your iPhone’s location services. Games are also very demanding for the hardware of your iPhone, especially the ones that include impressive 3D graphics.