So you decided to try the iOS 18 beta and all of a sudden your iPhone’s battery is draining faster than it normally does. There’s no need to panic because this is a common issue with beta software and one that is often fixable.
iOS 18 beta users are reporting a variety of issues and abnormal battery drain is on the list of known problems.
If you recently installed the iOS 18 beta on your iPhone, you’ll want to give the software a few days to settle in. If after a few days your iPhone’s battery is still draining rapidly, you’ll need to dig into the issue.
In this guide we’ll take you through some potential fixes for bad iOS 18 beta battery life. The fixes we’ve listed here have worked for us and many others in the past and there’s a chance they will work for you as well.
Restart Your iPhone
If you start noticing abnormal drain after installing the beta, we recommend restarting your phone before trying any other fixes.
Power your iPhone down, wait for a minute, and then power it back on and see if the device’s performance returns to normal.
Move to the Latest Beta
Apple will periodically release new versions of the iOS 18 beta.
While the company may not call out battery life fixes in a new beta update’s change log, there’s always a chance it will alleviate battery life issues.
If your iPhone is running old iOS 18 beta software, and new software is available, try moving your device to the latest version. Apple typically releases a new version every two weeks or so.
Check Your Apps
First and third-party apps are prone to acting up on beta software so it may be that one or more of the apps on your device are causing the problem.
Checking app performance is easy and you may be able to identify the culprit in a matter of minutes.
- Go to the Settings app.
- Tap Battery.
- Head into the Battery Usage tool. This tool will show you the apps draining your battery and when they’re doing so.
If you use an application a lot, it will obviously drain more battery than an app you never use. If you see something that doesn’t look right, you’ll want to investigate further.
If you see an app eating up an abnormal amount of battery, try deleting the app from your device and see if your battery life improves.
If the app is essential to your day-to-day routine, we recommend downloading the latest update. If that doesn’t help, you might need to downgrade back to iOS 17.
Developers won’t update apps with support for iOS 18 until we get much closer to the public release in the fall.
Reset All Settings
If you determine an app isn’t the source of the issue, you can try resetting your iPhone’s settings. Here’s how to do this:
- Go to Settings.
- Go to General.
- Go to Transfer or Reset iPhone.
- Tap Reset.
- Tap Reset All Settings.
- Enter your passcode if one is enabled.
Downgrade to iOS 17
If you can’t find a manual fix and/or don’t want to wait for Apple to release the next version of the iOS 18 beta, you can downgrade back to iOS 17.
Downgrading back to stable software will always be available, but your downgrade options may change over time as Apple stops signing on iOS 17 software.
