Why Is My iPhone or Android Phone Battery Dying So Quickly?
Friday, May 2nd, 2025Battery drain has become a common frustration in our technology-dependent lives. You leave your phone plugged in overnight, yet somehow, by midday, you’re scrambling for a charger again. If your phone needs to be charged multiple times throughout the day, you might wonder why your battery is draining so quickly.
While battery life depends on numerous factors that affect how quickly your device drains, it’s not always obvious why your battery life is decreasing at first. Since rechargeable batteries have a limited lifespan, their performance inevitably degrades with time, but premature draining generally indicates specific issues you can fix.
In this article, we will explore ten reasons why your phone battery might be dying quickly and provide troubleshooting tips to help extend your phone’s battery life.
Common Reasons Your Phone Battery Is Draining Quickly
It’s important to understand why your phone battery is dying so quickly so that you can try to restore it. Below are the most common reasons why your phone battery may be dying faster than normal.
1. Outdated Software
Phone manufacturers release frequent software updates that improve how your device saves power. Often, older operating systems contain power management bugs that silently drain your battery. These issues are resolved in newer updates because they typically have battery optimizations to fix battery efficiency. Keeping your iPhone or Android updated may be one way to protect its battery life for longer.
2. Background App Activity
Most apps still run in the background when you don’t use them, quietly using your phone’s battery power. These background apps browse for fresh content, update, and push notifications even when the app isn’t being used on your screen. Popular apps like social media, emails, and news services are the biggest battery drains. Limiting what apps can operate in the background can extend your battery life dramatically.
3. High Screen Brightness and Display Settings
Your phone screen uses tremendous power, especially at higher brightness levels. When your phone battery is dying faster than normal, reducing your screen’s brightness should make an immediate difference in battery performance.
Features like dynamic wallpapers continuously use power while making small but constant demands on your battery. Adjusting these display settings is one of the quickest ways to increase battery life.
4. Poor Cellular or Wi-Fi Signal
Low cellular networks compel your phone to exert extra effort as it constantly searches for a better signal. Your phone consumes much more power when it’s struggling to hold on to a signal in areas with poor reception. Activating airplane mode in known dead spots prevents unnecessary power consumption lest you be consumed by your need for endless emoji-based dopamine.
5. Location Services and Connectivity Settings
Your phone’s Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi scanning features consume considerable power throughout the day. Navigation and fitness tracking apps that constantly use your location services can also drain your battery. When multiple connectivity features run simultaneously, they create a constant power drain that can add up quickly. By default, many apps request access to your location, even if this feature isn’t essential to how you use them.
6. Heavy Apps and Resource-Hungry Features
Games with impressive graphics, video streaming, and photo editing apps require significant processing power from your device. If your phone battery dying too quickly is a recurring issue, these power-intensive applications might be the cause. Features like augmented reality, animated effects, and complex visual features are also resource-hungry.
7. Faulty Chargers
Battery problems sometimes originate from charging equipment and not the phone battery itself. Faulty cables, damaged adapters, or unauthorized charging accessories may not deliver the proper power to your device. Additionally, dust or lint inside charging ports can prevent proper charging.
8. Extreme Temperatures
Batteries perform well in a moderate temperature range and often experience problems in hot or cold temperatures. Heat speeds up the battery’s chemical reactions, causing the energy to drain and leading to possible permanent damage. On the other hand, cold slows down your battery, leading to sudden power loss.
9. Battery Health and Age
All batteries naturally wear out over time and provide less battery life after each charge. After two years of typical use, most smartphone batteries will have noticeably decreased capacity. Nowadays, phones provide battery health information in settings. A battery health percentage under 80% indicates serious wear that affects daily use. Additionally, the health reading can even be inaccurate relative to the user’s experience.
10. Excessive Notifications
A constant stream of alerts throughout your day also drains your battery. Each push notification wakes your screen, triggers vibrations, or plays sounds-all draining power from your battery. With possibly hundreds of these interruptions daily, the impact builds with time. Since most apps have all available notifications enabled by default, this causes an unnecessary power drain that slowly depletes your battery.
Specific iPhone Battery Issues
iPhones have unique battery issues with unique fixes. Here are the key battery problems iPhone users experience:
1. iOS Updates and Battery Optimization
After iOS updates, many users complain that their batteries are draining faster than usual. This is because your phone is busy indexing files and updating apps to work with the new system. Apple also has a feature called Optimized Battery Charging that helps battery longevity by limiting how long your iPhone stays completely charged. iPhones learn user habits and adjust power usage to help your battery last longer throughout the day.
2. Apple’s Battery Management features
iPhones have unique systems that manage their performance when batteries age or struggle in cold temperatures. These systems prevent sudden shutdowns by monitoring battery health and adjusting power demands when necessary. When your iPhone detects potential problems, it automatically slows down the performance of components like the processor and graphics chip.
