May Have Determined the Fast Drain Issue with my Phone

WilliamRandol · October 17, 2018

About a month ago I saw the "Why can't they fix this?" video. I've had the same problem for years. I had actually just done a factory reset on my phone and had noticed that the battery usage was back to normal.

Fast to the past week, my battery is draining significantly faster than it was before. I think I have finally uncovered the culprit.

Gmail!

I know, I know, almost everyone with an android has their Gmail set up. How many accounts do they have?

I have slowly been adding more of my accounts to my phone as I have needed access to them. Last week I added 3 new ones... for a total of 5.

Before my last reset, I had at least 10 set up. At that point, the battery life was nearly unusable.

Prior to the three new accounts if I left the phone unplugged overnight while I slept in the morning I would have only lost about 5-10% battery.

Last night I went to bed with about 90% battery life and awoke at 17%.

While I cannot be certain that this alone is enough to cause the issue. I bet it is at least part of the problem.

Another reason I think this could be an issue is that as far as I can tell Gmail is invisible to Samsung's battery usage monitor.

This would also explain why putting my phone into power saving mode (where it globally prevents background data and apps) would provide ridiculous like 80-90% better battery life when the issue is at it's worst.

To be clear this is all just from my observations over the past month. I am going to remove some of my less important Gmail accounts again and see what impact that has.

WilliamRandol · October 17, 2018

I leave data on. I guess part of it is that without any actual battery degradation or anything like this the Samsung phones can go from being one of the best battery life phones around to one of the worst. When my phone is fresh even with FB FB messenger and 1 Gmail account as well as a few other apps, I can get nearly two days out of the phone. But after adding a few more apps and email addresses It can get to where 7 hours is a struggle for it.

appleache · October 17, 2018

2 hours ago, WilliamRandol said:

About a month ago I saw the "Why can't they fix this?" video. I've had the same problem for years. I had actually just done a factory reset on my phone and had noticed that the battery usage was back to normal.

Fast to the past week, my battery is draining significantly faster than it was before. I think I have finally uncovered the culprit.

Gmail!

I know, I know, almost everyone with an android has their Gmail set up. How many accounts do they have?

I have slowly been adding more of my accounts to my phone as I have needed access to them. Last week I added 3 new ones... for a total of 5.

Before my last reset, I had at least 10 set up. At that point, the battery life was nearly unusable.

Prior to the three new accounts if I left the phone unplugged overnight while I slept in the morning I would have only lost about 5-10% battery.

Last night I went to bed with about 90% battery life and awoke at 17%.

While I cannot be certain that this alone is enough to cause the issue. I bet it is at least part of the problem.

Another reason I think this could be an issue is that as far as I can tell Gmail is invisible to Samsung's battery usage monitor.

This would also explain why putting my phone into power saving mode (where it globally prevents background data and apps) would provide ridiculous like 80-90% better battery life when the issue is at it's worst.

To be clear this is all just from my observations over the past month. I am going to remove some of my less important Gmail accounts again and see what impact that has.

Google sync service will sync different account independently instead of refresh them together in batch. if you don't need instant notification just put it to timed sync ( every one hour etc) or manual. if your Gmail don't give you that option you can use other 3rd party mail app, also turn off any unnecessary sync option in your account. the other option is to forward all the mail to one mail box and use folder to separate them, you can add those account as sender too.

appleache · October 17, 2018

2 hours ago, Cvet76 said:

Whether It's charging or not, I turn off WiFi and data on my phone every time I'm going to sleep or take a nap. Even if it's a short one. Don't need the disturbance and it saves battery.

Do you keep your wifi and/or data running, and have you tried just turning them off when you're not able to use the phone? Did it make a difference?

Edit: I have a mate 10 pro. The battery life is amazing, but I've noticed that some apps kill your battery faster than others. Notably Facebook and FB Messenger.

Facebook has their own push service independently from Google, plus messenger updates very aggressively, you can use lite version and try not to have the main fb app ( it is basically cancer), Microsoft used to have their own too but now they seems to use Google as well ?