I’ve heard from several readers who are concerned that their new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max battery is draining so fast.
And it’s not just a slow drain.
These iPhones battery depletes in a few hours with little to no usage.
And it seems pretty widespread, with a lot of chatter about it on social media and on Apple’s own support forum.
This is something you shouldn’t shrug your shoulders at, ignore, and just plug the phone back into the charger. A quickly draining iPhone 15 Pro battery could indicate a more serious problem, and that expensive shiny phone can only be charged a certain number of times before the battery has to be replaced, or a new phone has to be bought. So what can you do if your iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max battery is draining too fast? We’ve got a monster list of tips here for you to try out.
Several things can cause your iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max battery to drain faster. If you just got a new iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, it isn’t uncommon to experience poor battery life for the first few days. The reason behind this is simple.
For one, if you just got a new phone, you might simply be spending more time than usual on your device as you try out the new features.
But most importantly, iOS might still be indexing the content of your new phone or reorganizing files in the background.
While it can be nerve-racking to see your battery level depletes before your eyes, please be patient, as this indexing process can take a few days. If your iPhone 15 Pro battery is still draining faster 3-4 days later, then read on to find out ways you can fix the problem.
How to fix iPhone 15 Pro battery drain issue
Find the culprits
Some apps are particularly power-hungry. So, the first thing you should do to figure out why your iPhone 15 Pro battery is draining so fast is to to find out which apps are using the most battery.
Tap Settings > Battery, then wait for the Battery Usage section to load. Now check to see which apps are consuming the most juice. You can toggle between readings for the last 24 hours and last 7 days.
If you discover power-draining apps you don’t use often (or at all), consider deleting them — or at least switching to browser-based alternatives.
Install all the latest iOS system updates and app updates
If you’re noticing that your iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max battery is draining faster than usual, it’s possible that it could be a bug in the current version of iOS. It could also be a bug in one of your installed apps. Therefore, go to Settings > General > Software Update, and install any available iOS updates.
Then go to the App Store, tap your avatar on the top-right, scroll down, and install any available app updates.
Disable Automatic App Updates
Most of us have many apps installed on our iPhones, and on any given day, one or more of them are likely to get an update. While it’s recommended to install these updates to get the best experience and new features, with automatic updates enabled, your iPhone downloads and installs apps repeatedly. The extra work of downloading and installing the apps in the background can cause your iPhone 15 Pro battery to drain quickly.
To disable automatic App Updates, open the Settings app on your iPhone and choose App Store.
Scroll down and turn off "App Updates" under Automatic Downloads.
Stop auto-fetching email
Do you really need your phone to monitor your email accounts every second of every day? That’s the basic definition of "push" email, a huge battery suck.
I’m not a big fan of "fetch," either, which checks for new mail at designated intervals. My thought: When I want to check for new messages, I fire up the Mail app and check for new messages. Anything else is not only a battery drain, but also a distraction.
Try turning both of these options off. To do so, tap Settings > Mail > Accounts, then tap Fetch New Data. Turn off Push, then scroll down to the Fetch section and choose Manually.
Remember: If someone needs to reach you in a hurry, they can always call or send a text message.
Lower the screen brightness
A bright display can make your iPhone 15 Pro battery drain fast, so a good strategy is to keep the screen as dim as your eyes can handle. Your eyes may not like this at first if they’re accustomed to a higher setting, but I guarantee that after an hour or so, you won’t even notice the difference. You will, however, get longer battery life on your iPhone 15 Pro.
To lower the screen brightness, bring up the Control center by swiping down from the top right of the screen. Now, drag the Brightness slider down.
Turn on dark mode to save your battery
Speaking of dark mode, if you don’t want to have to repeatedly adjust your screen’s brightness, you can use your phone’s dedicated dark mode. Dark mode converts all of the white backgrounds in apps to, more often than not, a black background. In turn, your iPhone 15 Pro is able to save battery power thanks to the darker colors.