Depending on your battery’s condition, you might notice effects like slower app loading, a dimmer screen, or reduced speaker volume. These battery management features become more aggressive as batteries age, hinting that it might be time for replacement.
Troubleshooting Tips to Improve Battery Life on iPhones and Android Phones
Battery issues can make even the newest phones unreliable. By adjusting a few basic settings, you can extend your battery life and reduce how often you need to recharge. Here are some handy tips for saving your phone’s battery life:
1. Limit Background Activity
If background processes are silently wasting power even when you’re not actively using your device, try these steps to improve battery life:
For iPhone users: Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and switch it off for any apps that do not need to refresh when you are not using them. Android users can adjust similar settings, depending on their phone’s make and model.
2. Reduce Screen Brightness
Reducing your screen brightness can boost your battery life immediately. Make these simple adjustments to save power:
iPhone users can swipe down from the top-right corner to open the Control Center and lower the brightness slider. Go to Settings > Display & Brightness to turn on auto-brightness to let your phone automatically adjust based on your surroundings. Find similar settings on your Android phone to optimize your display settings and limit the drain on your battery.
3. Disable Location Services
If our phone’s GPS features are active more often than necessary, adjust these settings to prevent location features from draining your battery.
iPhone users can go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services to check what apps have location access. For apps that only need location occasionally, choose “While Using” instead of “Always” to prevent continuous tracking. Try turning off the location entirely for apps that never require it.
Android users facing battery issues can go to Settings > Location and manage these permissions. The option to disable location entirely should be available here, but a more useful method is to check individual app permissions.
When your phone battery is dying faster than normal, limiting location services to just important navigation apps like Google Maps can dramatically extend your battery life.
4. Update Software
Outdated software can contain bugs that affect your battery performance. To ensure that you’re using the latest version, update your phone’s software regularly or update your settings to automatically check for and download updates.
5. Manage Notifications and App Permissions
Since constant alerts force your phone to activate constantly, take the following steps to limit unnecessary notifications:
On iPhones, customize your alerts by going to Settings > Notifications and reviewing each app individually. Instead of disabling all notifications, turn off “Show on Lock Screen” to prevent screen activation while still receiving important alerts in your notification center. For apps that send frequent updates, keep visual alerts enabled but turn off sounds and vibration. Limiting notifications to only the most important apps will keep your battery going a lot longer.
6. Use Low Power Mode
When your phone’s battery is low, built-in power-saving features can help. To activate these modes, find your phone’s low battery option.
iPhone users can quickly extend battery life by turning on Low Power Mode through Settings > Battery or by adding this control to Control Center for faster access. This feature temporarily reduces background activities and display brightness until you can recharge.
Android users should find and activate Battery Saver or Power Saving Mode in battery settings. No matter what it’s labeled, this feature works the same way on all devices by limiting background activity to maximize your remaining battery life.
7. Avoid Extreme Temperatures
Keeping your device between 62° and 72°F (16° to 22°C) provides optimal operating conditions for the battery. During hot weather, never leave your phone in direct sunlight or in a parked car where temperatures can quickly heat up your phone.
Cold environments temporarily reduce battery capacity until the device warms up, so keep your phone out of the cold whenever possible during the winter. When charging your phone, place it on hard surfaces rather than soft materials like bedding, which can trap heat and affect battery health.
8. Check Battery Health Regularly
Batteries do degrade with age, reducing their ability to hold a charge for very long. Monitor your battery’s condition with these simple steps.
iPhone users can view battery health by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging to see what percentage of their battery capacity is still operating.
If this drops below 80%, consider battery replacement, especially if you have AppleCare+, which may cover this service. You can find your battery health on Android phones using the phone’s settings or manufacturer or third-party apps that diagnose your phone’s battery health.
9. Restart Your Phone
Regular system restarts may resolve temporary issues affecting battery performance. To give your phone a fresh start, it’s best to restart it.
For iPhones, hold down the side button with one of the volume buttons until the power slider appears, then slide to turn off.
For devices that aren’t responding, perform a force restart by pressing the volume up button quickly, then volume down, and then hold down the side button until the Apple logo appears. Restarting your iPhone or Android phone weekly can prevent many common battery-draining software glitches from developing.
When to Replace Your Phone’s Battery
If your phone dies quickly, takes ages to charge, or shows inconsistent battery percentages, it’s time to replace the battery. At 911 Phone Repair, we offer the highest quality aftermarket batteries as well as OEM batteries to restore your device to its original performance and extend its lifespan. Contact us today for a free consultation and quote. Let us help you solve your battery problems!