How can I improve battery life?

[Ms_Native]

Since Day 1, I have horrible battery life.  I don't use all the enhancements and great convenience of a smartphone.  I am a texter and blue tooth music user.  This phone will only stay charged for 6-8 hours a day.  Carrying the fast charger is a must with this phone.  If I forget to charge this phone before leaving office for the day, my evening is horrible til I get home to another charger.  Any advice???

[kevlar119119]

Have you tried wiping the phone by resetting to factory defaults?  I've read on other forums that it seemed to help.  I hate to reset my phone, but I've had to do it several times for other issues. 

[mcblaber]

Definitely try doing a factory reset.

When the phone is off, hold the following three buttons at the same time: power + volume up + home button until you get to a BIOS like menu. From there navigate to "wipe data/factory reset" and scroll down to "yes" and press the power button.

I've seen a substantial increase in battery life since doing that.

[TMO89]

My Galaxy S6 also has horrific battery life.... it's draining completely disproportionately to my actual  usage; it's using1-2% ~every 5 minutes with only Web browsing on wifi. I don't know if its the s6 or just this specific phone. i will do some more testing before returning for a new unit

[mcblaber]

TMO89 wrote:

That seems fairly normal unfortunately. 3-5 hours of screen on time is average for this device.

[TMO89]

OK.. after doing a factory reset I've seen some marked improvement in battery life. Cell Standby was the main culprit in excessive battery drain, using up to 22%, followed by Google Play Services at 19%. Right now Cell Standby is still using the most at 8%, followed by The Android System at 7%.

[babygirl199]

I have the s6 and my battery life is next to non existent! it drains without me even doing anything.my phone overheats, the signal is weak..the list goes on and on! I'm on my 2nd unit in ONE WEEK. this one is going back too

[TheNatural · Accepted solution]

Do you live in a poor coverage area? A weak signal is very detrimental to your overall battery life and the phone overheating can also be due to the weak signal if your phone is constantly searching for a stronger signal it may never find. Make sure all your apps are up to date and that your aren't harboring a bunch of apps on the phone you barely use, this also diminishes your battery life. The battery life on my Galaxy S6 is great, although usage from 100% will burn up in about 8 to 9 hours with heavy usage and multitasking which I expect. I doubt the 2nd unit Verizon replaced is defective in any way. Verizon and Samsung can actually test if your battery is bad, replacing the phone should always be a last resort. As mentioned by others, clear your cache partition and do a full factory reset without re-installing any apps from your backup. Set up your Galaxy S6 as a "new device". With the new Lollipop set up if you are continuing to restore your backup from Google and NOT setting it up as a new device you are practically bringing the same issue back and literally nothing will ever be fixed.