Tech brief

Galaxy S24 and S25 Owners Report Faster Battery Drain After One UI 9: What to Do

By , Tech Cheat Codes Team

Published 6 min read

Dark text card with white lettering reading: Galaxy battery draining after One UI 9?
On this page · 5 sections
  1. What happened
  2. What's known and what isn't
  3. Is a battery problem this common after updates?
  4. What to do now
  5. References

You installed the big update, and now your Galaxy needs a charger by mid-afternoon. If that sounds familiar, you're not the only one.

Since Samsung's One UI 9 update started reaching the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S25 families, a number of owners have posted that their battery life got noticeably worse. One Galaxy S24 Ultra owner shared a battery screen showing 95% used in 5 hours and 20 minutes, with only 3 hours and 15 minutes of screen time.

What happened: One UI 9 is Samsung's big yearly software update, built on Android 17. After it landed on the Galaxy S25 and S24 flagships, early owner reports of faster battery drain started showing up on X, Reddit and Samsung's own community forums.

What this means for you: If your phone is affected, there are simple settings to check before you think about a repair. It isn't clear yet how many phones are affected or why. Some owners say their battery is fine, and at least one says it got better.

What happened

Samsung began the official One UI 9 rollout on September 16, starting with the Galaxy S26 series. The update has since been spreading to older models, including the Galaxy S25 and S24 lines, country by country and carrier by carrier. (Our One UI 9 update list covers which phones are getting it.)

Within days, owners began posting complaints. The reports we found and read include:

Phone What the owner reported Where
Galaxy S24 Ultra 95% of the battery used in 5 h 20 min, with 3 h 15 min of screen time, on mobile data X, Oct 17
Galaxy S24 FE A battery that used to last a full day now runs down in 6 to 7 hours X, Oct 23
Galaxy S25 Ultra The update feels smooth, but the battery now drains "so fast" X, Oct 24

Other owners on Reddit describe heavier drain while the phone sits idle, similar complaints have appeared in Samsung's community forums, and one Galaxy S25-series owner wrote that they now have to charge three to four times a day.

When the Galaxy S24 Ultra owner tagged Samsung India on X, the company's support account replied with an offer to book a service appointment. That's a standard support reply, not an admission of a software bug.

We found no public statement from Samsung about these reports as of Saturday afternoon, October 24.

What's known and what isn't

Known:

  • Multiple owners of Galaxy S24 and S25 phones, posting separately, say battery life dropped after installing One UI 9.
  • The reports cover both heavy use and idle drain.
  • Battery use can be temporarily higher after a major software update while the phone and its apps re-optimize.

Not known:

  • How many phones are affected. The reports so far are a scattered set of posts, and some owners say they've seen no change.
  • Whether there's a single cause, such as a bug in the update or a particular app misbehaving after it.
  • Whether Samsung plans a fix, or when it would arrive.

Our read: Some extra drain in the first days after a major update is normal and often settles down. A phone that's still losing charge far faster after a week or two is worth reporting to Samsung.

Is a battery problem this common after updates?

It happens a lot. A big update rebuilds app data in the background, and Samsung's Adaptive Battery feature has to relearn how you use your phone. That relearning can take up to two full weeks, and battery use may look higher during that time.

That doesn't mean every complaint is just the phone settling in. If one app is suddenly using a big slice of your battery, or your idle drain hasn't improved after a couple of weeks, something else may be going on.

What to do now

Start at the top. Most of these take a minute or two.

  1. Find the culprit. Open Settings > Battery and tap View details. Look at screen-on time and which apps are using the most power. If one app stands out, update it, or force-stop it and see if the drain improves.
  2. Update your apps. Some apps may need fixes for the new Android version, and those often arrive as app updates. Open the Galaxy Store and the Google Play Store and install any waiting updates. Also check Settings > Software update for a newer Samsung update.
  3. Restart your phone. A simple restart clears out processes that can get stuck after a big update.
  4. Make sure Adaptive Battery is on. In Settings > Battery, look for Background usage limits. Tap the three dots and turn on Adaptive battery. Menu names can vary a little by model and carrier.
  5. Put rarely used apps to sleep. Under the same Background usage limits menu, add apps you rarely open to Sleeping apps so they can't run in the background all day.
  6. Ease the load while you wait. Turn on Power saving in Settings > Battery, and shorten your screen timeout under Settings > Display > Screen timeout. In Device care, setting the Performance profile to Light can also help battery life.
  7. Run Samsung's diagnostics. In the Samsung Members app, open Diagnostics and tap Phone diagnostics to check for hardware or software problems. You can also send an error report from Samsung Members, so Samsung can review your case.
  8. Get it checked if nothing helps. If the drain is still severe after a couple of weeks, contact Samsung support or book a repair. Only consider a factory reset as a last step, and back up your phone first, because it erases everything.

Haven't updated yet? There's no sign the update harms phones, and some owners report no battery change at all. If you rely on your phone getting through a long day, you could wait a few days to install it and keep an eye on whether Samsung releases a follow-up fix.

We'll update this if Samsung comments or releases a fix.

References