---
title: The iPhone Hot Battery Drain, Fixed with a Lightweight Email Setup
date: 2012-05-25
topics: battery life,iOS
---

Recently my iPhone 4S suddenly began exhibiting symptoms of the famous [“hot
battery drain”
problem](http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/11/02/apple-confirms-battery-life-issues-in-ios-5/),
where the phone would become much warmer to the touch then normal, the battery
would drain more quickly, and the phone would charge much more slowly than
normal.

It’s been known for some time now that this is often an iOS 5 bug caused by a
contact sync process that gets out of hand[^1]. In the process of fixing this
problem for myself, I discovered an alternative to [the commonly-used practice
of using an extra Exchange account for syncing Gmail
contacts](http://lifehacker.com/5859854/how-to-set-up-gmail-google-calendar-and-google-contacts-on-ios).
This new setup has dramatically increased my battery life even beyond what it
was before I started having the battery drain issue.

**Note:** I use Gmail, and I like all my contacts to be available from there.
These instructions are thus somewhat Gmail-centric, but you should be able to
improve your battery life by following the general principles shown. If you have
tips for other email/contact setups, please let us all know in the comments.

First, solve the battery drain issue. The following steps solved the problem for
me[^2]:

1. Remove all the messaging accounts on your phone, including iCloud. Remove all
   Calendars, Contacts, Notes and Bookmarks from the phone (so you don’t have
   duplicates when you re-add the accounts later).
2. Power down your phone (the normal way, by holding down the power button and
   sliding to power off).
3. Let it cool off, and start it up again.

You now have a blank slate: no email, calendars, or contacts. A blank slate
means a chance to clean up and streamline.

1. Re-add your iCloud account. Wait long enough for contacts and calendars to
   sync, check to make sure.
2. Re-add your Gmail account *as a Gmail account*. This means it will only pull
   in mail (and calendar), not contacts.
3. Clean up your Gmail contacts by opening your contacts in Gmail (i.e., open
   the website on your computer), clicking the *More* button at the top, and
   clicking *Find and merge duplicates...*
4. Purchase the [Contacts Sync For Google
   GMail](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contacts-sync-for-google-gmail/id451691288?mt=12)
   app. Yes it’s $4.99. It’s worth it.
5. Run the app, making sure to read the User Guide to make sure it will be
   syncing contacts the way you want it to. (I used 2-way, so all my contacts
   live in both my iCloud and my Gmail accounts.)
6. Finally, go to the Settings app, and go to the *Mail, Contacts, Calendars*
   section. Click on *Fetch New Data*. Make sure *Push* is turned **off**, and
   select the *Hourly* fetch schedule.

Now you have all your contacts synced by an app that knows how to do its job
better than iOS does (seriously, check out the reviews), and you have an email
connection that is lightweight and uses minimal battery life.

For what it’s worth, I also have an Exchange account for work that syncs mail,
contacts, calendars and reminders—also on the hourly fetch schedule.

**Wait, won’t there be a big delay for receiving emails this way?** No, not
really. The fact is that whenever you open an email inbox in the Mail app, your
iPhone instantly re-checks the account for new mail anyway. The Fetch setting
only limits the background checking that the phone does when you’re not looking,
so setting it to hourly just means the red “new email” number on the Mail icon
won’t update itself more than once an hour[^3]. You can always get an
up-to-the-minute check by just opening the Mail app.

•comment[#:author "Susan" #:date "September 05, 2012" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/01163256334849940206"]{
This was incredibly helpful and easy to follow (although I had to look up
solutions separately on how to delete all my contacts from my iphone easily).
I’m going to test it out over the next few days to see if power drain has been
helped.

One follow up question: In the Info tab on Itunes for your iphone, what have you
selected with regards to Syncing your contacts? Nothing? Is it just syncing with
icloud?
}

•comment[#:author "Matt" #:date "September 13, 2012" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/14454517341881101636"]{
Yes! THANK YOU! This was perfect and fixed my problem, along with getting all my
contacts synced up and on my phone. Thanks for sharing!
}

•comment[#:author "Joseph D’Cruz" #:date "September 27, 2012" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/10707415689731186668"]{
Google have just added the CardDAV protocol to their Google Contacts service,
which means you can directly sync iOS devices with your Google contacts. There
are instructions on the Google support site here:

[http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2753077](http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2753077)
}

•comment[#:author "Malbino" #:date "November 14, 2012" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/10784730407744980843"]{
Apple have replaced 2 iphones with this issue blaming it on bugs in apps. I
tried what u suggested and it worked. brilliant.
}

•comment[#:author "Yogesh Dandawate" #:date "November 24, 2012" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/10517578576588077213"]{
Thanks for this ! Seems to work for mw

~Yogesh D. India
}

•comment[#:author "Yogesh Nogia" #:date "March 09, 2013" #:link "https://www.blogger.com/profile/16888284555835013628"]{
Hmmmm Im gonna try this on my iPhone4s. Cuz im having the same prblm. Thank
}

[^1]: No one seems to be sure why, however. The [most extensive troubleshooting
    that has been made
    public](http://www.macworld.com/article/1163200/troubleshoot_iphone4s_battery.html)
    seems to leave a lot of unanswered questions.

[^2]: I based this off of [this thread at Apple
    support](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2481216?start=0&tstart=0)—they
    seem to work even though they were posted as a solution to a similar problem
    that was before iOS 5

[^3]: Seriously, how often do you really need to check your email? More than
    once an hour and I’d say you have serious productivity issues.