Turn it on by going to Settings > Display & Brightness and selecting the Dark option at the top of the screen. You can also just swipe down from the top-right of your iPhone and tap the Dark mode icon in the Control Center.
Remove widgets from your iPhone lock screen
All the widgets on your lock screen force your apps to automatically run in the background, constantly fetching data to update the information the widgets display, like sports scores or the weather. And because these apps are constantly running in the background due to your widgets, that means they continuously drain power.
If you want to help preserve some battery on iPhone 15 Pro, the best thing to do is simply avoid widgets on your lock screen (and home screen). The easiest way to do this is to switch to another lock screen profile — press your finger down on your existing lock screen and then swipe around to choose one that doesn’t have any widgets.
However, if you want to just remove the widgets from your existing lock screen, press down on your lock screen, hit Customize, choose the Lock Screen option, tap on the widget box and then hit the "–" button on each widget to remove them.
Selectively disable location services
Of course it makes sense to share your location with apps like Waze, Uber and Starbucks. But what about apps like Fooducate? GroupMe? OneDrive? I don’t see any advantage to letting them collect or report my whereabouts, especially considering the hit it puts on battery life
To see which apps have this feature enabled, tap Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Then scroll down through the list. When you see an app set to Always or While Using The App, decide if you want that app to know your location. If not, you can change it to Never to save iPhone 15 Pro battery.
Selectively disable notifications
Same deal: Every dang app wants to notify you of every little thing all the time, but some shouldn’t be allowed the privilege. Notifications not only distract and annoy, they also drain iPhone battery.
To disable them, hit the Settings app, tap Notifications, then tap each app you don’t want bugging you. Once inside the settings for any given app, slide the Allow Notifications toggle to off.
Depending on how many apps you have installed, this may take some time. If it seems overwhelming, maybe just knock out 10 per day until you’ve made it through the list.
Disable auto brightness
Your iPhone’s screen brightness level can have a big impact on battery life. By default, iOS will automatically adjust the display’s brightness based on how much light its ambient sensor detects. But if you want to take complete control, you can disable auto-brightness, meaning the brightness level will stay where you set it until you adjust it again.
Open Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and at the bottom of the page, you’ll find a switch to turn off Auto-Brightness.
Now, whenever you want to adjust your screen, you can do so by opening Control Center with a swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen.
Turn off your iPhone’s haptic keyboard feedback
Surprisingly, the keyboard on the iPhone has never had the ability to vibrate as you type, an addition called "haptic feedback" that was added to iPhone with iOS 16. Instead of just hearing click-clack sounds, haptic feedback gives each key a vibration, providing a more immersive experience as you type. However, according to Apple, the very same feature may also affect battery life.
According to this Apple support page about the keyboard, haptic feedback "might affect the battery life of your iPhone." No specifics are given as to how much battery life the keyboard feature does drain, but if you want to conserve iPhone 15 Pro battery, it’s best to keep this feature disabled.
Fortunately, it is not on by default. If you’ve enabled it in yourself, go to Settings> Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and toggle off Haptic to turn off haptic feedback for your keyboard.
Turn off 5G coverage you don’t want or have
Apple touts a Smart Data feature that’s specific to its 5G phones that will automatically switch between 4G LTE and 5G networks based on how you’re using your device. However, you may find that your iPhone 15 Pro battery drains faster than it did before. If you don’t want to sacrifice battery life for faster 5G speeds, shut it down. You can always turn 5G back on when you want it, or when service in your area improves.
To turn off 5G on your iPhone, forcing it to always use 4G LTE (even if you have 5G coverage), open the Settings app, then go to Cellular > Primary > Voice & Data and tap LTE. Alternatively, if you want your iPhone to exclusively use a 5G connection when available, you can select 5G On.
Got any iPhone 15 Pro battery-life tips of your own to share? Hit the comments and impart your wisdom.
15 tips every iPhone 15 Pro owner should know: Get up and running with your new iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max with this collection of tips and tricks.